Rethinking sustainability

Enlarge

Orlando in a dress? Dorian Gray as a dandy? At the “From Page to Pattern” workshop, students crafted fashions for tiny dressmaker’s dummies – fashions that were inspired by literary figures. To do so, they first immersed themselves in motifs such as queerness, temporality and power imbalances in classics of literature, focusing strongly on the apparel described in these works. “The participants seemed especially fond of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando,” explains Laura Schatzl, a student of English, who led the workshop together with Dr. Valentina Finger from the Institute of English Philology. “In the course of Orlando’s astonishing metamorphosis from man to woman, he grapples intensely with sexual identity and queer identity – a process in which clothing plays a central role.”

At the workshop, participants sewed or glued their fashion designs together from used items of clothing and scraps of fabric – materials that would otherwise have ended up in old clothes collections or even in the trash. Apart from the actual dummies, nothing new was purchased; and even the dolls were to be reused in subsequent projects.

“From Page to Pattern: Fashioning Textile Interpretations” is one of seven sustainability projects whose outcomes will be showcased at the FutureTutors Winter School on 10 and 11 March. Staged in LMU’s newspaper reading room, the event is being organized by students themselves. Anyone – students, lecturers and staff – who is interested in shaping sustainability at the university is welcome to attend.

Migration and multilinguality

In the projects that will be on display, students and lecturers have, since September been seeking ways to make LMU more sustainable – in everything from teaching and studying through organizational issues to everyday life at the university. A podcast produced by LMU’s Faculty of Philosophy and the Japan Center takes a deep dive into the philosophy of sustainability, featuring contributions by students on sustainable development in Japan. The project “How well does LMU teach? How well do we learn here? And what could be (even) better?” was the brainchild of Educational Sciences and the Faculty of Social Sciences. Its findings will be presented in discussion sessions at the Winter School. Lastly, the interdisciplinary seminar “Migration and climate change: Dialogue between Christian social ethics and ethnology” gave rise to an exhibition that blends academic reflection with artistic forms of expression.

At the Winter School, anyone who is interested is also welcome to attend three workshops that have grown out of FutureTutors projects. The course “Giving visibility to original languages” investigates multilinguality in everyday life in light of sustainability considerations. Also, anyone who has their own ideas about how LMU can be made more sustainable can share them at the “Climate in your discipline” workshop. In this context, students from all faculties will explore how climate change and sustainability relate to the subject they are studying and what this means for the way tuition is designed. Using a combination of interactive methods, practical examples and groupwork, the workshop seeks to clarify what skills students will later need in their careers, and how these skills can best be taught during their studies.

“Climate change is often seen as the exclusive preserve of the environmental sciences,” says Liviia Panina, the student from LMU’s Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society who developed the workshop together with Madison Garrett from the Institute of Sociology. “But in reality, the topic touches on all disciplines – and many subsequent careers.” Accordingly, deliverables from this workshop will be channeled into the further development of LMU curricula.

Nature writing at the bookbinders’ atelier

Not far from the newspaper reading room, the bookbinders’ atelier – which belongs to the Institute of Art Education – will host a “Nature writing” workshop at the Winter School. “In this literary genre, nature serves not only as the motif for writing and design: It also stakes out the context of experience and insights,” says veterinary medicine student Daniela Loy, who developed the workshop in collaboration with Kathrin Thalmann from the Institute of Art Education. The workshop will be held in English. Like all courses at the Winter School, it is open to everyone who has anything to do with LMU: students, doctoral researchers, lecturers, staff and administrative employees alike.

Participants will get to design books and small artefacts in which they build on and illustrate fragments from works by Henry David Thoreau and poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. “We use sustainable, resource-friendly methods when choosing our materials,” Thalmann says, “such as plant-based dyes and reusable materials.” Natural materials such as stones, tree bark, shells and roots are also incorporated in the work. “So, nature becomes part of the artistic process and makes its mark in the materials used,” Loy adds. The resultant leporellos, illustrations and experimental prints can – on request – also be exhibited next door at the Winter School.

The FutureTutors Winter School will be held on 10 and 11 March, from 10:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. on each day, in LMU’s newspaper reading room at Leopoldstrasse 13 and in the adjacent seminar rooms.

Further information and registration details can be found on the FutureTutors website.

FutureTutors

The FutureTutors program brings students and lecturers together to put sustainability into practice in everyday university life and in teaching contexts. This initiative was launched by PROFiL, LMU’s Institute of Higher Education Didactics, whose aim is to develop and improve university education. FutureTutors is rooted in the understanding that, while universities possess a wealth of knowledge about environmental protection, climate change and sustainable education, the resources, skills and approaches needed to apply this knowledge in everyday practice are often lacking. The program therefore enables students to develop and implement their own sustainability-related projects. The necessary methodological and didactic skills were first acquired at a summer school. After this, the tutors drafted their own teaching projects and will now present the results at the Winter School. The project receives central funding from the LMU Sustainability Fund in its first funding round (2024).