Collective Intellectualities

Kenneth J. Saltman is Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. Ken’s work covers neoliberal privatization, politics of education, culture, and subjectivity in education through critical theory and critical educational tradition. He joins us on this episode of Collective Intellectualities to chat about his new book, The Alienation of Fact: Digital Educational Privatization, AI, and the False Promise of Bodies and Numbers, out now on MIT Press.

Links to selected works:
The Alienation of Fact: Digital Educational Privatization, AI, and the False Promise of Bodies and Numbers (MIT Press, 2022)
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544368/the-alienation-of-fact/

The Disaster of Resilience: Education, Digital Privatization, and Profiteering (Bloomsbury, 2023)
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/disaster-of-resilience-9781350342439/

Andrew Gibbons, Professor at the School of Education at Auckland University of Technology, joins us on this episode to discuss his work in relation to philosophy, policy, science fiction, and care. His research creatively and distinctively focuses on philosophy of education and growing teacher education programs that engage academic and community relationships beyond disciplinary boundaries. Andrew is involved in several professional organizations, including Association of Visual Pedagogies and Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA), and was recently named a PESA Fellow.

Links to recent works:

Childhood, Science Fiction, and Pedagogy: Children Ex Machina (edited by David W. Kupferman and Andrew Gibbons, Springer Nature, 2019)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6210-1 

Love and Education Beyond the Event Horizon: An Apology to Christopher Nolan (2023) in Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education, vol. 4

https://research.library.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=phil_research 

Expressions of Wai in ECE: Te Wai Pounamu. National Report to International Pilot Project 2022: Wash from the Start—Local Conditions for Children’s Access to Water

https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/media/documents/education-and-health/research/CWBI3455_ECE_Wai_Project_Report_WEB-(1).pdf 

The Negation of Babysitting: Deconstruction and Care in Early Childhood (2020) in Global Studies of Childhood, vol. 10, issue 4, as part of the themed issue, “Philosophies, Politics, and Pedagogies of Care in the Early Years”

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/gsca/10/4 

For today’s episode, we’ll be chatting with Neil Selwyn, who is a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. An internationally recognized scholar, Neil’s research focuses on digital education and technology. Neil’s recent projects explore data in schooling, digital labor, AI technologies, and sustainability in educational technology.

Links to recent works:

Digital degrowth: toward radically sustainable education technology (2023) in Learning, Media, and Technology

https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2022.2159978

The future of AI and education: Some cautionary notes (2022) in European Journal of Education

https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12532

Ed-Tech Within Limits: Anticipating educational technology in times of environmental crisis (2021) in E-Learning and Digital Media

https://doi.org/10.1177/20427530211022951

For this episode, we are sharing Keita Takayama’s talk originally given during the Department of Educational Foundations’ Fall 2022 Colloquium speaker series. Keita is Professor/Director for the Global Education Office in the Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Japan. His research examines the globalization of educational policy and knowledge from a decolonial/postcolonial perspective. In this talk, Keita provides a critical self-reflection of the work he does as a co-editor of two international journals in education and the tensions and contradictions that arise in relation to his own scholarship.

Mark Featherstone joins us for this episode of Collective Intellectualities. Mark is Professor of Social and Political Theory at Keele University, UK. He is author of Tocqueville’s Virus: Utopia and Dystopia in Western Social and Political Theory (Routledge, 2007), Planet Utopia: Utopia, Dystopia, and the Global Imaginary (Routledge, 2017), and editor of The Sociology of Debt (Policy, 2019), and Writing the Body Politic: A John O’Neill Reader (Routledge, 2019). He is also editor of Cultural Politics (Duke University Press). We chat about the disenchanted university, themes of utopia and dystopia, and how growing up in Hull in the 1970s influenced the direction of his research.

Links to select works:

Tocqueville’s Virus: Utopia and Dystopia in Western Social and Political Theory (Routledge, 2007)

https://www.routledge.com/Tocquevilles-Virus-Utopia-and-Dystopia-in-Western-Social-and-Political/Featherstone/p/book/9780415542470

Planet Utopia: Utopia, Dystopia, and the Global Imaginary (Routledge, 2017)

https://www.routledge.com/Planet-Utopia-Utopia-Dystopia-and-Globalisation/Featherstone/p/book/9780367864255

The Sociology of Debt (editor, Policy, 2019)

https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-sociology-of-debt

Writing the Body Politic: A John O’Neill Reader (editor, Routledge, 2019)

https://www.routledge.com/Writing-the-Body-Politic-A-John-ONeill-Reader/Featherstone-Kemple/p/book/9780367726805

For this episode, we’re joined by Petar Jandrić, Derek R. Ford, Michael A. Peters, and Sarah Hayes to discuss two books published in 2022: Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies (edited by Michael, Petar, and Sarah) and Postdigital Ecopedagogies: Genealogies, Contradictions, and Possible Futures (edited by Petar and Derek). We talk about bioinformational philosophy and biodigitalism, scholarly production within the knowledge economy, and what it means to think and act postdigitally. Petar is Professor at the Zagreb University of Applied Sciences, Croatia, and Visiting Professor at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, Derek is Associate Professor of Education Studies at DePauw, Sarah is Professor of Higher Education Policy in the Education Observatory at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, and we welcome back Michael, Distinguished Professor of Education at Beijing Normal University and Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois, from episode 11 to the show. The conversation from this episode was developed into an article, “The Postdigital-Biodigital Revolution,” in Postdigital Science and Education.

Links to works discussed:

Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies, edited by Michael A. Peters, Petar Jandrić, Sarah Hayes (2022, Springer)

https://link.springer.com/book/9783030950057

Postdigital Ecopedagogies: Genealogies, Contradictions, and Possible Futures, edited by Petar Jandrić, Derek R. Ford (2022, Springer)

https://link.springer.com/book/9783030972615

The Postdigital-Biodigital Revolution (2022) in Postdigital Science and Education

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00338-9

Jan McArthur, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University, joins us to discuss her recent article, “Critical Theory in a Decolonial Age,” in Educational Philosophy and Theory, which is also available on PESA Agora. Informed by critical theory and particularly Adorno, Jan’s work examines education, social justice, assessment, and higher education. 

Links to Jan’s work:

Critical theory in a decolonial age (2021) in Educational Philosophy and Theory
https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.1934670
https://pesaagora.com/epat/critical-theory-in-a-decolonial-age/

Towards a Moral University: Horkheimer's commitment to the ‘vicissitudes of human fate’ (2019) in Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education, 1(3), 131–151.
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/plg/ptihe/2019/00000001/00000003/art00008

Theodor Adorno: restless, fractured and uncomfortable thought (2020) in Philosophers of the University, edited by R. Barnett & A. Fulford (Springer).
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-31061-5_3

The inclusive university: A critical theory perspective using a recognition-based approach (2021) in Social Inclusion, 9(3).
https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v9i3.4122

Rethinking authentic assessment: work, wellbeing and society (2022) in Higher Education Online First
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00822-y

Wayne Au, Professor in the School of Educational Studies at the University of Washington-Bothell, joins us this episode to discuss the tensions present in the practice of multicultural and social justice education in the contemporary moment. Wayne’s scholarship and activism engages issues of critical education theory, race and class in schooling, and related educational policies, such as those policies that give rise to high-stakes testing and impact school curriculum. Wayne is an editor of the leading social justice publication Rethinking Schools and has authored or edited countless books and articles, including several that we discuss in this episode. Follow Wayne on Twitter @profwayneau.

Links to select works discussed:

A Pedagogy of Insurgency: Teaching and Organizing for Radical Racial Justice in Our Schools (2021) in Educational Studies

https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2021.1878181

A Marxist Education: Learning to Change the World (2018, Haymarket Books)

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1153-a-marxist-education

When Multicultural Education Is Not Enough (2017) in Multicultural Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2017.1331741

Teaching Under the New Taylorism: High‐Stakes Testing and the Standardization of the 21st Century Curriculum (2011) in Journal of Curriculum Studies

https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2010.521261

Unequal by Design: High-Stakes Testing and the Standardization of Inequality (2009, Routledge)

https://www.routledge.com/Unequal-By-Design-High-Stakes-Testing-and-the-Standardization-of-Inequality/Au-Au/p/book/9780415990714

Recognized internationally as a preeminent philosopher of education, Michael A. Peters’ contributions to the field are extensive, including over a hundred published books and more than several hundred articles or chapters. In addition to his current roles as Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University, Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University of Auckland, he is also Editor-in-Chief for Educational Philosophy and Theory and Co-Editor-in-Chief for Beijing International Review of Education. Michael joins us this episode to discuss the influence of Wittgenstein and Foucault on his work as well as recent research that examines knowledge socialism, post-truth, conspiracy, and avenues for peer production.

Visit Michael’s website at www.michaeladrianpeters.com and find links to selected recent works below.

Pandemic Education and Viral Politics

(2021, Routledge, with Tina Besley)

https://www.routledge.com/Pandemic-Education-and-Viral-Politics/Peters-Besley/p/book/9780367635404 

The Far-Right, Education and Violence: An Educational Philosophy and Theory Reader Volume IX 

(2021, Routledge, with Tina Besley)

https://www.routledge.com/The-Far-Right-Education-and-Violence-An-Educational-Philosophy-and-Theory/Peters-Besley/p/book/9780367562014 

Knowledge Socialism

The Rise of Peer Production: Collegiality, Collaboration, and Collective Intelligence

(2020, Springer, with Tina Besley, Petar Jandrić, and Xudong Zhu)

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-13-8126-3 

Wittgenstein, Education and the Problem of Rationality

(2020, Springer)

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-15-9972-9 

Jairus Grove joins us this episode to discuss his book, Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World. A radical departure from mainstream international relations, the book examines geopolitics through ecological theory while also contemplating on our current condition. Currently the Director of the Hawai‘i Research Center for Futures Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Jairus chats with us about philosophy, political violence, creativity and care, affirmation of difference, and the role of the university. 

Links to Jairus Grove’s work:

Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World (2019), Duke University Press

https://www.dukeupress.edu/savage-ecology 

Bringing the world back in: Revolutions and relations before and after the quantum event (2020) in Security Dialogue

https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010620940113 

From geopolitics to geotechnics: global futures in the shadow of automation, cunning machines, and human speciation (2020) in International Relations

https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117820948582