With Jason Murray Winn
A 4-part exploration into the depths of Rabelaisian liberation with AI Socratic-Bot
📅 DATES: Saturdays, April 4, 11, 18, 25
⏱️ TIME: 1-2:30 PM Eastern US Time. See time zone converter if you’re in a different location to make sure you get the time right.
🔗 LOCATION: Online via Zoom. A link will be provided on registration.
💰 PRICING: No cost
To register, email inciteseminarsphila@gmail.com with LAUGHING in the subject line.
SEMINAR DESCRIPTION
In an era of epistemological bureaucratization and the commodification of knowledge, where academic life is increasingly flattened by standardized metrics and algorithmic reductions, we invite you to a space of rigorous and rebellious learning. This four-part seminar dives into Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World to rediscover the Carnivalesque—a potent, subversive lens that turns the established order on its head and celebrates the “unofficial life” of the people.
For the university educator skeptical of the sterile, data-driven knowledge management of the modern academy, the Carnivalesque offers a vital antidote. It is not merely about fun; it is a profound philosophical escape valve where hierarchies are suspended, the high and mighty are brought down to earth through profanation, and the grotesque body—messy, unfinished, and deeply human—is celebrated over the polished, mute efficiency of the digital age.
Join us as we move beyond the uncanny valley of historical pastiche and static theory. We will explore how Bakhtin’s concepts of “Inversion,” “Grotesque Realism,” and “Ambivalent Laughter” provide the moral courage needed to resist personal alienation and social division. This is a call to reclaim the “chorus of the laughing people,” ensuring that our inquiry remains a deeply human, communal, and transformative act of natality—the capacity for new beginnings in a world that often feels closed.
THE SOCRATIC-BOT METHOD: AI FOR PEOPLE, NOT PEOPLE FOR AI
Recognizing the valid skepticism toward the “AI bros” and the potential disabling of critical thought, this seminar tests a Socratic-bot instruction method. Rather than treating technology as a tool for mindless information retrieval or academic malfeasance, we employ a dialogical model rooted in classical pedagogy. The AI acts not as an answer-generator, but as a digital tutor—an interlocutor designed to integrate your personal reflections and subjective inputs much like the Socratic method. By responding to your unique idiosyncrasies, the bot guides you back to the text, ensuring that the pleasure of the struggle and the rigor of independent thinking remain central. This is an experiment in scaling mentorship: a human-centric interface that supports active engagement over passive consumption, proving that technology can serve the deeply personal tradition of the humanities. This bot is designed to be used before the seminar to come to personal understandings of the course material in relation to your own lived experience, and prep us all for a lively conversation on Zoom.
All participants will be required to complete a 20-question survey and keep it on their own computer to copy/paste into the Socratic-bot when it asks every week (you can use the same answers each time).
RESEARCH NOTICE: This is the second test of the Socratic-Bot Method or “Prompt the User”, and is scheduled to be presented at ICSciEnTec 2026 in Bhutan. All participants are encouraged to join as research participants to help us explore how academic educators can harness AI for effective and ethical use in education. Details are available on request.
FORMAT
This seminar is a “para-academic” dialogue series designed to foster “critical discernment” through collaborative inquiry. Rather than readings, each session offers a new Socratic-bot interface to facilitate a personalized journey through Bakhtin’s thought to prepare participants for our group conversation (conversations with the bot can be completed in as little as 20 minutes).
- Unmasking Reality: Inversion & Transgression in the Carnivalesque We introduce the “world turned upside down,” exploring how temporary disruptions of “hierarchical rank and privileges” create space for new beginnings.
Resource: Billingsgate language examples and the “dual-tone speech” of the marketplace. - From High to Low: Profanation & the Grotesque Body A deep dive into “Grotesque Realism,” celebrating the “material bodily principle” that links us all. We challenge rigid distinctions between the “top and bottom” of social and physical bodies. Resource: Excerpts from Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel.
- Shifting Crowns: Mockery, Ambivalence, and New Perspectives Examination of “Mock Crowning and Decrowning”—the “uniting of opposites” where all structures are seen as fluid and temporary. Resource: Analysis of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.
- The Roar of Laughter: Carnival Laughter & the “Beginning” of New Worlds Tying Bakhtin’s “regenerative laughter” to the possibility of “re-founding” society through “pluralistic dialogue.” Resource: Excerpts from Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus.
MATERIALS
- Primary Text: Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Héléne Iswolsky translation). (Text will be shared during session.)
- Digital Interface: Access to the experimental Socratic-bot platform (weekly login details provided upon registration).
- Supplemental: Videos and examples of the Carnivalesque.
FACILITATOR
Jason Murray Winn, RA, AICP, is an architect, urban planner, and storyteller whose work operates at the nexus of architectural theory and living culture. As the developer of the Narrative Infrastructure (NI) framework (narrativeinfrastructure.org/blog), Jason utilizes “Spatial Narratology” to link tangible assets with the intangible oral histories of communities. Formerly a Senior Lecturer at Eastern Mediterranean University, his pedagogical focus is on ethnographic and narratological approaches that move beyond the functional object to treat cultural artifacts as infrastructure. Jason’s current research focuses on the ethical challenges of AI to support community planning and design.
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