Possibility seminars - Summer Series
Part 1 - Meet the members
In the first part of this summer's seminars, we are inviting key members of the network to discuss their research in a highly interactive session where we will be inviting feedback and discussion on ideas in progress. It's your chance to shape the way the network is developing.
We really look forward to seeing you there!!
April 25th
3pm GMT
Margaret Mangion and Jennifer Hoyden
Margaret Mangion and Jennifer Hoyden will be joining us to discuss their work in progress. Margaret will be discussing notions of the possible in educational contexts. She will be discussing refer to pedagogies of the possible while also referring to practical experiences from our work in working with Possibility Thinking in schools with both teachers and students. Jennifer will present on how she is approaching the phenomenon of material resistance: why it is a phenomenon, and how this framing itself already suggests how, in the interaction between the visual artist and their materials, material resistance can become a generative encounter, where the material prompts a new direction or idea for the work. She will propose that, in those instances, the artist activates the potential for the materials to activate the artist.
Jennifer Hoyden is doctoral candidate and Macy Fellow in the Art and Art Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. The focus of my research is the unexpected yet common occurrence for visual artists: when material does not cooperate – and when this leads to a new idea for the artist.
Dr. Margaret Mangion holds a Doctorate in Social Sciences from the University of Leicester (UK), an MBA from Maastricht School of Management, (NL), a Post Graduate Certificate in Education and a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of Malta. She is Director and Senior Lecturer at The Edward de Bono Institute for Creative Thinking and Innovation at the University of Malta, where she has been lecturing on creativity, innovation and leadership since 2012.
May 2nd
10am GMT
Britta Boyer and Jane Grud
May 9th
3pm GMT
Autumn Brown and Estelle Wu
Part 2 - Provocations
In the second part of this summer's seminars, we are inviting different people to reflect on key challenges and tensions in the line of research.
We really look forward to seeing you there!!
May 16th
10am GMT
Antti Rajala
Details upcoming
May 23rd
3pm GMT
Roy Baumeister - In what sense are possibilities real?
Roy F. Baumeister is president of the International Positive Psychology Association, as well as professor of psychology (emeritus) at the University of Queensland, with ongoing connections to Florida State University and Constructor University Bremen (Germany). He received his PhD in experimental social psychology from Princeton University in 1978 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. He has over 700 publications, and his 45 books include Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, The Cultural Animal, Meanings of Life, and the New York Times bestsellerWillpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. As of February 2024, Google Scholar tallies that his works have been cited over 280,000 times in the scientific literature, with annual tallies routinely approaching 20,000 and an H-index of 206.His research interests include self and identity, belongingness and interpersonal rejection, finding meaning in life, sexuality, aggression, self-control and self-esteem, uncertainty, addiction, decision-making, and thinking about the future.
May 30th
10am GMT
Nicolas Benjamin Verger - Are creativity researchers contributing to the worsening of the ecological crisis?
Nicolas B. Verger holds a PhD in applied psychology from Glasgow Caledonian University (2023). His doctoral thesis addressed “The Effects of Parent-Child Creative Activities on Early Childhood Resilience: A Multi-Methods Study of Cross-Cultural Differences and Similarities” (dir. Dr. Kareena McAloney-Kocaman; Dr. Julie Roberts; Dr. Jane Guiller). Motivated by interdisciplinary outlooks from psychology, philosophy, development economics, sociology, anthropology, his work recently focused on the link between creation/creative practices and the preservation of the ecosphere. Nicolas is also a freelance translator. He translated into French, Andy Field’s “An Adventure in Statistics” and Paul Silvia’s “How to write a lot”.
June 6th
3pm GMT
Pam Burnard - Why does the pluralism of creativities matter?
What is the material-discursive capacity of more-than-human and nonhuman things to impact producing the possibility of diverse creativities and of what the pluralism of creativities can be. Given the extent that both creativities’ interdependence with a vast range of forces, including digital technologies and artificial intelligences which have exponentially opened up new possibilities, can we be confident that the ecology of creativities will continue to provide the practice of producing the possibility of creativities or what Barad calls ‘boundary making practices’?
Pamela Burnard is Professor of Arts, Creativities and Educations at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She has published widely with 20 books and over 100 articles which advance the theory and practice of multiple creativities across education sectors including early years, primary, secondary, further and higher education, through to creative and cultural industries. She is co-editor of the journal Thinking Skills and Creativity. Her most recent co-edited books include ‘Why Sciences and Arts Creativities Matter’ (Brill-i-Sense, 2020), ‘Doing Rebellious Research in and Beyond the Academy’’ (Brill-i-Sense, 2022), ‘Unlocking Research: Sculpting New Creativities (Routledge, 2022) and ‘The Routledge Companion to Musical Creativities’ (Routledge, 2023). Her most recent coauthored journal article is ‘Sensing bodies: Transdisciplinary enactments for educational future making’ which is soon to be published in Digital Culture and Education Journal (2023). Current funded projects include ‘Choices, Chances and Transitions around Creative Further and Higher Education’ (The Nuffield Trust), ‘Contemporary Urban Musics Inclusion Network’ (Arts and Humanities Research Council), ‘Creative Learning in Higher Education Teaching of BioEconomics’ (CL4Bio) (Erasmus); Drumming and Healing (The Nuffield Trust). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, UK and Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Creativity and Innovation (ISSCI).
June 13th
10am GMT
Brady Wagoner - Are conspiracies the dark side of possibility or is there more to them than meets the eye?
Brady Wagoner is Professor of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, Aalborg University and Oslo New University College. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge on a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. His research aims to develop a dynamic cultural psychology, which he has applied to such topics as memory, social change, the public understanding of science and the history of psychology. His books include The Constructive Mind: Bartlett’s Psychology in Reconstruction (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Handbook of Culture and Memory (Oxford University Press, 2018). In 2021, he received the prestigious Humboldt Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Past seminars
Here are the seminars from the past terms.
January 25th 2024 - 10am GMT - Doing ethics, and the possible - Samantha Copeland
Abstract This paper begins with the paradox of teaching ethics, that we teach ethical theory in the form of general rules whereas the practice of ethics occurs in dynamic and uncertain contexts. I argue, utilizing literature that highlights the role of anticipation and relationships in ethical practice, that the goal of ethics is not consensus or agreement about what rule to follow, in a particular situation nor in general. That is, doing ethics is not about rule-making or decision-making; rather, this paper provides arguments from philosophical ethics as well as ethics education for understanding ethical practice as exploring the possible together. Drawing from these diverse perspectives, the paper contributes to discussions about the nature of ethics itself and how we should theorize about it. Finally, conclusions related to how an ethics of the possible could be taught and why it should be are offered.
February 1st 2024 - 3pm GMT - The possibility of possibility: Between ethnography and social theory - Daniel M. Knight and Gabriela Manley
Abstract This paper considers how ‘the possibility of possibility’ as freedom of choice and audacious obligation towards newness found in philosophical works of such scholars as Søren Kierkegaard and Michel Serres is tempered by socio-historical circumstance. Ethnographic material from Scotland and Greece demonstrates contrasting ways that possibilities are impacted by the various timespaces that open or foreclose pathways to the future. Possibility shapes notions of the Self and Society since people are propelled to (in)action by way of recurring and reinterpreted pasts, are pulled through futural horizons in present-day practice or become stuck on the threshold of becoming. In the context of the independence movement in Scotland, possibility plays an active role in political life of independence campaigners with a feedback loop between past-present-future providing momentum to actualise the possible. In Greece, a decade of crisis has foreclosed previously possible futures with people feeling stuck in a repeating spin-cycle where horizons of the possible cannot be crossed. The ethnographic examples showcase how the multiplicities of human life affect the possibility of possibility and how visions of the elsewhere, elsewhen, and otherwise emerge in more or less ‘positive’ scenarios.
February 8th 2024 - 10am GMT - Scientific understanding through big data: From ignorance to insights to understanding - María del Rosario Martínez-Ordaz
Abstract Here I argue that scientists can achieve some understanding of both the products of big data implementation as well as of the target phenomenon to which they are expected to refer—even when these products were obtained through essentially epistemically opaque processes. The general aim of the paper is to provide a road map for how this is done; going from the use of big data to epistemic opacity (Sec. 2), from epistemic opacity to ignorance (Sec. 3), from ignorance to insights (Sec. 4), and finally, from insights to understanding (Sec. 5, 6)
February 15th 2024 - 3pm GMT - Another future - Andrew Pickering
Abstract This essay discusses the macrodynamics of cultural change. Drawing on the history of science, I offer an analysis of revolutionary transformation in terms of the waxing and waning of traditions of practice, in which marginal traditions become mainstream and vice versa. I apply this model to the Anthropocene, identifying dualist traditions of mastery and domination as currently mainstream and nondualist traditions of acting-with, exemplified by indigenous approaches to the environment and by cybernetics, as marginal. My concern is with the growth and unification of the latter as a path to another future, and I point to the need for the establishment of symbiotic relations between them, which has yet to come to pass.
February 2nd 2024 - 10am GMT - Anecdote, fiction, and statistics: The three poles of empirical methodology - Michael Wood
Abstract This article clarifies the role and value of three types of evidence used in empirical research – anecdotes derived from case studies or small samples of data, fictions (including both thought experiments and works of art such as novels and plays) and statistics. The conclusion is that all three have an important part to play. Many conventional stereotypes are deeply unhelpful: contrary to the usual assumptions, science is often dependent on anecdote and fiction for exploring possibilities, qualitative research is often statistical in spirit, and social science is more likely to lead to useful conclusions about future possibilities if it draws on anecdotes and fictions.
February 29th 2024 - 3pm GMT - Imagining the impossible: An act of radical hope - Loes Damhof and Jitske Gulmans
Abstract Even the most determined optimists among us cannot deny we are living in dark times, with raging wars and the effects of climate change upon us. A pandemic has left us feeling uncertain about our futures, polarization has pressured social discourse. Our assumptions of the future are being challenged: even what we took for granted now seems uncertain. And instead of asking: how did we get here? We are left with the question: what made us think we would never get here? If the unimaginable suddenly becomes a reality, then what is left to imagine? Is it still worth being hopeful? It appears that we are not only suffering from the poverty of imagination, but also from the poverty of hope. But what if imagination and hope are inherently connected? In this essay we propose that we cannot be hopeful without rethinking our images of the future, in which imagining the impossible turns out to become a necessity: a radical act of hope.
March 7th 2024 - 10am GMT- Counterfactual curiosity: Motivated thinking about what might have been - Lily Fitzgibbon and Kou Murayama
Abstract Counterfactual information, information about what might have been, forms the content of counterfactual thoughts and emotions like regret and relief. Recent research suggests that human adults and children, as well as rhesus monkeys, demonstrate ‘counterfactual curiosity’: they are motivated to seek out counterfactual information after making decisions. Based on contemporary theories of curiosity and information seeking and a broad range of empirical literature, we suggest multiple heterogeneous psychological processes that contribute to people's motivation for counterfactual information. This includes processes that are identified in the curiosity literature more generally—the potential use of counterfactual information for adaptive decision making (its long-term instrumental value) and the drive to reduce uncertainty. Additionally, we suggest that counterfactual information may be particularly alluring because of its role in causal reasoning; its relationship with prediction and decision making; and its potential to fulfil emotion regulation and self-serving goals. Some future directions have been suggested, including investigating the role of individual differences in counterfactual curiosity on learning and wellbeing.
March 14th 2024 - 3pm GMT - Welcome to possibility studies - Arturo Escobar
Abstract A main goal of Possibility Studies is to explore the complex cultural-political work of imagining the future(s). As this brief note argues, this task is deeply shaped at present by the narrow notions of reality, and hence of the possible, inherited from Western modernity. Becoming aware of the onto-epistemic foundations of modernity thus becomes essential for the collective journey into the reinvention of possibility.
March 21st 2024 - 10am GMT - Possibility Thinking Scale: An initial psychometric exploration - Vlad Glaveanu et al.