Author Archives: Joss Winn

About Joss Winn

I work in the School of Education at the University of Lincoln.

‘The future of the profession: A research afternoon on university political economy’ 

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‘The future of the profession: A research afternoon on university political economy’

18 June 2015, 1:00-4:00pm, Business and Law building 1103

This seminar aims to be a lively discussion about university political economy through a reflection on its contemporary conditions and a reading of Jacques Derrida’s ‘The future of the profession or the university without condition (thanks to the “Humanities”, what could take place tomorrow)’ (1998).

It is free and open to all, but places are limited. Please register your interest with Sarah Amsler.

Reading group: ‘A Question of Silence: Why We Don’t Read Or Write About Education’

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This month we are discussing Houman Harouni’s ‘A Question of Silence”: Why We Don’t Read Or Write About Education’ (2013)

11 June 2015, 2:30-4:00pm, Business and Law building 2010

‘Educationalists present schooling as being in a constant state of crisis. Ignoring for a second the obvious fact that without a crisis most educationalists would be out of a job—i.e., closing our eyes to their vested interest in the problem’s persistence—what does this crisis consist of? Apparently, the failure of schools to do what they are supposed to do. But what are they supposed to do? What is their purpose? And why should we stand behind their purpose? This is the line of inquiry that—can you believe it—is ignored…’

All welcome!

RiCES public seminar: Unpacking the ‘transnational associations of capitals’ in global higher education

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Unpacking the ‘transnational associations of capitals’ in global higher education: rankings and the subsumption of academic labour under academic publishing capital

Krystian Szadkowski, Adam Mickiewicz University

3 June | 12:30–2:00pm | Minerva Building 3202

This presentation explores the concept of ‘transnational association of capitals’ in the context of higher education (Hall, 2014; Ball, 2012). The focus will be on the conditions and consequences of the expansion of merchant capital (or capital involved in circulation), limited to large and quasi-monopolistic academic publishers. The claim behind this talk is that in order to grasp the specificity of the process of subsumption of academic labour under academic publishing capital, it is not enough to focus exclusively on proprietary relations (i.e. expropriation, enclosures, primitive accumulation, alienation). Such an analysis, although providing extremely rich material, has its limitations: capital may opt out from the private property form and ownership, but will never give up domination. The tool of capitalist domination and control, in all sectors of production, even immaterial and biopolitical, is measure. For this reason, this presentation will focus on the functionality of the capitalist mechanisms of establishing measures for the expansion of academic publishers’ capital based on the subsumption of global academic labour.

Krystian Szadkowski (1986), is an assistant professor at the Institute of Philosophy and a researcher at the UNESCO Chair for Institutional Research and Higher Education Policy of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. His research interests cover Marxian political economy, autonomist Marxism and transformation of higher education systems in Europe. In 2014 he defended his PhD thesis entitled Towards the University as an Institution of the Common. Philosophical Foundations of the Critical Higher Education Studies [in Polish]. Recently, he co-edited a collected volume Joy Forever: The Political Economy of Social Creativity (MayFly 2014). He is also an editor-in-chief of peer-reviewed journal Praktyka Teoretyczna/Theoretical Practice.

Work with us! Lecturer in Education (12 months)

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The School of Education is hoping to recruit a Lecturer in Education, working across our post-graduate programmes (PhD, EdD, MA, PGCE) but with a focus on our new MA Education. If you’re interested and would like to speak to someone before you apply, please contact Sarah Amsler.

Here are the details and the link to the jobs site is also below:

Location:  Brayford, Lincoln
Salary:   From £31,342 per annum
Closing Date:   Friday 08 May 2015
Interview Date:   Wednesday 03 June 2015
Reference:  CSS133

The University of Lincoln is seeking to appoint a research-active Lecturer to teach in the School of Education for a fixed term of one year from 1 July 2015 until 30 June 2016. The School is a vibrant and intellectually stimulating centre of postgraduate teaching and research. It is now broadening the range of its educational programmes through the establishment of Master’s courses for PGCE students, a Master’s degree in Education, and research and educational partnerships with secondary schools and practicing teachers. The School aims to strengthen its relationships with schools and educational groups across Lincolnshire, and to produce research that contributes to innovative educational policy and practice. Current research areas within the School include alternative and informal education, critical pedagogies, educational leadership, higher education policy, science education, technology, the politics of education, the sociology of education, and a range of interests in pedagogy and curriculum.

http://jobs.lincoln.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=CSS133

New paper on co-operative higher education

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A new journal article by Joss Winn has recently been published in Power and Education journal. For the first time, it reviews the emerging literature on co-operative higher education and offers a coherent theory of academic labour, the academic commons and critical pedagogy, based on our work on Student as Producer.

THE CO-OPERATIVE UNIVERSITY: LABOUR, PROPERTY AND PEDAGOGY

“I begin this article by discussing the recent work of academics and activists to identify the advantages and issues relating to co-operative forms of higher education, and then focus on the ‘worker co-operative’ organisational form and its applicability and suitability to the governance of and practices within higher educational institutions. Finally, I align the values and principles of worker co-ops with the critical pedagogic framework of ‘Student as Producer’. Throughout I employ the work of Karl Marx to theorise the role of labour and property in a ‘co-operative university’, drawing particularly on later Marxist writers who argue that Marx’s labour theory of value should be understood as a critique of labour under capitalism, rather than one developed from the standpoint of labour.”

You can download this article from the journal, Power and Education.

A pre-print version of this article is available from the University of Lincoln research repository.

An earlier and expanded version of this paper given at the ‘Governing Academic Life’ conference is also available from the University of Lincoln research repository.