Cornelius Castoriadis Agora International Website

Teaching Castoriadis

At the suggestion of some of our subscribers, we begin here a new section of the Cornelius Castoriadis/Agora International Website, Taaching Castoriadis. We invite all students, teachers, and civic activists who have had experiences learning about or teaching Castoriadis to design a webpage for our CC/AI Website that will serve as a point of departure for sharing their experiences with others.

A Taching Castoriadis webpage may adopt any electronic design format (within reasonable size limits). Teaching Castoriadis is meant in the widest sense possible: such a webpage may deal with the work of Castoriadis in general, any specific part of his work, related subjects such as the organization Socialisme ou Barbarie, its sister organizations (e.g., London Solidarity), etc. and also topics inspired by the thought and ideas of Castoriadis (again taken most broadly, where "Castoriadis" functions metonymically for all the movements, themes, ideas, and practices in which he displayed an interest). It may include syllabi, course descriptions, and other extant teaching materials, as well as subsequent evaluations by students and teachers, reflections upon existing course content and form and/or upon their development, plans for future teaching projects (whether based upon previous experiences or not), hyperlinks to other relevant websites or webpages, and so on. Teaching Castoriadis is not meant to be restricted to traditional academic settings, either: contributions from colloquium organizers or participants, from study groups, from organizations or collectives that attempt to put his ideas into practice publicly through what Castoriadis himself called "thoughtful doing," as well as other social, political, intellectual, artistic, and cultural endeavors involving paideia (education in the broadest sense) are equally welcome. Nor are we seeking only positive testimonials: honest admissions of failures as well as of successes, criticisms and questions as well as affirmative evaluations are all welcome. Only hagiography is frowned upon.

Each such webpage, which may be published in any language or series of languages, is to be signed by the contributor or contributors: a person and/or a collective that has made content available or helped in webpage design. Inclusion of e-addresses is preferred in order to facilitate communication. Recommended is a "self-presentation" of the participating individuals or groups, so as to help introduce to others the background, points of view, intentions, and projects of the various contributors. You may wish to provide a title for your webpage on the CC/AI Website as well as various keywords to aid the reader examining the list of Teaching Castoriadis contributions.

It is the hope of Agora International that these webpages will encourage dialogue and exchange among those engaged in learning about and teaching the work of Castoriadis, with a view toward encouraging the project of society's self-transformation via its public/private sphere—what Castoriadis himself also designated as the "agora." We hope that your web design and content will be exemplary, so as to encourage further contributions as well as subsequent discussion, reflection, and action in an international agora. Innovative accounts of experimental teaching approaches are especially valued.

Proposed Teaching Castoriadis webpages are to be submitted to the Teaching Castoriadis webpage volunteer coordinator, Andrea Gabler agabler@gwdg.de, for posting. Please feel free to contact her also for preliminary advice and assistance in preparing your webpage.

Contributions from:

3 iii 2015