This course asks how and why art and open societies have sustained each other across history, and how they may continue to do so beyond the crisis they jointly undergo in the current context of rapid technological, economic and political transformation. While focusing more specifically on artistic production, on its present crisis, and its possible futures, this course puts art in the broader perspective of the history of cultural production, and of its social, political and economic conditions of possibility at the modern intersection of state and market.

This course brings together people with their own local stories of the struggles and success of people and communities transitioning towards a sustainable energy system. Participants in this course will learn the skills to tell stories and multi-media narratives around energy transitions.

An international group of scholars, representing three continents, and including world-renowned author Ian Buruma, proposes a five-day summer university course for advanced B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. students in fact-based narratives, also known as literary journalism in English language scholarship, reportage in the former Soviet area, or crónica in Latin America.