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Meet Our Tutors: Miriam Rasch

Miriam Rasch
Mon 2 Nov

WdKA is delighted to welcome Miriam Rasch, who joins our team of tutors in the academic year 2020-2021.

Miriam Rasch is Coordinator of the Research Station and a writer and researcher. She studied Literary Theory and Philosophy, specialising in Ethics. She writes essays about life in post-digital times, with a focus on the philosophy of technology, ethics, and language. She's also a critic publishing with several Dutch media outlets. Her philosophical essay "Frictie: Ethiek in tijden van dataïsme" came out in May 2020 with the Dutch publisher De Bezige Bij. In 2017 she published "Zwemmen in de oceaan: Berichten uit een postdigitale wereld", and in 2018 an open-access collection of experimental essays in English, "Shadowbook: Writing Through the Digital", 2014-2018, was published by the Institute of Network Cultures.

Miriam: "I am interested in different forms of knowing - of finding, creating, and expressing knowledge. To me, doing research means searching and revisiting the search again. It is a highly experiential process, even if you're just sitting at your desk writing. As a writer, language is my material. How do we use words and concepts? How do they frame what we know and feel? How can they create shared experiences or bring diverse perspectives in conversation?"

I am interested in different forms of knowing - of finding, creating, and expressing knowledge.

What is your branch of knowledge and subject?

My background is in literature and philosophy. The past decade I've immersed myself in the culture and ethics of digital technologies. I like to apply a literary perspective to technology, to uncover narratives and rhetorics, both personal and systemic.

What is your source of inspiration?

Twitter and books alike. Classical novels and contemporary philosophy. Good old blogs. Talking with students. Good speakers outside of the TED universe, who let you in on their thinking. Museums. My garden. Birds.

What defines you as a tutor? Your strongest points?

I love making the complex accessible, without reducing the complexity. There's such wonder in laying bare all the intricate workings of a concept or a technology for example. Also, there are many ways and formats in which to explain something and have something explained back at you, and that is one reason why you never stop learning yourself.

What is your dream/goal as a tutor?

One of my favourite experiences as a writer is when you reach the point where what was once just a hunch in the back of your head takes on a clear shape on the page. It feels like you reach the peak of a mountain after days, weeks, months or even years of struggling uphill and then you are rewarded with a marvellous view you'd otherwise never have seen. My dream would be to let others get there as well.

Name one item from your bucket list?

To take in a grumpy old cat from the animal shelter and give it a delightful retirement.

Whom would you call a true innovator?

Most of all, I admire people who dare to innovate themselves. It takes courage to learn from others, to change your mind or heart, to see that something might be otherwise and to always strive to know more. Even as philosophy teaches you that the more you know, the better you realise that you know so very little.