Talk
Masterclass Conversation Techniques in Debate

Masterclass Conversation Techniques in Debate

Thu 04 — Thu 25 Mar 2021

With Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Warda El-Kaddouri, Caroline Pauwels, Jonathan Holslag, Khalid Benhaddou and Liesbeth Levy (full)

Our own opinions echo in an amplifying box around us. With every click on the worldwide web, the volume increases, until voices from other angles disappear as unintelligible noise in the background. What's the danger behind this booming sound box? And how can we counter this?
"Echo chambers" are a phenomenon in which own views are always confirmed. The consequence? We are less open to other ideas. A critical search for the truth seems to be compromised. In collaboration with deBuren and Scherpsteller Warda El-Kaddouri, we developed a Masterclass Conversation Techniques in Debate. The masterclass consists of a lecture by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer and 5 sessions with well-known pros who will get you ready for the floor. As icing on the cake, you will take the floor withone of the masterclass supervisors.

Pilar

PROGRAM


04 March 2021

Keynote: The Importance of Truth in 2021

A keynote about the importance of truth in 2021 by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, followed by a conversation between VUB rector Caroline Pauwels and Pfeijffer.
Pilar

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer is a poet and writer. He has distinguished himself in almost every conceivable genre and is recognized as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary Dutch literature. He has more than 40 titles to his name, including poetry, novels, short stories, plays and essays. In 2014 he was awarded the Libris Literature Prize for his book La Superba. In addition to an ode to Genoa and its inhabitants, La Superba is primarily an impressive ode to the imagination.
His great novel Grand Hotel Europa was published at the end of 2018 about love in times of mass tourism, European identity, nostalgia and the end of an era. The book has sold over 200,000 copies and the translation rights have been sold to 20 countries.
His most recent work Quarantine is a compilation of the almost live report for the newspapers about corona from badly hit northern Italy during the first months of the pandemic.

Caroline Pauwels

Prof. Caroline Pauwels started the second term as rector of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in the academic year 2020-2021. She studied philosophy and communication sciences and has been associated with the communication sciences department since 1989. She obtained her PhD in 1995 for research that focused on the audiovisual policy of the European Union (EU). Subsequently, she specialized in European and national media policy issues and the economy of the media sector. From 2000 to 2016, Caroline Pauwels was director of the SMIT research center (iMinds / IMEC). She was awarded the domestic Francqui Chair by the University of Ghent in 2014 and was holder of the Jean Monnet Chair between 2012 and 2016. She also sits or sat on various boards of directors, until recently as government commissioner at the VRT and she is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts.

08 March 2021

Masterclass # 1: Invention and organization with Jonathan Holslag

How do you prepare for a debate? How do you collect information? What are your arguments and how do you build your story? And what are argument amplifiers and how do you use them at the right time?
Pilar

Jonathan Holslag

Jonathan Holslag is a lecturer in international politics at the VUB and as a political scientist associated with the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders. He is also Special Adviser to the First Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans. Holslag's academic work focuses on geopolitics, security and the role of Europe in the changing international order. He is a visiting lecturer at several foreign universities and at NATO's highest training college for generals. Together with Brieuc Van Damme, he founded the Vrijdaggroep in 2013, a think tank of young Belgian talents who work towards innovative answers to social challenges.
His research area covers China's economic, political and military developments, the geopolitical context within the Asian continent, China's relations with Africa and the partnership with Europe. Since 2014 he has been a Rockefeller Fellow of the Trilateral Commission, a member of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) and a Nobel Fellow at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.

11 March 2021

Masterclass # 2: Wording with Liesbeth Levy

How do you convey your message? What is convincing and what is not?
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Liesbeth Levy

Liesbeth Levy studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. After her studies she worked at debate centers de Rode Hoed and de Balie in Amsterdam. In Rotterdam she was head of debate at the Rotterdam Art Foundation and artistic director of debate center De Unie. During Rotterdam 2001, the European Capital of Culture, she was a staff member of debate and discourse and was responsible for the project "Sermons for Other's Parish". Since 2014, Liesbeth Levy has been director of LOKAAL, the center for democracy in Rotterdam and responsible for, among other things, the G1000 Rotterdam in 2017 and the youth top 010 in 2020. On March 4, 2020 she obtained her PhD at the University of Humanistics in Utrecht for a study into the effects of the government's use of dialogue as an instrument of pacification. She asks herself whether this does justice to the original philosophical meaning of the concept of dialogue - dialogue as a morally charged source of knowledge.

15 March 2021

Masterclass # 3: Conversation techniques with Warda El-Kaddouri

How do you respond to the arguments of the other and how do you respond to criticism. How do you recognize fallacies? How do you refute it? And how do you steer a conversation in a constructive direction?
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Tammy Van Neerum

Warda El-Kaddouri

Warda El-Kaddouri studied Language and Literature at Ghent University and European Studies at KU Leuven. In 2015 she was elected as a UN youth representative. She holds a PhD in German literature on religion and identity and writes columns for MO * and De Morgen, among others, in which she talks about inclusion, sustainability, racism and discrimination. El-Kaddouri now lives in Amsterdam, where she works as a freelance journalist and researcher for De Groene Amsterdammer, among others. In January 2020 she was appointed as a Focuser by deBuren, Filosofie Magazine and Pilar. De Scherpsteller is an inspiring and emerging thinker who will be given a forum for two years with the task of focusing on social developments.

18 March 2021

Masterclass # 4: Memory training and presentation with Khalid Benhaddou

How do I remember the information and reasoning I looked up and collected for the debate? How do I convey it convincingly and in an orderly manner? How do you discover and create a personal conversation style?
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Khalid Benhaddou

Khalid Benhaddou  is een Belgische imam. Hij is de hoofdimam van de El Fath-moskee in Gent en is een eigentijdse stem in de Vlaamse moslimwereld. Hij is islamleerkracht, voorzitter van het Platform van Vlaamse imams en directeur van CIRRA, een expertise- en onderzoekscentrum rond levensbeschouwing en diversiteit in Vlaanderen. In 2006 werd Benhaddou op achttienjarige leeftijd de jongste Vlaamse imam tot op dat moment. Hij zet in op de strijd tegen radicalisering van moslims in de westerse wereld. Als verbindingsfiguur poogt hij polariserende tendensen in de samenleving tegen te gaan. Hij poogt westerse waarden van de verlichting te verzoenen met de waarden uit de Koran. Mensenrechten kunnen volgens hem een referentiekader zijn voor maatschappelijke consensus en de basis zijn voor alle religies, en religie kan sociale normen brengen in een samenleving met zijn wetten.Hij is bestuurder bij het Vlaams Vredesinstituut en lid van de Commissie voor Medische Ethiek van het Universitair Ziekenhuis Gent. In 2019 werd hij aangeduid als opdrachthouder Diversiteit aan de Universiteit Gent.Khalid is een vaak geziene gast in duidingsprogramma’s als De Afspraak, Terzake en De Zevende Dag.

25 March 2021

Masterclass # 5: The floor is yours

As icing on the cake, you will enter into a debate with one of the teachers of the series.
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Pilar
deBuren, Pilar and Schersteller Warda El-Kaddouri are  joining forces for the educational part of the festival for Pilar ASAP - The Echo Edition.
As part of Pilar ASAP Thu 04 — Wed 31 Mar 2021 The Echo Edition Between fantasy and reality, between fiction and fact.
Timetable
04.03.2021: 20.00 - 22.00
08.03.2021: 17.30 - 19.00
11.03.2021: 17.30 - 19.00
15.03.2021: 17.30 - 19.00
18.03.2021: 17.30 - 19.00
25.03.2021: 17.30 - 19.00
Close info and go back to home