Welcome to another week, How Do You Like it So Far? fans! We have a very special episode in store for you all. This week, Henry is on the other side of the … well it’s not the microphone hm, the … recording booth, table … well you get the point. This week, Colin interviews Henry about his work surrounding civic imagination! They are joined by their esteemed colleague Dr. Sangita Shresthova, the Director of Research of the Civic Paths Group at USC and an integral part of the Annenberg Innovation Lab’s Civic Media Fellowship. They discuss their upcoming books Popular Culture in the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change and Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Action Handbook, both edited by Gabriel Peters-Lazaro. They dissect the components of civic imagination and how it can help us as people imagine a better world and a process of change. Their work surrounding civic imagination has led them to ask questions such as, “How do we change our civic spaces with the possibility of a future?” Sangita and Henry host workshops where they encourage participants to imagine the ideal world of 2060 or remix inspirational stories as a means of provoking discussions about shared aspirations and civic norms. These workshops are crucial in how people reflect similarities and differences in how they envision the future. They also look to understand how media change is tied to political advocacy worldwide and how young people have taken advantage of technological changes within media to promote social change. Listen in as Henry and Sangita discuss their work in starting with the visions of the future, could see possibilities between us and help solve problems. They even discuss what people envisioned in 2016 and how identifying those paradoxes and tensions in the field might be usable for activists and storytellers to incite change.
Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:
Politics struggle over resources → points towards government at its center
Harry Potter Alliance
Henry’s piece on the Harry Potter Alliance
Making social change by any media necessary, Henry and Sangita’s Book
Using a whole range of media to make social change
Emma Gonzalez’s jacket → camera read the patches during her moment of silence
Workshops mentioned in the podcast:
Origin Stories
Infinite Hope
Step into the Looking Glass
Monuments from the Future
Remixing Stories
Syrian refugees – making it to Europe and dying along the way
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