Humanities Honours students create videos on the 'Utopian University'
What does the perfect academic environment look like? And what is needed to make that dream into a reality? A group of eight students from the Humanities Honours Programme at Utrecht University have made two videos about ‘the Utopian University’. They interviewed students as well as prominent academics including Dymph van den Boom (University of Amsterdam) and Job Cohen (Leiden University).
Named ‘The New Utopians’, the students’ project intends to invite a dialogue about utopic thinking, and challenges us to rethink our own environment. One of the key issues of their project is the Utopian University. If any utopian vision of the university is ever to be realised, the first step in that direction must surely be to get people talking about it.
Documentary with academics
The students from the New Utopians project interviewed a number of professors from different universities in the Netherlands. The result is a 40 minute documentary (in Dutch) in which Dymph van den Boom (University of Amsterdam), Job Cohen (Leiden University), Louise Gunning-Schepers (University of Asterdam), Karel Luyben (TU Delft), Remco Raben (Utrecht University), Carel Stolker (Leiden University) and Rob van der Vaart (Utrecht University) share their views on different aspects of academic life and policy.
Students’ views on academic life
In addition, The New Utopians set up shop in the University Library City Centre and invited fellow-students into their ‘red cube’. The resulting video ‘Student Narratives: Dialogues about the Utopian University’ (in English and Dutch) explores student’s experiences with academic life, and their wishes for a better university. In this way, the project gives voice to different sides of university experience.
The New Utopians website also offers student papers on the subject of utopia in an array of different genres.
Participants in The New Utopians
The eight Humanities Honours Programme students participating in this project under supervision of Dr Barnita Bagchi are: Sophie Bijleveld, Idwer Boersma, Anne Marijn Damstra, Aster Hoving, Wouter Johan van Leeuwen, Solange Manche, David van Oeveren and Tessel Janse.