The Role of Poetry in Promoting a Sustainability Mindset: Walter Benjamin as a Guide Toward a Slow Journey

Abstract

The emergence of highly complex sustainability challenges in modern society has led to the necessity of searching for more effective approaches to education for sustainable development. Research has shown that reflection leads toward more profound levels of engagement with respect to sustainable actions. Therefore, higher education has a role to play in stimulating reflection in light of sustainability. Art-based techniques, which have not been included alongside traditional teaching methods, have begun to gain the attention of researchers and teachers in higher education as they produce a deeper impact and involvement and can have a positive influence on the minds and hearts of the students. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that poetry can contribute to integrating the arts and humanities in management education. The potential effect of poetry on business management majors is being explored as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility course. Poetry has considerable potential as an innovative approach to teach sustainability, but it is rather unusual in business education. Poetry was chosen as an enabler for reflection and emotions. This original teaching project was followed by a research project relying on reflective assignments. A rereading of Walter Benjamin's Illuminations from the perspective of sustainability studies was a source of inspiration, in particular “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” “The Storyteller” and “Unpacking My Library.” The paper assumes that Benjamin's ideas relate to a slow journey involving “awakening,” “wisdom” and “in a process,” three elements that are at the core of promoting a sustainability mindset. The research project consisted of four reflection assignments students had to comply with: reading and interpreting poetry; searching for a poem which would be most appropriate for the discussed sustainability topic; creating their own poem and reflecting on the whole task. The research took place in the second semester of 2020 and first semester of 2021, all in COVID-19 pandemic context. Students' participation was not mandatory, but the majority joined. Their perceptions and impressions reinforce the existing knowledge about the emotional power of poetry to encourage reflection. The results show that poetry plays a relevant role in encouraging future managers to develop a frame of mind that incorporates sustainability and responsibility. Business students are open to this approach because it adds a new and unexpected dimension to their studies. Despite the urge to integrate reflections, this is still an exception for the majority of management courses. The results suggest that poetry is a relevant instrument to promote a more sustainable mindset among future managers. Paradoxically, by emphasizing a slow journey, i.e., allowing time for integrating reflective practices, a transition toward sustainability in daily managerial processes can be accelerated.

Discovering the culture-led regenerative transformation of a city. Walter Benjamin as an inspiration for the Eco-Flâneur

“…Benjamin's (1955) emphasis on "the old co-ordination of the soul, the eye and the hand", referring to the French author and poet Paul Valéry, is similar to the emphasis on the combination of head, heart and hand which are often mentioned in relation with sustainability (Ivanaj et al, 2014). The four content areas of a sustainability mindset that Kassel et al (2016) suggest, i.e., systems perspective, spiritual intelligence, ecological worldview and emotional intelligence, are made explicit according to thinking, being and doing, which are different ways of saying head, heart and hand (Molderez et al, 2021). To be able to stimulate regenerative transformations, the three are needed at the same time, although in education the emphasis is often only on acquiring knowledge in relation with sustainability.…”

“…Referring to Walter Benjamin as a source of inspiration for rethinking management education and integrating transformative learning is uncommon (Molderez, et al, 2021). His work has been included in the analysis of many postmodern and poststructuralist thinkers (Branzila, 2017).…”

“…Transformative learning can be triggered by the climate change and its devastating impact on all living beings on Earth, but also by more aesthetic encounters such as art or poetry (Molderez and Ceulemans, 2018;Molderez et al, 2021). Little research has been carried out so far on the transformative learning impact (Michel et al, 2020) or on outdoor experiences in particular, Holland (2018) being an exception.…”

“…Martha Nussbaum stresses the importance of the arts in higher education, as a way to encourage broad development of the learner: "Leading business educators have long understood that a developed capacity to imagine is a keystone of a healthy business culture" (Nussbaum, 2011). While some initiatives have been exploring this role (e.g., Shrivastava et al, 2012;Molderez and Ceulemans, 2018;Molderez et al, 2021), today it seems rather uncommon to introduce arts-based pedagogies in management education. It is within the context of critical thinking that the eco-flâneur proves its pedagogical value.…”

Education in a warming world: Trends, opportunities and pitfalls for institutes of higher education

“…This approach often involves the use of drama pedagogies to explore sustainability-related issues from multiple stakeholder perspectives (Raphael and White, 2021). Other examples of such innovative pedagogies include the use of poetry (Molderez et al, 2021), participatory arts (Cook, 2020) and games (Wu and Lee, 2015), all of which have been utilized to engage students, promote solidarity, and help to challenge the hegemony of traditional approaches (Gurnon et al, 2013). Research shows that such approaches can be effective in leveling hierarchies by creating a shared See the following link for details on WUN team, whose disciplinary backgrounds include but are not limited to pedagogy, social science, creative writing, environmental science, and political science: https://wun.ac.uk/wun/research/view/education-in-a-warming-world-a -collaborative-research-network-on-education-and-climate-change/.…”