Ware, Greenaway, Kerr, & McBryde – Campus as Radical Commons forum ▶

2020 has called out for collective work, as the platitude “we are all in this together” so frequently reminded us. In part, the Thematic Semester, Radical Work, was assembled and curated as an attempt to rebuild a sense of community in our school as we continue to broadcast from a campus that is less sparsely populated than usual.  

The way in which we conceive of our campus – our on-line and physical shared domain –  arguably has a profound effect on the way that we understand both the role of the university broadly, and our specific, collective identity. As the key environment that frames both learning and researching in the university – the campus environment and our conception of it, frames everything we do.

 Campus as Radical Commons raises the proposition that we would do well to reconsider the university campus – an entity that is both on-line and on-the-ground – as a commons. A commons is generally understood as a shared, non-privatised realm that exceeds ownership. A ‘radical commons’ goes further: it ask us to take a deeper, ontological dive – past the human and into a more-than-human, ecological, shared realm. University campuses are environments for staff, students and human guests from diverse cultural backgrounds, along with diverse flora, fauna, buildings, digital platforms, etc. It is a radical network, or meshwork, requiring ecological thinking, and sympathetic attention to the ethics of encounter.  

 A forum on Sept 11 will bring together a range of voices to speak about campus and/or commons-related projects they have been involved in mobilising. Each which offer insights into ways of enacting and cultivating this proposition of campus as radical commons.

Speakers: Jefa Greenaway, Iain Kerr, Ken McBryde, SueAnne Ware.

Chair: Pia Ednie-Brown