January 19-24, 2025

Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Deadline: November 15, 2024

Greetings colleagues,

I'm organising a summer school in South Africa this January 2025. The school will focus on the significance that rhetoric and discourse has on material environmental change, and thus might might be of interest to many of you and/or your students. The school is a collaboration between the University of Groningen and Stellenbosch University.

During this summer school, participants will study the relationship between discourse, worldview, ontology and ethics, particularly in regard to questions of just sustainability transitions (in particular just water / food / energy nexus transitions). How are arguments for more sustainable ways to live on this planet being mediated to audiences? Who is doing the mediating, and how does the message change, depending on the speaker and audience?

The goal of the week is to learn the impact that discourse has on material culture and then put this into practice by working with societal stakeholders to develop powerful communicative platforms using rhetoric that is both effective and aligns with their underlying values. 

For example, how can an organic farmer, committed to decolonial ecological values, win agricultural grants from the government without resorting to capitalistic rhetoric?

You can learn more and register here: https://www.rug.nl/education/summer-winter-schools/winter_schools/winter-schools-2023-2024/discourses-of-sustainability-transitions/

Feel free to also direct questions to me at r.l.van.der.merwe@rug.nl.