Kursplan

PLS0083 Kritik i forskning/Kritik som praktik: Kunskapsverktyg för att designa urbana framtider, 7,5 Hp

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Critical thinking is an interactive process that channels change. It offers a means of reflecting on the dynamic interplay of societal forces, professional activities, pedagogical and research methods structuring how we view, and make, our world. The fundamental purpose of this course is to introduce and support development of critical thinking skills, critical writing skills and critically informed dissertation research at the PhD level.

Further, because criticality does not belong to any one discipline, it is foundational for transdisciplinary work. Developing critical thinking skills helps us observe how disciplines operate – and to take a position on what we learn from these observations about disciplinary constraints and affordances. Each traditional subject area defines and deploys its own modes and methods of disciplined work: this course aims to mobilize the power of critical thinking to enrich and help evolve those epistemological norms and inherited practices towards new forms of transdisciplinary knowledge production relevant to sustainable urban landscape design challenges of our time.

Additional aims of the course include to:

• enhance SLU’s international visibility in the landscape field through high-quality PhD level educational offerings that strengthen its attractiveness to PhD students in landscape.

• contribute to the Urban Futures research platform mission to support development of transdisciplinary research and critically informed dissertation research at the PhD level

• reinforce the position of SLU’s unit for pedagogical development (EPU) that „Critical thinking and a critical approach are important recurring themes in higher education".

https://internt.slu.se/en/support-services/education/educational-and-digital-support/courses--seminars/educating-for-critical-thinking-and-criticality/

Learning outcome:

The course offers students the following learning outcomes: how to develop an understanding of the concept of „criticality" through reading and group discussion of theoretical literature; how to critically reflect on their own disciplinary research practice and assess how such practices shape the critical positions they adopt in their own work; how to engage in guided peer feedback that constructively comments upon and refines research aims; how to articulate, elaborate and integrate critical thinking in their PhD related research practice; how to use Rhetorical Precis as a tool to support critical research; how to use Critical Precis to formulate arguments and guide writing as a means to think and practice criticality.

Innehåll

"CRITICALITY IN RESEARCH/ CRITICALITY AS PRAXIS" is the last course in a three-course series, initiated in 2018 by the Urban Futures Platform. The 2018, 2019 and 2020 „Criticality" courses were originally conceived and developed as separate, yet related „modules". Each course has its own literature list, its own seminar discussion topics (directly linked to the literature list) and its own focus, reflected in the distinct course titles. The first module, „Criticality in, on and for design" (2018) delivered and tested a rigorous method for writing a design critique of a particular work of landscape architecture, recognizing that the field of landscape architecture had few robust models for scholarly critical writing on design work. The second, „Criticality beyond disciplinarity" (2019), presented criticality as a means to navigate the multitude of working knowledges and research methods available to PhD students working in the inherently multi-disciplinary field of landscape. The third module, "Criticality in research/Criticality as praxis" (2020), built on the prior two, foregrounding an essentially transdisciplinary perspective by exploring questions concerning the operative relationship between academic critical theory and critical practices within and beyond academia. In 2019 & 2020, outside guest speakers were invited to lecture on distinct topics - how to write for different audiences (Vera Vicenzotti, 2019), and how to develop critical arguments (Dirk Sijmons, 2020). Students participating in more than one module of the Criticality course series got exposed to new content, new discussion topics, and new guest lecturers with each new course.

Viewed as a whole, the full three-course "Criticality series" is devoted to developing PhD level critical thinking and critical research skills. All three courses share a similar pedagogical structure drawing on established humanities and design approaches to advanced learning. They are grounded in close reading and guided interpretive discussions of a limited body of literature (from the fields of philosophy and comparative literature) and intensive critical engagement with in-process student research (from advanced design studio teaching practice developed in architecture, landscape architecture, and other creative fields).

In terms of content (title, focus, literature list and basic assignments) the proposed 2021 "Criticality in research/Criticality as praxis" course described in this application is fundamentally unchanged from the 2020 offering. In addition to receiving feedback from FUN regarding their openness to deliver courses more than once, the feedback given by course participants over the years reflects the great interest and demand of young scholars for this kind of course - which offers a rare level of intensive and highly personalized attention to the critical content of their research. Paired with the increased capacity building for transdisciplinary work modes, the 2021 course potentially attracts even more SLU students in 2021.

For this 2021 application, we are submitting a revised version of the third module of the "Criticality" course series, which aims to strengthen awareness of the range of critical thinking models available to the researcher exploring questions pertinent to the landscape field as a contributor of knowledge needed to build sustainable urban futures. It has the same title, literature list and basic assignments as the 2020 course, but it has a slightly modified course structure. This revised structure adds a second

group paper presentation session, in response to student feedback received over the years requesting more contact time with the teachers.

While critical research praxis is a cross-disciplinary activity, we focus on landscape architecture to guarantee a shared area for our work, and to learn to recognize how products of a specific disciplined knowledge production practice (including but not limited to design research) contribute to the evolution of thought and action. The course takes a landscape architectural perspecti

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