A brief introduction to CILAS by Karim-Yassin Goessinger

[karimyassin]

Dear all

My name is Karim-Yassin Goessinger. Of Austro-Egyptian origin, I founded and have served as founding director and teaching fellow at the Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences CILAS – a floating micro-liberal arts college situated in Fatimid Cairo – since 2013. On the side, I offer courses in classical and contemporary sociology at the American University in Cairo.

Recent talks I’ve given and which could give you a sense of my inquiries were at a critical geography conference in Ramallah on the global emergence of liberal arts educations in relation to space; on aesthetic education and the importance of play (grounds) at the Dutch Institute in Cairo; and on the task of the liberal educator at a conference on liberal education at the University of Chicago. A writing project I’ve been working on with five scholarly friends introduces the notion of a pigeon tower as a metaphor to guide us in our efforts to re-envision higher education.

I wish to tell you here a bit about CILAS: a scholarly cooperative guided by the principles of play, intimacy, ignorance, trans-disciplinarity and diversity CILAS was conceived of after a mostly joyous academic training in political philosophy, social anthropology and urban sociology and a predominantly disillusioning professional experience with so-called development cooperation.

I suppose my work with CILAS could be summed up in two steps. The first step is to cater food for thought either to those left undernourished by the traditional (read modern/colonial) university, to people denied access to university altogether or to those who refuse to “waste time” at a traditional university. The second step is to provide shelter in a neighbourhood to make it effectively accessible to people from different walks of life to assemble around a meal (a range of topics) and eat together (contemplate, think and co-create knowledge).

I created CILAS – first and foremost as a liberal arts-focused space – in appreciation of the tradition of the liberal arts which I was fortunate to have access to; and out of a sense of responsibility stemming from a sense of belonging to the Egyptian people in their entirety, beyond the confines of class and citizenship. CILAS has been inviting students on ten-month long faluka (an ancient Egyptian sail boat) rides; hence, the image of the faluka as portrayed in CILAS’ logo. In other words, CILAS has been inviting students to engage with the liberal arts under a pedagogy of discovery.

The liberal arts are tricky to wrap up in one bundle. It’s, however, precisely this un-wrappability or un-packageability that helps the liberal arts escape turning into a consumer product. It therefore goes without saying that an invitation to engage with the liberal arts is one that must operate within a pedagogy of discovery as opposed to the pedagogy of consumption that is becoming common currency in light of the corporatization of higher education. The metaphor of the faluka still resonates with when conceiving of CILAS, as I hastened to leave the so-called development world behind which had felt much too blatantly like a neo-colonial voyage on a cruise ship. This is how, together with E.F. Schumacher, I embraced the beauty of smallness and was drawn into sailing along the Nile rather than contributing to the command of yet another colonial voyage.

The mission statement as first formulated for CILAS was to offer students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds access to a liberal arts education. The vision, as first articulated, was to co-create a learning environment that would be conducive to critical inquiry, self-reflection and civic engagement. The immediacy of this statement served as a reminder of the social solidarity that had crystallised as part of the revolutionary momentum of the times. The vision was an implicit call for action to re-appropriate space in an effort to honour the generative force released during that revolutionary moment. Both the statement and vision played on the idea of grounding the liberal arts; of transforming them from something remote, mistakenly vague, void of instrumental value, liberal – carrying as it did a vilified connotation in Egypt’s post-revolutionary, politicised climate – into something, well, artsy, that is, generating no practical, i.e. monetary, outcome.

So much for step one. With regards to step two, it occurred to me that the January 25th revolution had brought formation of reading circles and discussion groups that covered a wide array of topics relating to the potentials of the historical juncture presenting itself to Egypt’s youth. What I noticed at the time is that many of the initiatives often came to an abrupt end within one to three months. I felt that an inviting and warm space paired with a loose program structure could do the trick in enticing eager learners to pull through despite the lack of formal recognition (accreditation).

Indeed, the loose structure consisting of a fairly intense core curriculum and thematic coursework that would respond to students’ concerns and questions struck the balance between intellectually challenging and imposed, and intellectually intriguing and self-directed. It is this balance that I think about most these days and that I find captured in the notion of play (properly understood!) and the metaphor of the pigeon tower, as I’d like to think of it.

I shall say a bit more soon …

Thank you for reading and for your questions and comments.

With best wishes
Karim-Yassin

[m_tantawy]

يا أهلاً يا أهلاً =D
dear karim , you will not imagine how i was smiling when i saw ( CILAS \ YOU ) here =) =) … i mentioned Cilas before in the website as one of the effective initiatives in Egypt, but from my experience with thematic courses I believe Cilas is more than just being parallel university, it is hope for parallel society an alternative one form the prototype that (authority \ world order) promoting, with the brotherhood spirit that spreaded all over the place this society could redefine the knowledge as source of innovation not knowledge as source of power-authority !
here i have question for you : can Cilas do more in the applied part of the existing market\movements ?is there any imagination for project like development \ capacity building ? is this could be the future for Cilas as i see it for any successful university =)

thanks for sharing karim and i hope to see you soon =)

[hazem]

ahlan ya @karimyassin
nice to read from you about CILAS, I have seen Cilas in different moments of time. The first interaction was your presentation on what you are doing/going to do with Cilas in Rasheed 22 ( a place that doesn’t exist as it was @labanita @uli ? ) then meeting you at home, then Cilas in the old place in El-Ghouria, seeing the early beginnings of the building the community around tea and food. Then leaving after a month or so, only visiting every once in a while when I pass by Cairo for a drink or a chat. leaving for more time, then coming to attend a thematic course for the history of education ( at the same time that I was supposed to write my thesis on civic Hacking )

each time I can see that this parallel community is nourishing. and seeing that most of the students fellows leave Egypt at least the ones that I knew from the early beginning and Cilas is still there, doing what is it doing is impressive.

but I always had this feeling that Cilas didn’t reach its full potential, Being in a very popular neighborhood El-Refai or El-Ghouria, how do you see the interaction between CIlas and its community with the neighbors ? the people who used to call it “El-Mahhad” ( the institute ) at the beginning thinking it was a language school or something like this. I am not sure I haven’t seen the whole proces, I have seen a movie or heard about walking tours but is their more ? and also how is it to be living in this bubble in middle of everything, and is there a responsibility for Cilas to have more interactions with people ? may be not in the current situation but in general… these discussions and meetings, film screenings …how many from the neighbors came to know about them, I am curious to know

[karimyassin]

عزيزي

please forgive my delayed reply to your question. I’ve been at the annual meeting of the Balaton Group for the past week discussing the rise of authoritarianism in an age of ecological fragility with some of the world’s leading earth scientists, environmentalists, modellers and systems thinkers.

Thank you for your inquiry. Let me see if I understand correctly what you’re asking. Are you asking if I see room or leverage for CILAS to engage with initiatives and actions taken on the ground? If so, I think you’re absolutely right to suggest so. When I first conceived of CILAS I imagined a tripod: one leg dedicated to intellectual inquiry (or Discussion-Based Learning), another leg dedicated to experiential learning (or Experience-Based Learning), and the third leg to applied learning (or Project-Based Learning).

CILAS has learned how to strengthen, that is contextualise and adapt, the first pillar or leg of the tripod. We have seen and studied both the importance and difficulties of working with text regardless of the language it is written in. It appears to be of importance to practice close reading and writing of text, to cultivate an appreciation for different styles and forms of writing (academic writing, prose, poetry, to give a few examples), to be able to read between the lines and perhaps most urgently to smell bullshit in one’s own and in others’ writing. There is furthermore the issue of language which considering the politics of knowledge production dominated by the lingua franca of our era. Considering the cultural and intellectual imperialism of the anglo-saxon world, most of our knowledge is produced and consumed in English. As Arabic native speakers we need to appreciate this fact and come to terms with it. In other words, we need to improve our English to be able to access much of the insight. Of course, this is not enough and needs to be complemented by efforts to translate into Arabic as well as co-create knowledge in Arabic. Those are some of the issues I consider important with regard to the first pillar or leg of CILAS.

As for the second which promotes Experience-Based Learning (EBL). I consider EBL as important as Discussion-Based Learning (DBL). EBL is engages with what lies beyond the textual format. Any forms of knowledge that are not written down, black on white and frozen in time. In other words, EBL is about engaging with both audio-visual and embodied modes of inquiry, or forms of knowledge. That includes songs and podcasts, visuals and paintings, film or motion picture – both fictional and non-fictional – as well as the exploration of spaces or environments, be it on foot, on a bicycle, car, bus, carriage, sail boat or plane, to give a few examples. Experience-Based Learning is about movement. It is about moving and being moved, be it at the gut level, that is to say from within, or from outside, that is to say the exploration of what lies out there.

Now comes your question about the third pillar or leg which aims at translating the insights gained from engaging with text, analysis or interpretation, and the exchange of ideas or discussion as well as the experiences gained from engaging with the audio-visual and the spatial into projects or applications. Any act of translation is a delicate act. It is delicate because as a translator you create and give meaning. In other words, you exercise creative freedom and express generosity. Both creativity (as opposed to productivity) and generosity (as opposed to greed) are undervalued by the neo-liberal market. How do you make or create applications in our day and age, and in particular in the context of Cairo? I suppose this is how I would re-phrase your question. Please do correct me if I’m wrong. The answer I’d give is that applications or Project-Based Learning would have to figure out ways to be co-creative and socially inclusive rather than necessarily productive (measured in terms of monetarily) and exclusive.

This is the short answer. I need to get back to the conference now. Let me say a bit more later. I’d be grateful for any comments or questions on this initial reflection.

Hug
Karim

[karimyassin]

Thank you for your reflection, Hazem!

You’re raising an issue here that is related to the one Tantawy brought up. There has been talk of Community-Based Learning (CBL) at universities around the world. CBL is concerned with bridging life inside the bubble as you put it and life outside of it. The way I’ve come to think of it is three-fold: metaphorically, operationally, and methodologically. Let me say a few words about each.

Metaphorically you’re pointing to the notion of the Ivory Tower, i.e the idea that higher education takes place in a secluded and elevated looking down onto reality and theorising some of its more prominent features. The advantage of the Ivory Tower is that it provides you with some peace and quiet to look at things from some distance and allows you to slow down your thinking. (The latter is no longer necessarily true). I agree with the idea of the tower but not with its height nor its detachment. Hence, I speak of the Pigeon Tower as providing the peace and quiet yet engaging with its surrounding by virtue of its situated- or (urban) embeddedness. The Pigeon Tower is further co-created, that is it is co-curated and maintained by the community of scholars it houses.

This brings us to the second thought which relates to operations. What I mean is that it is important that a community of scholars is self-organised or self-directed as is more common to say these days. It is important that the divide between being a student, a teacher and an administrator is neither too formal nor too restrictive. There needs to a time and space for these three agencies to act in unison. At CILAS there have been weekly assemblies where all voices could be heard. I’m mentioning this because it relates to forming a community which can then be practices by CILASian in their respective communities.

Finally, and perhaps most relatedly to your question. CILAS has been offering classes with an emphasis on ethnography and oral history, both of which took us to the streets to observe the built environment and its inhabitants closely and to interview our neighbour in-depth. I agree with you that there is room to go beyond qualitative research and engaging in Participatory Action Research, for instance. This would introduce the larger communities to such techniques as field note taking, visual documentation and in-depth interviewing. Apart from that we’ve been considering screenings films in the neighbourhood of CILAS.

I suppose we have kept a bit more quiet in the past year and a half for security reasons.