Emile Bojesen | University Of Winchester (original) (raw)
articles by Emile Bojesen
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2018
This paper does not present an advocacy of a passive education as opposed to an active education ... more This paper does not present an advocacy of a passive education as opposed to an active education nor does it propose that passive education is in any way ‘better’ or more important than active education. Through readings of Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida and B.S. Johnson, and gentle critiques of Jacques Rancière and John Dewey, passive education is instead described and outlined as an education which occurs whether we attempt it or not. As such, the object of critique for this essay are forms of educational thought which, through fate or design, exclude the passive dimension, either within or outside of formal educational settings. An underlying component of this argument is therefore also that education does occur outside of formal educational settings and that, contra Gert Biesta and his critique of ‘learnification’, we may gain rather than lose something by attending to it as education.
Educational Philosophy and Theory , 2019
his article introduces a form of ‘conversation’ distinct from dialogue or dialectic to the contex... more his article introduces a form of ‘conversation’ distinct from dialogue or dialectic to the context of educational theory, practice, and research. Through an engagement with the thought of Maurice Blanchot, this paper outlines the conditions he attributes to conversation in the form of plural speech, its relationship to research, how it can be educational, and speculatively concludes by considering how it can operate productively within and around educational institutions. As such, this paper provides an original intervention into educational philosophy and theory, which relies on a close reading of key sections of Blanchot's The Infinite Conversation, and reflections on the distinctiveness of his argument in relation to contemporary theoretical approaches, as well as the significance of his thought and its application here to the broader questions of what non-prescriptive theory might have to offer educational research and practice.
Against Value in the Arts and Education, 2016
Philosophy Today, 2015
This paper is an attempt to sketch out the conceptual possibility of what is given the name remua... more This paper is an attempt to sketch out the conceptual possibility of what is given the name remuant existence. That is to say, a changeable, restless and fickle existence. The word remuant, no longer in common use in the English language, is an adjective. Its meaning offered here is used to designate what will be considered the qualifying attribute of existence, which is to make the point that existence is remuant existence. Existence is a common noun and thereby grammatically a universal but if it cannot exist without being remuant its nominal universality is of no significance. The universality of existence does not mean anything; only remuant existence has meaning. The articulation of this concept, and those which are concomitant with it, is primarily an untangling of the remuant from the critique of presence and the subject offered by Jacques Derrida, whose influence remains visitant throughout.
Confero: Essays on Education, Philosophy and Politics, 2018
It is no secret that there is much to learn from masochism. But its lessons have yet to include t... more It is no secret that there is much to learn from masochism. But its lessons have yet to include the thought that educational relations might themselves be structured by a masochistic economy. Given that our claim for the existence of this economy is made from within the academy, care must be taken, unless the educational researchers who comment on it be considered exempt. Educational researchers are not above nor insulated from what they critique. Educational researchers actively participate in masochistic games of love and hate, pleasure and discomfort that define educational relationships. They participate directly as lovers and sufferers of education themselves, or indirectly by providing long, wearing critiques of education that function as so many reasons for disappointment. Everyday educators and educational researchers alike are tied, bound together, with the latter serving to reinforce this economy of pain by furnishing educators with a scholarly framework, an optional supplement, a pile of books, papers and reports within which they can somewhat pleasurably locate their suffering. But this is not all they achieve. In addition to providing lengthy disquisitions explaining what all educators already feel, and have long felt more acutely – namely, transposing into writing a sense of the ‘shitness’ of things – educational research helps sustain what it bemoans. It gives succour to that love of education, the educator’s love of what they do, that finds pleasure still in the discomfort and displeasure that education must necessarily produce. Educational research dignifies education with moral purpose and helps sustain our love for it by endlessly implying education must be worthy of morally informed critique and attention. We urge the reader to keep these discomforting ideas in mind, throughout the essay that follows.
Studies in Philosophy of Education, 2018
The primary purpose of this paper is to outline the conceptual means by which it is possible to b... more The primary purpose of this paper is to outline the conceptual means by which it is possible to be optimistic about education. To provide this outline I turn to Ian Hunter and David Blacker, after a brief introduction to Nietzsche’s conceptions of optimism and pessimism, to show why certain forms of optimism in education are either intellectually unhelpful or dispositionally helpless in the face of current educational issues. The alternative form of optimism—which I argue is both intellectually and practically helpful—is drawn from a reading of Friedrich Nietzsche. This reading of Nietzsche is not a simple exercise representing his views. As Nietzsche never explicitly advocated for any form of optimism—and frequently advocated against many of its manifestations—drawing what I call ‘a new version of optimism’ from his writings is no straightforward task, and certainly not without risk. As such, I have extended my readings of Nietzsche across his entire oeuvre, including his writings unintended for publication from his Nachlass. At the core of my argument is the claim that when Nietzsche was sketching out what he called ‘a new version of pessimism’ (Nietzsche in Writings from the late notebooks, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003: 173), it was actually quite close to what we might now call ‘a new version of optimism.’ This first claim precipitates a second, which is that this new version of optimism is not only especially suited to contemporary educational thought and practice but is itself a description of an educational experience and disposition.
Foro de Educación, 2018
Attempting to explore and push the margins of philosophy of education, this article describes Vir... more Attempting to explore and push the margins of philosophy of education, this article describes Virginia Woolf’s The Waves and its characters, staying inside the and observing the education of their consciousness. The description offered is limited to educational reflections on what happens, avoiding normative questions and concerns. However, the conclusion hints towards ways in which philosophers of education who are interested in normative questions and concerns might approach this text in ways which this article does not. The expressions used in this paper – dispositions, consciousness, unconscious– are gestural and figurative rather than exhaustive and scientific. The argument is not concerned with what these words mean in general but rather with what they might mean and might elucidate for educational thought in the context of reading The Waves. This article rejects the need to do something un-literary by comprehensively elucidating key concepts, saying why they are important, relating them to everyday life, and defending claims like «dispositions are in-educable». The educational resonances of the text itself are presented as evidence, context, and point of interest. Implicit to the argument of this paper is a critique of limited and institutionally biased conceptions of experience as education.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2015
This paper attempts to reintegrate the concept of plasticity into educational philosophy. Althoug... more This paper attempts to reintegrate the concept of plasticity into educational philosophy. Although John Dewey used the concept in Democracy and Education (1916) it has not generated much of a critical or practical legacy in educational thought. French philosopher, Catherine Malabou, is the first to think plasticity rigorously and seriously in a contemporary philosophical context and this paper outlines her thinking on it as well as considering its applicability to education. My argument is that her definition not only successfully reintroduces the concept in a way which is generative for contemporary educational philosophy and practice but that it also significantly extends the remit of educational plasticity as previously conceived by Dewey. This paper will examine the concept of educational plasticity as providing an opportunity as well as ‘the feeling of a new responsibility’ towards the plastic subject in philosophical approaches to education.
Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 2017
This paper argues that the political can respond to that which exceeds it without reducing it to ... more This paper argues that the political can respond to that which exceeds it without reducing it to the same, and that public education is one of the most important places where this can happen. I present a rationale for public education to assist that which exceeds the political: singularity, solitude and difference. What I maintain is that the political must welcome this excess, especially through public education, or else it would not be possible to provide the educational context for that which might be of significance to individuals without having socio-political value.
Ethics and Education, 2016
For Rousseau, there are only three things he does not reason away apart from reason itself: self-... more For Rousseau, there are only three things he does not reason away apart from reason itself: self-interest, the good and, at least until Emile, pity. This paper argues that it is Rousseau’s original formulation of pity in the Second Discourse that is able to provide the extra-rational conception of ethics that his political and educational philosophy lacks when limited to a reading of the Social Contract and Emile. This paper will also show how the reconceptualisation of these existential predicates is usefully aligned with a reading of Derrida’s conceptions of immunity and autoimmunity. By reconceiving Rousseau’s educational and political thinking in terms of the primacy of pity rather than reason, this paper will present a kind of philosophical prototype for beginning to rethink contemporary educational and political logic in terms of the primacy of pity more generally.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2016
This paper asks the question of how we can situate the educational subject in what Luciano Florid... more This paper asks the question of how we can situate the educational subject in what Luciano Floridi has defined as an ‘informational ontology’ (Floridi in The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011a). It will suggest that Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler offer paths toward rethinking the educational subject that lend themselves to an informational future, as well as speculating on how, with this knowledge, we can educate to best equip ourselves and others for our increasingly digital world. Jacques Derrida thought the concept of the subject was ‘indispensable’ (Derrida in The structuralist controversy: the languages of criticism and the sciences of man. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1970, 272) as a function but did not subscribe to or accept any particular theory of how a subject could be defined or developed because it was always situated in and as a context. Following Derrida, Bernard Stiegler explains in Technics and Time: 1 that ‘the relation binding the “who” and the “what” is invention’ (Stiegler in Technics and time 1: the fault of epimetheus. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998, 134). As such, the separation between self and world can be seen as artificial, including if this world is perceived wholly or partly as technological, digital or informational. If this is the case, a responsibility is placed on the educator and their part in ‘inventing’ this distinction (or its absence) for future generations. How this invention of the educational subject is negotiated is therefore one the many philosophical tasks for digital pedagogy.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2017
Informed by the work of the work of Michel Foucault, Ian Hunter, and Ansgar Allen, this paper arg... more Informed by the work of the work of Michel Foucault, Ian Hunter, and Ansgar Allen, this paper argues that I/MLEs are not the creation of a ‘modern’ or ‘innovative’ learning environment but rather the reclamation of an educational technique that was pioneered en masse almost two centuries ago (and based on practices many centuries older than that), where established pastoral methods were key to shaping particularly formed educated subjects. Drawing on work produced by the OECD, as well as UK and NZ education policies and school building design guidance, this argument couches two claims, the first of which is that whether or not education systems and school buildings are conforming to I/MLE models, the ubiquity of ideologically narrow conceptions of the learning subject are enforced regardless, through subtle or unsubtle means. However, the second claim is that, despite their overarching and unsurprising ideological homogeneity with other more outcome oriented forms of schooling, I/MLEs have the potential to offer a much more substantial formative experience than other schooling systems due to their implicit recovery of the traditional pastoral aspect of education.
Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 2017
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2019
Positive ignorance is the putting in to question of, and sometimes moving on from, the knowledge ... more Positive ignorance is the putting in to question of, and sometimes moving on from, the knowledge we think we have, and asking where it might be just or helpful to do so. Drawing primarily on the work of Barbara Johnson, this article shows how the notion of positive ignorance might be offered as a tool in the context of education and educational research. Partly a critical development of Richard Smith's argument in ‘The Virtues of Unknowing’, I attempt to understand ‘unknowing’ as an active rather than passive form of ‘not knowing’, in a manner that challenges some aspects of ‘the virtues of unknowing’ and its concomitant epistemological and ethical positions, not least those tied to Smith's advocacy for what he calls the ‘well‐stocked mind’. Unknowing, in my reading, is not a dispositional acceptance of the desirability of nonknowledge, instead, unknowing is a means of epistemological resistance, especially against that which, often with very real social and political consequences, is presented as self‐evident.
Angelaki, 2019
This paper argues against dominant philosophical interpretations of Melville’s Bartleby, the Scri... more This paper argues against dominant philosophical interpretations of Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener and submits it to an educational reading. It problematizes readings (such as those of Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, and the Occupy Movement) where the character of Bartleby figures a way of being that allows us to escape or challenge our contemporary political and educational exigencies. Our contention is that an encounter with Bartleby is not politically or educationally enabling, but provokes the Lawyer, despite himself, to encounter the unedifying limits of any educational practice and discourse, as well as his necessary complicity in the context that supports them. We argue that anyone interested in education or politics would do much better to scrutinize their unavoidable affinity with the Lawyer, instead of projecting fantasies of escape on the character of Bartleby, who, in the end, only figures a giving up on life.
The Variable Body in History, 2016
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2019
In this paper, we build on recent work on the role of the ‘utopian pedagogue’ to explore how utop... more In this paper, we build on recent work on the role of the ‘utopian pedagogue’ to explore how utopian thinking can be developed within contemporary higher education institutions. In defending a utopian orientation on the part of HE lecturers, we develop the notion of ‘minimal utopianism’; a notion which, we suggest, expresses the difficult position of critical educators concerned to offer their students the tools with which to imagine and explore alternatives to current social and political reality, while acknowledging the contingent ethical constraints of the system within which they and their students are working. While agreeing with utopian theorists such as Darren Webb who have defended the need for ‘blueprint utopias’ in education in the face of the reduction of the idea of utopia to a purely process-oriented pedagogy, our focus here is on the prior educational task of providing the conceptual and communicative tools for utopian thinking to emerge. The collaborative nature of this paper is reflected in the interdisciplinary sources on which we draw in developing our ideas, including moral philosophy, literary theory, political philosophy, anarchist theory and utopian studies.
Policy Futures in Education, 2018
Policy Futures in Education, 2019
While it is not Melinda Cooper's primary stated aim for Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and ... more While it is not Melinda Cooper's primary stated aim for Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism, her book is nonetheless helpful in avoiding what she locates as 'the trap of mobilizing a left neoliberalism against the regressive forces of social conservatism or a left social conservatism against the disintegrating effects of the free market.' (18). Ostensibly a book which convincingly shows how neoliberalism and new social conservatism are co-implicated in each other's survival and progress in the context of 20 th Century and contemporary capitalism, Family Values analyses both the theoretical and political histories of this Janus-face of capitalism, where 'In extremis, neoliberals must turn to the overt, neoconservative methodology of state-imposed, transcendent virtue to realize their dream of an immanent virtue ethics of the market.' (63). It shows how these two distinct discourses and ideologies are 'tethered together by a working relationship that is at once necessary and disavowed: as an ideology of power that only ever acknowledges its reliance on market mechanisms and their homologues, neoliberalism can only realize its objectives by proxy, that is by outsourcing the imposition of noncontractual obligations to social conservatives.' (63). In a manner which is both erudite and theoretically convincing, Cooper lays bare the sometimes surprising and always interesting intersections of neoliberalism and new social conservatism. These intersections are particularly apparent to Cooper in the conceptual and actual relationships between family, welfare, and inherited wealth.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2018
This paper does not present an advocacy of a passive education as opposed to an active education ... more This paper does not present an advocacy of a passive education as opposed to an active education nor does it propose that passive education is in any way ‘better’ or more important than active education. Through readings of Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida and B.S. Johnson, and gentle critiques of Jacques Rancière and John Dewey, passive education is instead described and outlined as an education which occurs whether we attempt it or not. As such, the object of critique for this essay are forms of educational thought which, through fate or design, exclude the passive dimension, either within or outside of formal educational settings. An underlying component of this argument is therefore also that education does occur outside of formal educational settings and that, contra Gert Biesta and his critique of ‘learnification’, we may gain rather than lose something by attending to it as education.
Educational Philosophy and Theory , 2019
his article introduces a form of ‘conversation’ distinct from dialogue or dialectic to the contex... more his article introduces a form of ‘conversation’ distinct from dialogue or dialectic to the context of educational theory, practice, and research. Through an engagement with the thought of Maurice Blanchot, this paper outlines the conditions he attributes to conversation in the form of plural speech, its relationship to research, how it can be educational, and speculatively concludes by considering how it can operate productively within and around educational institutions. As such, this paper provides an original intervention into educational philosophy and theory, which relies on a close reading of key sections of Blanchot's The Infinite Conversation, and reflections on the distinctiveness of his argument in relation to contemporary theoretical approaches, as well as the significance of his thought and its application here to the broader questions of what non-prescriptive theory might have to offer educational research and practice.
Against Value in the Arts and Education, 2016
Philosophy Today, 2015
This paper is an attempt to sketch out the conceptual possibility of what is given the name remua... more This paper is an attempt to sketch out the conceptual possibility of what is given the name remuant existence. That is to say, a changeable, restless and fickle existence. The word remuant, no longer in common use in the English language, is an adjective. Its meaning offered here is used to designate what will be considered the qualifying attribute of existence, which is to make the point that existence is remuant existence. Existence is a common noun and thereby grammatically a universal but if it cannot exist without being remuant its nominal universality is of no significance. The universality of existence does not mean anything; only remuant existence has meaning. The articulation of this concept, and those which are concomitant with it, is primarily an untangling of the remuant from the critique of presence and the subject offered by Jacques Derrida, whose influence remains visitant throughout.
Confero: Essays on Education, Philosophy and Politics, 2018
It is no secret that there is much to learn from masochism. But its lessons have yet to include t... more It is no secret that there is much to learn from masochism. But its lessons have yet to include the thought that educational relations might themselves be structured by a masochistic economy. Given that our claim for the existence of this economy is made from within the academy, care must be taken, unless the educational researchers who comment on it be considered exempt. Educational researchers are not above nor insulated from what they critique. Educational researchers actively participate in masochistic games of love and hate, pleasure and discomfort that define educational relationships. They participate directly as lovers and sufferers of education themselves, or indirectly by providing long, wearing critiques of education that function as so many reasons for disappointment. Everyday educators and educational researchers alike are tied, bound together, with the latter serving to reinforce this economy of pain by furnishing educators with a scholarly framework, an optional supplement, a pile of books, papers and reports within which they can somewhat pleasurably locate their suffering. But this is not all they achieve. In addition to providing lengthy disquisitions explaining what all educators already feel, and have long felt more acutely – namely, transposing into writing a sense of the ‘shitness’ of things – educational research helps sustain what it bemoans. It gives succour to that love of education, the educator’s love of what they do, that finds pleasure still in the discomfort and displeasure that education must necessarily produce. Educational research dignifies education with moral purpose and helps sustain our love for it by endlessly implying education must be worthy of morally informed critique and attention. We urge the reader to keep these discomforting ideas in mind, throughout the essay that follows.
Studies in Philosophy of Education, 2018
The primary purpose of this paper is to outline the conceptual means by which it is possible to b... more The primary purpose of this paper is to outline the conceptual means by which it is possible to be optimistic about education. To provide this outline I turn to Ian Hunter and David Blacker, after a brief introduction to Nietzsche’s conceptions of optimism and pessimism, to show why certain forms of optimism in education are either intellectually unhelpful or dispositionally helpless in the face of current educational issues. The alternative form of optimism—which I argue is both intellectually and practically helpful—is drawn from a reading of Friedrich Nietzsche. This reading of Nietzsche is not a simple exercise representing his views. As Nietzsche never explicitly advocated for any form of optimism—and frequently advocated against many of its manifestations—drawing what I call ‘a new version of optimism’ from his writings is no straightforward task, and certainly not without risk. As such, I have extended my readings of Nietzsche across his entire oeuvre, including his writings unintended for publication from his Nachlass. At the core of my argument is the claim that when Nietzsche was sketching out what he called ‘a new version of pessimism’ (Nietzsche in Writings from the late notebooks, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003: 173), it was actually quite close to what we might now call ‘a new version of optimism.’ This first claim precipitates a second, which is that this new version of optimism is not only especially suited to contemporary educational thought and practice but is itself a description of an educational experience and disposition.
Foro de Educación, 2018
Attempting to explore and push the margins of philosophy of education, this article describes Vir... more Attempting to explore and push the margins of philosophy of education, this article describes Virginia Woolf’s The Waves and its characters, staying inside the and observing the education of their consciousness. The description offered is limited to educational reflections on what happens, avoiding normative questions and concerns. However, the conclusion hints towards ways in which philosophers of education who are interested in normative questions and concerns might approach this text in ways which this article does not. The expressions used in this paper – dispositions, consciousness, unconscious– are gestural and figurative rather than exhaustive and scientific. The argument is not concerned with what these words mean in general but rather with what they might mean and might elucidate for educational thought in the context of reading The Waves. This article rejects the need to do something un-literary by comprehensively elucidating key concepts, saying why they are important, relating them to everyday life, and defending claims like «dispositions are in-educable». The educational resonances of the text itself are presented as evidence, context, and point of interest. Implicit to the argument of this paper is a critique of limited and institutionally biased conceptions of experience as education.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2015
This paper attempts to reintegrate the concept of plasticity into educational philosophy. Althoug... more This paper attempts to reintegrate the concept of plasticity into educational philosophy. Although John Dewey used the concept in Democracy and Education (1916) it has not generated much of a critical or practical legacy in educational thought. French philosopher, Catherine Malabou, is the first to think plasticity rigorously and seriously in a contemporary philosophical context and this paper outlines her thinking on it as well as considering its applicability to education. My argument is that her definition not only successfully reintroduces the concept in a way which is generative for contemporary educational philosophy and practice but that it also significantly extends the remit of educational plasticity as previously conceived by Dewey. This paper will examine the concept of educational plasticity as providing an opportunity as well as ‘the feeling of a new responsibility’ towards the plastic subject in philosophical approaches to education.
Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 2017
This paper argues that the political can respond to that which exceeds it without reducing it to ... more This paper argues that the political can respond to that which exceeds it without reducing it to the same, and that public education is one of the most important places where this can happen. I present a rationale for public education to assist that which exceeds the political: singularity, solitude and difference. What I maintain is that the political must welcome this excess, especially through public education, or else it would not be possible to provide the educational context for that which might be of significance to individuals without having socio-political value.
Ethics and Education, 2016
For Rousseau, there are only three things he does not reason away apart from reason itself: self-... more For Rousseau, there are only three things he does not reason away apart from reason itself: self-interest, the good and, at least until Emile, pity. This paper argues that it is Rousseau’s original formulation of pity in the Second Discourse that is able to provide the extra-rational conception of ethics that his political and educational philosophy lacks when limited to a reading of the Social Contract and Emile. This paper will also show how the reconceptualisation of these existential predicates is usefully aligned with a reading of Derrida’s conceptions of immunity and autoimmunity. By reconceiving Rousseau’s educational and political thinking in terms of the primacy of pity rather than reason, this paper will present a kind of philosophical prototype for beginning to rethink contemporary educational and political logic in terms of the primacy of pity more generally.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2016
This paper asks the question of how we can situate the educational subject in what Luciano Florid... more This paper asks the question of how we can situate the educational subject in what Luciano Floridi has defined as an ‘informational ontology’ (Floridi in The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011a). It will suggest that Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler offer paths toward rethinking the educational subject that lend themselves to an informational future, as well as speculating on how, with this knowledge, we can educate to best equip ourselves and others for our increasingly digital world. Jacques Derrida thought the concept of the subject was ‘indispensable’ (Derrida in The structuralist controversy: the languages of criticism and the sciences of man. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1970, 272) as a function but did not subscribe to or accept any particular theory of how a subject could be defined or developed because it was always situated in and as a context. Following Derrida, Bernard Stiegler explains in Technics and Time: 1 that ‘the relation binding the “who” and the “what” is invention’ (Stiegler in Technics and time 1: the fault of epimetheus. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998, 134). As such, the separation between self and world can be seen as artificial, including if this world is perceived wholly or partly as technological, digital or informational. If this is the case, a responsibility is placed on the educator and their part in ‘inventing’ this distinction (or its absence) for future generations. How this invention of the educational subject is negotiated is therefore one the many philosophical tasks for digital pedagogy.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2017
Informed by the work of the work of Michel Foucault, Ian Hunter, and Ansgar Allen, this paper arg... more Informed by the work of the work of Michel Foucault, Ian Hunter, and Ansgar Allen, this paper argues that I/MLEs are not the creation of a ‘modern’ or ‘innovative’ learning environment but rather the reclamation of an educational technique that was pioneered en masse almost two centuries ago (and based on practices many centuries older than that), where established pastoral methods were key to shaping particularly formed educated subjects. Drawing on work produced by the OECD, as well as UK and NZ education policies and school building design guidance, this argument couches two claims, the first of which is that whether or not education systems and school buildings are conforming to I/MLE models, the ubiquity of ideologically narrow conceptions of the learning subject are enforced regardless, through subtle or unsubtle means. However, the second claim is that, despite their overarching and unsurprising ideological homogeneity with other more outcome oriented forms of schooling, I/MLEs have the potential to offer a much more substantial formative experience than other schooling systems due to their implicit recovery of the traditional pastoral aspect of education.
Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 2017
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2019
Positive ignorance is the putting in to question of, and sometimes moving on from, the knowledge ... more Positive ignorance is the putting in to question of, and sometimes moving on from, the knowledge we think we have, and asking where it might be just or helpful to do so. Drawing primarily on the work of Barbara Johnson, this article shows how the notion of positive ignorance might be offered as a tool in the context of education and educational research. Partly a critical development of Richard Smith's argument in ‘The Virtues of Unknowing’, I attempt to understand ‘unknowing’ as an active rather than passive form of ‘not knowing’, in a manner that challenges some aspects of ‘the virtues of unknowing’ and its concomitant epistemological and ethical positions, not least those tied to Smith's advocacy for what he calls the ‘well‐stocked mind’. Unknowing, in my reading, is not a dispositional acceptance of the desirability of nonknowledge, instead, unknowing is a means of epistemological resistance, especially against that which, often with very real social and political consequences, is presented as self‐evident.
Angelaki, 2019
This paper argues against dominant philosophical interpretations of Melville’s Bartleby, the Scri... more This paper argues against dominant philosophical interpretations of Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener and submits it to an educational reading. It problematizes readings (such as those of Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, and the Occupy Movement) where the character of Bartleby figures a way of being that allows us to escape or challenge our contemporary political and educational exigencies. Our contention is that an encounter with Bartleby is not politically or educationally enabling, but provokes the Lawyer, despite himself, to encounter the unedifying limits of any educational practice and discourse, as well as his necessary complicity in the context that supports them. We argue that anyone interested in education or politics would do much better to scrutinize their unavoidable affinity with the Lawyer, instead of projecting fantasies of escape on the character of Bartleby, who, in the end, only figures a giving up on life.
The Variable Body in History, 2016
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2019
In this paper, we build on recent work on the role of the ‘utopian pedagogue’ to explore how utop... more In this paper, we build on recent work on the role of the ‘utopian pedagogue’ to explore how utopian thinking can be developed within contemporary higher education institutions. In defending a utopian orientation on the part of HE lecturers, we develop the notion of ‘minimal utopianism’; a notion which, we suggest, expresses the difficult position of critical educators concerned to offer their students the tools with which to imagine and explore alternatives to current social and political reality, while acknowledging the contingent ethical constraints of the system within which they and their students are working. While agreeing with utopian theorists such as Darren Webb who have defended the need for ‘blueprint utopias’ in education in the face of the reduction of the idea of utopia to a purely process-oriented pedagogy, our focus here is on the prior educational task of providing the conceptual and communicative tools for utopian thinking to emerge. The collaborative nature of this paper is reflected in the interdisciplinary sources on which we draw in developing our ideas, including moral philosophy, literary theory, political philosophy, anarchist theory and utopian studies.
Policy Futures in Education, 2018
Policy Futures in Education, 2019
While it is not Melinda Cooper's primary stated aim for Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and ... more While it is not Melinda Cooper's primary stated aim for Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism, her book is nonetheless helpful in avoiding what she locates as 'the trap of mobilizing a left neoliberalism against the regressive forces of social conservatism or a left social conservatism against the disintegrating effects of the free market.' (18). Ostensibly a book which convincingly shows how neoliberalism and new social conservatism are co-implicated in each other's survival and progress in the context of 20 th Century and contemporary capitalism, Family Values analyses both the theoretical and political histories of this Janus-face of capitalism, where 'In extremis, neoliberals must turn to the overt, neoconservative methodology of state-imposed, transcendent virtue to realize their dream of an immanent virtue ethics of the market.' (63). It shows how these two distinct discourses and ideologies are 'tethered together by a working relationship that is at once necessary and disavowed: as an ideology of power that only ever acknowledges its reliance on market mechanisms and their homologues, neoliberalism can only realize its objectives by proxy, that is by outsourcing the imposition of noncontractual obligations to social conservatives.' (63). In a manner which is both erudite and theoretically convincing, Cooper lays bare the sometimes surprising and always interesting intersections of neoliberalism and new social conservatism. These intersections are particularly apparent to Cooper in the conceptual and actual relationships between family, welfare, and inherited wealth.