Workshops
Bringing Philosophy and Literature to your OrganisationWorkshops
The concept of Workshop, and in particular Corporate Workshop, is generally despised in the academic circles of the humanities. A certain legacy of the Left, perhaps, has made most of us consider today that literature and philosophy would indeed be, first, defenders of another world and economic order, which should supposedly translate in a certain resistance and aversion to the corporate sector, considered as the main battlefield of heartlessly capitalistic spirits.
Corporates ?
This widely spread sentiment is however missing two points.
First, corporates represent an unequalled source of flexible revenues for many professional initiatives, so if one hopes to bring philosophy and literature outside of the universities and their public and private funding structures, while still remaining economically viable and relevant, corporates must be considered as a major source of financial stability. A company can leave enough space of initiative and exploration to a budding effort, and provide a realistic source of income, in a domain of activity which is not benefiting from government grants, and whose target audiences for its courses cannot individually invest at the scale of the institution’s needs. This is the actual and contemporary portrait of the context in which IST is to define itself and find its place.
Corporates ?
Moreover, workshops are not just attractive from a financial perspective. When a booming economy like India’s brings to its forefront an array of service start-ups, conceptualised and led by a very young generation, it is another, new landscape of cultural possibilities that the writers, thinkers and cultural entrepreneurs of today must acknowledge, for the spread and dissemination of literature and philosophy. Through the particularity of its economic culture, India today makes it possible for employees of a company to try and give a chance to a one-day workshop that shall ultimately lead to sensitising a few members of the attendance towards a genuine, long-term and deep connection with the written arts. If the IST sets as its mandate the enrichment of contemporary literary efforts, but also the heartfelt effort of bringing the general concerns of literature to as wide an audience as possible, it must not leave aside the populations whose existence are already influenced by the corporate world.
A Custom Programme
The central idea for the Corporate Workshops of the IST, is to design a course of textual study from various works of literature and philosophy, selectively chosen for the particular domain of activity of the concerned company. This exploration of texts and ideas spans over 3 to 4 sessions spread through the course of one day. For instance, a Website Design Firm or a Fashion Institute may be offered to study and exchange on a selection of passages from Plato, Symposium, Kant, Critique of Judgement and Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy. In the Hospitality sectors, hotels or BPOs may be guided through classical and modern perspectives on interpersonal and intercultural relations, such as Leil Lowndes, How to Talk to Anyone. NGOs planning to enter the public space or improve their impact may be offered a course of study through classics of rhetorics and public service such as Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. In Colleges, the workshops may focus even more closely on specific authors, movements or themes, as the students would already possess pre-requisites on those topics. The possibilities are infinite and the Institute will build a course of study responding closely to the custom needs of the organisation.
Methods
The workshops would be conducted over one day, for 6 to 8 hours spread over 3 to 4 sessions. The focus will be on textual analysis via the projection of key excerpts from the selected books, but also brief phases of lecturing to contextualise and clarify certain points, along with the occasional projections of excerpts from films and the visual arts, when relevant to the discussion. The workshops will be conducted by default by the in-house instructors of the Institute. The Institute will also reach out to its present and past Instructors to build original and complementary pairs of guides for each day, and thus to ensure a wider range of sensibility and approaches to the written arts. The Institute will also consider forming external Instructors specifically to prepare and conduct workshops.
Contact the Institute for any enquiry regarding possible workshops for your company or organisation.