Welcome to the Autumn term of 2015!
Here is the list of RiCES seminars for this term:
Thursday September 24th 1.30 – 4pm in room JBL0W07:
Mike and Sarah will be reporting on their recent trip to the Ecoversities Unconference. You can read more about this gathering here: : http://enlivenedlearning.com/2015/08/12/gathering-of-kindred-folk-re-imagining-higher-education/
Or Mikes account here: https://nearymike.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/the-power-of-abundant-friendship/
Thursday October 8th 1.30-4pm in room VH0001:
Dr. Kai Heidemann, Lecturer of Sociology, Maastricht University, Netherlands will be presenting his work from research carried out in Argentina:
“Another School is Possible: Neoliberal Crisis, Popular Protest and the Rise of Cooperative Schooling in Argentina”
What explains the rapid rise of a community-based co-operative schooling movement in Argentina in recent years? What is this movement about? Where is it going? Moreover, how might cooperative schooling in Argentina be related to other social movements and educational projects in other parts of the world? In this talk, Dr. Kai Heidemann offers a sociological perspective on the emergence and expansion of cooperative schools in the urban setting of Buenos Aires. Drawing from a multi-year research project, Dr. Heidemann tells the story of how a small but influential network of grassroots actors worked to bring the cooperative schooling movement to life from within a situation of massive politico-economic crisis and widespread public protest during the early 2000s.
Thursday October 29th 1.30-4pm in room MB1006:
Anything to present? A catch up on the activities of the RiCES group.
If you would like to do a presentation or talk about your work, let me know and I will put together an agenda for the session which is reserved for members and associates to talk about their current work, or discuss future plans, or, of course, make suggestions for collaborations, etc..
Thursday November 19th 1.30-4pm in room BH1201:
Dr Glenn Rikowski, Independent Scholar
“Crises, Commodities and Education: Disruptions, Eruptions, Interruptions and Ruptures”
After a brief analysis of the concept of crisis (drawing on the work of Roitman, 2014) and following an outline and critique of some previous work (Rikowski, 2014) – on the Classical Theory of Education Crisis (in the light of Sarup, 1982) and philosophical perspectives on education crises – Rikowski explores the notion of crisis in relation to phenomena pertaining to the social forms of capitalist education. Starting out from Marx’s analysis of the ‘two great classes of commodities’ (following Adam Smith), Rikowski charts what ‘crisis’ might mean, and could be, in terms of the two commodity forms pertaining to educational processes in capitalist society. The final part of the paper explores actual and possible empirical manifestations of these crises of the commodity form in terms of the notions of disruption, eruption, interruption and rupture. It is argued that last two of these forms of crisis pose particular problems for the continuance and development of capitalism in general and the national capital and capitalist education in particular.
We may feel we need one more session in December to finish off the term, but we can decide this at a later date. I do hope you can all make it to the sessions, there will be more info on individual session on the RiCES blog and any readings will be sent out to you as I get them.
I look forward to seeing you all and having interesting and critical discussions throughout the coming year.