2016 Peter Lang Young Scholars Competition in Education Studies

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Peter Lang publishing is holding a Young Scholars Competition in Education Studies. The winner will be offered a paperback book contract. The deadline for applications is 31 August 2016.

“Proposals are invited from early career scholars ­for academic monographs in the area of Education Studies to be evaluated by a distinguished editorial board. The winner of the competition will receive a contract to publish the volume in the book series New Disciplinary Perspectives on Education. This new series supports emergent work on education that combines emphases on theory and activism, focusing on challenges to recent developments in education policy arising from the marketisation and commodification of education and educational institutions. In particular, the series welcomes work that does not simply critique these developments, but marks out a space for new and alternative educational practice. This work might focus on university education, further education or school institutions at primary or secondary level.”

Proposals for the competition should be submitted to Christabel Scaife (c.scaife@peterlang.com) by 31 August 2016 and include an abstract (including chapter synopses), CV and a sample chapter (5,000 to 10,000 words in length) in separate Microsoft Word documents. Proposals under review elsewhere should not be submitted.

FURTHER INFORMATION

‘Other learnings are possible’ (Plymouth University, 16 December)

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This talk is part of the Plymouth Institute of Education Research Seminar Series and will be given by Dr Sarah Amsler from the University of Lincoln.

https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/whats-on/other-learnings-are-possible

Sarah’s talk offers a brief introduction to some diverse forms of education now being practised around the world and considers the light these shed on the politics of counter-capitalist educational projects in Britain today. It asks why radical imaginaries of autonomous, egalitarian, co-operative and post-capitalist education remain marginal in educational discourses and politics here despite decades of opposition to the marketisation of society, extensive academic and experiential evidence of its exclusionary consequences, and the growth of global education movements which demonstrate the liberatory potential of counter-hegemonic epistemological and pedagogical practices.

The talk will argue that mainstream education debates, institutionalized educational practice and critiques of both in the UK are often framed within colonial logics that not only contribute to the production of social and epistemic injustice but render already-existing and not-yet alternatives invisible or impossible.

The aim of the talk is to explore how decolonising these logics can create space for the emergence of new imaginaries which support the flourishing of life rather than its domination, open possibilities for educating radical democracy, and equip us to collectively embrace the challenges of reclaiming our ecological, political and economic futures from our own locations today.

The seminar starts at 2pm and all are welcome but spaces are limited. 

Please contact artsresearch@plymouth.ac.uk if you have any queries about the event.

Speaker biography

Sarah Amsler is a sociologist, critical theorist and reader in Education at the University of Lincoln. She works at the intersections of the sociology of knowledge, political economy, and pedagogies and processes of social and epistemic change. Her current research focuses on counter-capitalist and radical-democratic movements within and beyond cultural institutions, and on articulating education as a site of political trans/formation which is central to the critique and overcoming of dominating social relations and rationalities.

Research seminar: Crises, Commodities and Education

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Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski

Crises, Commodities and Education: Disruptions, Eruptions, Interruptions and Ruptures

Dr Glenn Rikowski, Independent Scholar

Thursday November 19th, 1.30-4pm, in room BH1201:

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.

What Was Faculty Governance? How Can it be Rebuilt?

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The RiCES group are delighted to welcome Chris Newfield, Professor of Literature and American Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Monday 19th October 2015, 3.30-5pm. Business and Law BL1104.

This talk offers a brief history of faculty governance in the U.S. as defined over the past hundred years by the American Association of University Professors.  My premise is that the conditions of the post-war model of shared governance are gone.  At one time, growth and the passivity of outside interests enabled administrative neutralism, in which they could concentrate on teaching and research.  Administrations have in recent decades become much more active shapers of academic priorities and also control contacts between the university and external interests.  While faculty critiques of administrative overreach, the distorting effects of audit culture, etc. are vital, the paper will argue that faculty have fallen into a “depressive position” that enables negative trends. The talk is designed to foster discussion of US/UK/EU similarities and differences and desirable faculty initiatives.

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Christopher Newfield is professor of literature and American Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He brings an interdisciplinary background to the analysis of a range of topics in American Studies, innovation theory, and “critical university studies,” a field which he helped to found. Chris’ books include Mapping Multiculturalism (edited with Avery Gordon), The Emerson Effect: Individualism and Submission in America (Chicago, 1996), Ivy and Industry: Business and the Making of the American University, 1880-1980 (Duke, 2003), and Unmaking the Public University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class (Harvard, 2008). He blogs on higher education funding and policy at Remaking the University, the Huffington Post, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and is completing a book called Lowered Education: What to Do About Our Downsized Future.

New Seminar Added

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We have another great seminar just added to the RiCES calendar – Dr Paolo Vittoria is visiting from Brazil and will be stopping off with RiCES to deliver the following seminar:

Social Movements, Popular Education and Universities: A Proposal for an International Network (Dr Paolo Vittoria, Senior Lecturer in “Philosophy of Education” and “Popular Education and Social Movements” at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Campus of Human Sciences and Philosophy, Faculty of Education, Department of Education, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).)

Thursday October 15th 1.30-4pm in room JBL2C04

The neo-liberal educational model presents, in its market-driven paradigm, renewed forms of repression: what we could call, in Freirean terms, as “culture of silence”. How can we break the “culture of silence”? How can we build a critical culture of social relationships?

Worldwide social movements, political and academic groups are working to develop a critical culture based on dialogue and actions of resistance against neo-liberalism, creating spaces of teaching and learning that are no longer based on competitive skills, but instead, focused on creative, collective and participatory experiences of popular education. The scope of this article is to investigate the role of popular education in experiences and policies of resistance, highlighting social movements and academic groups that, mainly in Latin America, defend the human right of people to create their own words, images and dreams. With this scope, I present in the seminar the experience of “Permanent Forum of Social Movement, Popular Education and Universities” that we are developing in Rio de Janeiro and the proposal of an international network with social movements and groups of popular education in Europe.

 

Do join us for this special event.