The Future-making Academy is a book club focused on uncertainty. Through literature and other forms of expression, participants work alongside researchers to explore existential questions about society and the world. A second session will be held this fall.
The Future-making Academy, a book club focused on uncertainty and social change, launched this spring and is organized by researchers at the Collaborative Future-Making research platform and Forum for Social Innovation Sweden Malmö University, in collaboration with author and educator Pernilla Glaser.
“We use literature and reading as tools to understand our times and prepare ourselves for more profound existential changes. The idea is to hone our critical imagination and to enable future-making and collaboration on complex issues, says Per-Anders Hillgren, professor of interaction design at the Department of Art, Culture, and Communication and research director of the Collaborative Future-Making research platform at Malmö University.
Challenges established views of the world
Per-Anders Hillgren believes that we are living in a time of upheaval. The foundations of society that people thought were stable have begun to shift. The ways we try to understand the world may no longer work. Our role and place are no longer as clear-cut. This unsettling state of affairs can be difficult to navigate, yet at the same time, it opens up new possibilities for us.
– Together, we challenge entrenched assumptions that are taken for granted both by society and by ourselves, and that stand in the way of transforming society into a more sustainable and inclusive one. This can involve ideas about the world, about human nature, what things are, how we organize ourselves, produce value, or how we understand our professional identities and roles, says Per-Anders Hillgren.
Reading and Reflection for Resilience
Through the Future-making Academy, the researchers aim to create formats for reading and reflection, spaces for knowledge exchange and in-depth exploration, and provide opportunities to examine and discuss how the thoughts and ideas in the texts everyone reads can resonate with their own work. This is a form of reading that does not aim for a single, definitive conclusion, but instead encourages deeper reflection, both individually and collectively. Active reading is intended to foster resilience.
The future is shaped through play and healing, based on vulnerabilities
Pernilla Glaser, a storyteller and educator, is passionate about fostering dialogue between diverse experiences and expertise. She works at the intersection of research, art, and civil society and has extensive experience in method development and process management.
“Reading always involves navigating complexity. At the Future-making Academy, we read texts that shed light on and provide perspectives, vocabulary, and approaches for a time fraught with conflict. Our approach is that the future is both healed and shaped through play, based on the vulnerabilities we experience in our present,” says Pernilla Glaser.
“When we read and reflect on the texts together, we practice putting into words things that don’t yet have a fully formed or fixed language. This makes the conversations delicate and exploratory and opens the door to potential insights,” she says.
Participants from a variety of sectors, fields, and professional backgrounds will meet on four occasions. The overarching theme of the meetings is the complexity of our times. How can we understand and describe things we cannot fully grasp, and what does it mean to navigate uncharted territory together? Before each session, participants receive a selection of texts to read or other material to listen to or watch. It is a mix of research, popular science, essays, and fiction. Each session is led by Pernilla Glaser together with at least one researcher.
The second session of the Future-making Academy begins on November 7. Registration is open until October 20. The reading group will be held in both Swedish and English.
Learn more and sign up for Future-making Academy #2
Learn more about the Future-making Academy
Watch a video about the Future-making Academy
Text by: Lotta Orban