At the dawn of the new 20s, we are seeing a major shift in public perception around issues of equity and the climate emergency, paired with the reckoning that traditional ways of approaching these kinds of issues have led to failure. There is vast potential to shape not just policy interventions, but to help birth new and more equitable ways of knowing what the issues are, where they come from, and how they can be addressed.
We need a new public pedagogy to combine technology, the arts, critical thinking and activism to address the intractable social problems that are entangled with both the rise of technology and the climate emergency. Artistic imagination and creative ways of learning and knowing are crucial for avoiding the binary traps of techno-optimism or -skepticism which so often lead to paralysis.
A public pedagogy is an emerging assemblage of forms, processes, and sites of education and learning that occur beyond formal educational practices. This assemblage often brings into focus cultural, artistic, performative, critical, and activist pedagogical approaches to learning in the public sphere. A public pedagogy also sets out to redefine education by exploring posthuman reconceptualizations of pedagogy that push beyond anthropocentric modes of performative rationality, binarism and colonialism.
The *This Is Not A Drill* working group on technology, the climate emergency, equity, and creative practice will collaboratively develop such a public pedagogy. It will be led by Program Director and inaugural FIC Fellow Mona Sloane and explore what Arturo Escobar has called “designs for the pluriverse”: designs that account for the pluralities of being, that dismantle the harmful hierarchies that were created between human/non-human and culture/nature, and that reorient us towards sustainment, maintenance and care for each other and for the planet.
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Fellowship Opportunity
*This Is Not A Drill* will start as a 2-year program with an annual cohort of five NYU-based faculty fellows. Fellows will convene regularly in a working group. The working group will put together an exhibition to showcase the work of faculty members, as well as host a competition of student works. It will engage in student mentorship, host a public website that will showcase the ongoing work of the group, and organize a public summit at the end of the program. Each year, 5 fellows will be recruited.
The fellowship is for NYU faculty and research personnel who have a demonstrated interest in climate change and intersections with technology and equity. Fellows will be asked to:
- Develop their own 1-year project linked to the exhibition and 2nd-year summit
- Actively participate in monthly working group convenings
- Collaborate on organizing the exhibition and other public programming
- Participate in the organization of the student competition and in student mentorship
Fellows will receive a $10,000 research fund* for their project for FY 2022.
*Accessible on a reimbursement basis for expenses compliant with current University policy.
*EXTENDED* Submission Deadline: August 6, 2021, anywhere on earth
Notification: Early September
Any questions can be directed to Program Director Mona Sloane at mona.sloane@nyu.edu.
2021 SELECTION COMMITTEE
The first cohort was selected by a committee consisting of the following artists, activists, scholars, and technologists:
*THIS IS NOT A DRILL* FAQ
Any NYU US-based full time faculty member eligible for PI/PD status is eligible to apply. This includes Tenure/Tenure-Track Faculty, Continuing Contract Faculty and Honorific Research Faculty (ie, employees who also hold faculty titles such as Research Assistant Professor, Research Associate Professor, etc.). Professional Research Personnel (ie, employees with professional research titles such as Assistant Research Scientist, Associate Research Scientist and Senior Research Scientist, etc.) are also eligible. Adjunct, emeriti and retired faculty are not eligible to apply.