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Difficult Dialogues logo--in dialogue people learn to use the energy of their differences to enhance their collective wisdom
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Co-sponsored by Higgins School of Humanities and IDCE (International Development, Community and Environment). Funded by a major grant from the Ford Foundation

Difficult Dialogues is about creating a culture of dialogue on campus in which the practice of dialogue is recognized, appreciated, and practiced both inside and outside the classroom. We hope to do this by: building skills of dialogue among a sizeable number of faculty, staff, and students; creating opportunities for the community to engage in dialogue around significant and controversial issues common to us all; and integrating dialogue into a number of academic courses across the curriculum, thus ensuring its continued practice.

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Discussion

N A T I O N A L
National Difficult Dialogues Initiative

 

 

 

 

Simply put, we live in a time of unprecedented change. The financial crisis of the last year is just one of many disruptions and challenges to existing social constructs – the economy, governance, technology, media, and education – and to the environment. These challenges ask that we radically reassess the nature and scale of human activity on the planet; the possibilities for moving forward with creativity and wisdom are great, and the stakes are high. In our Difficult Dialogues symposium this fall, we “vision the new” together, in local forms of governance, agriculture, energy, green economy, the health of neighborhoods. We also consider the processes by which we can move toward those more resilient ways of life – through collaboration, democratic workplaces and dialogue.

We begin with painter Sarah Walker’s extraordinary images of simultaneous dissolution and regeneration. A film series orients us both to specific challenges and visions. We acknowledge the fear inherent in our circumstances (Paige Marrs on October 15). In the work of visionaries – those working locally, nationally and internationally on addressing the challenges of peak oil and global warming (the Transitions Initiative on October 21) and those intent on building a local green economy here in Worcester (Shaping a Local Green Economy, November 19), we will see possibilities for individual and collective action going forward. Please join us.

For a full listing of events, please see our Fall 2009 calendar

 

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Passing the Baton, DD Assistant Directors

This summer marks a major transition for the Difficult Dialogues project as our DD Assistant Director Jane Androski ‘02 leaves for graduate school at RISD this fall. As everyone affiliated with the DD project well knows, Jane has been a powerful partner in the work of the project for the last three and a half years. Her intelligence and passion for this work (as well as her lovely and clarifying aesthetic) have been critical in shaping the project and will continue to resonate. In August, we welcome John Sarrouf as Assistant Director; John takes up many of Jane’s responsibilities, as well as the co-facilitation of a dialogue seminar on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Professor Kristen Williams in the fall. Read more here.

 

Difficult Dialogues Fall 2009 Courses

Can we learn to engage each other on issues on which we differ, and listen respectfully for what it is that we can learn – about the subject, about others and ourselves, about our common values? Can we learn to think critically and with discernment about contentious issues? Can we put aside our assumptions, and sit with the discomfort and creative potential of not-knowing?

In this sixth semester of DD courses, fifteen courses with an emphasis on dialogue will be offered. These courses will approach the process of dialogue in a variety of ways and across a number of disciplines, and will relate as is relevant to our dialogue symposium programming.

FALL'09 Courses

 

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Contact us

Sarah Buie

Director, Difficult Dialogues Project
Director, Higgins School of Humanities
Professor, V&PA
sbuie@clarku.edu

John Sarrouf

Assistant Director, Difficult Dialogues
jsarrouf@clarku.edu