What Does It Mean to Act Together? | Sennett in Practice

What does it mean to cooperate — not as an idea, but as a practice? We read Richard Sennett’s Together and brought it into conversation with three different research projects. Nastia opens with a history of cooperation — from Ruskin’s failed road-building experiment with Oscar Wilde to William Morris’s firm, to the Inklings — showing that having an idea of cooperation is not the same as having conditions for it. Masha takes Sennett’s framework into questions of transformation, introducing the distinction between restoration, remediation and reconfiguration — and why repair, not rupture, may be the more honest name for change. Yulia connects the theory to Hannah Arendt’s concept of agency and to concrete questions of education: where and how are the capacities for collective action actually cultivated? A seminar born from Summer School 2026 “Collective Agency: Intentions & Conditions” in Chernivtsi. Timecodes: 0:00 Introduction — Three researchers, one framework: Richard Sennett’s Together 0:48 Nastia — The Workshop of Togetherness: John Ruskin and the idea of cooperative labor 4:17 Oscar Wilde and the Ruskin Road — the gap between idea and practice 8:22 Key thesis: having an idea of cooperation ≠ having conditions for it 10:14 Sennett: cooperation as a skill — rehearsal, practice, the infant’s learning 13:05 William Morris and his firm — 16 years of collective work that didn’t outlast its founder 14:49 The Inklings (Tolkien, Lewis) — 20 years of cooperation built from Tuesday and Thursday 16:46 Dialectical vs. dialogical — sympathy vs. empathy in Sennett 20:18 Conclusion: rehearsal as the condition that makes cooperation possible at all 21:20 Masha — Cooperation, Transformation, Repair: Sennett’s view of society as cooperative practice 23:32 What counts as transformation? A different optics 26:38 The Ukrainian context: two simultaneous stories 32:18 Temporal asymmetry — cooperation takes a long time to build, is fast to destroy 34:06 Transformation as repair: restoration, remediation, reconfiguration 38:41 Reconfiguration and improvisation — the most radical form of repair 40:46 Otherness, temporality and the common past 48:31 Yulia — Agency, Education, Practice: Hannah Arendt on collective agency 50:46 Arendt’s definition of agency and the gap between intention and action 53:56 Arendt on education: renewal, protection, and the methodological mistake 57:03 The question of newness vs. existing — where Arendt falls short 🎬 Video by Nadiia Surzhan 🔗 Follow us to stay updated: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/third_flooo... Website: https://www.summerschool-transformati... #Sennett #together #cooperation #collectiveagency #transformativeresearch #summerschool #ukraine #chernivtsi #thirdfloor #третійповерх #Arendt #agency #repair #transformation