Dr Miriam Meissner (M.M.)

My teaching experience covers the fields of media and cultural studies, critical theory, visual culture, literary studies, urban studies and social movement studies.

Currently, I coordinate the courses Cultural Industries of Tomorrow: Towards Postgrowth Prosperity and Sustainability and Time to Act: Cultural Interventions and Artivism. Both courses form part of the MA Arts & Culture (specializations: Art & Heritage: Management, Policy, Education and Contemporary Literature & Art: Cultural Interventions & Social Justice).

Cultural Industries of Tomorrow: Towards Postgrowth Prosperity 

In the last four decades, scholars and policymakers alike have paid great attention to the cultural industries. Considered as harbingers of post-industrial economic growth, the cultural industries have been constructed in public discourse as tools to foster urban regeneration, social inclusion, and cultural diversity. Increasingly, however, this highly positive vision is being questioned. Many studies point to issues of precarity and exclusion in cultural work. Meanwhile, creative urbanism is associated with problems of gentrification and social inequality. This critique of the cultural industries and their social impact coincides with a more general societal and scholarly debate on the desirability of economic growth as a social and political goal. In light of the negative impact of economic growth on planetary ecosystems and its questionable correlation with collective prosperity, researchers increasingly call for a postgrowth transformation, which prioritizes collective wellbeing and ecological regeneration over economic growth.Cutting across these two debates, this elective explores what cultural industries of tomorrow might look like. To that end, we will not just analyze problems but also look at emerging solutions. How do different cultural industries seek to reinvent themselves to solve issues of work precarity, social exclusion, and economic inequality? How do creative workers seek to respond to pressing problems of global heating and biodiversity loss? Which new forms of social cooperation and ecological cohabitation do the cultural industries innovate and experiment with? To address these and related questions, the elective explores case studies that include – yet are not limited to – cultural cooperatives, creative urban living labs, decolonial tourism, museum activism, the sustainable lifestyle industries (e.g. minimalism and zero waste), crafts and craftivism, and the Fashion Revolution movement. Students will be given the chance to focus on case studies that are relevant to their interests and future professional plans. 

Time to Act: Cultural Interventions and Artivism 

This course provides students with the skills to self-reflexively put their critical understanding of art and literary interventions into practice. To that end, the course is focused on a group project in collaboration with societal partners. Structured in the format of a portfolio, this project mobilizes research, analysis, and communication to (co-)design, (co-)facilitate, and/or comment on a cultural intervention regarding an issue of social justice. This can be in the format of a creative workshop, a podcast, a video, an exhibition, a handbook, a toolkit, a reading group, a social media campaign, et cetera. To prepare for the project, students will explore concepts and case studies that address how literary and artistic practices activate new socio-political imaginaries, and how they transform contemporary modes of struggle for social justice. Students will elaborate on concepts such as artivism (art activism), emotion work, counterpublics, postcritique, queer and decolonial performance, prefiguration, and radical care, among others. Case studies change from year to year, depending on topical issues. Examples range from the adaptation of science-fiction theory in anti-racist organizing, to participatory arts in residential dementia care, from environmental artivism to the anti-colonial appropriation of urban monuments, from anti-capitalist interventions to punk-feminist craftivism, et cetera. Drawing on these studies and on their liaison with societal partners, students will – in the second half of this course – finalize their group projects, and critically reflect on this process via an individually written commentary. The course prepares students for their future work and public engagement in the social and creative sectors, organizing and campaigning, as well as public outreach, journalism, and critique.