Event overview
2pm - Pedagogy and Technics - Seminar with David Smith, Roberto Cavallini. 5pm - Talk by Alberto Toscano "The Lures of Administration: Language, Cynicism and 'Resistance
2pm - Pedagogy and Technics - Seminar with David Smith, Roberto Cavallini.
The pedagogical act to be considered as a form of technics, an instrument, tool, or supplement that cannot, however, be categorically opposed to a supposedly natural form of being. The risk of pedagogy becoming a completely autonomous machine calls for a constant questioning of the relationship between technocracy and pedagogy.
5pm - Talk by Alberto Toscano "The Lures of Administration: Language, Cynicism and 'Resistance"
In spite of the proliferation of initiatives aimed at formulating a contemporary critical pedagogy, and the welcome resurgence of struggles around the university, much of our thinking remains hamstrung by rhetorical and intellectual habits developed over the last three decades or so, in the shadow of a then-buoyant neo-liberalism and in the wake of defeat and disillusionment for the radical left. A jargon of resistance has come to attain the status of a kind of linguistic reflex in the academic and artistic domains, suffusing everything with an air of political significance (or worse, 'criticality') while making it more and more difficult to ascertain where the resources of an oppositional thinking could lie. Often making inordinate claims for the transformative powers of thought and speech, this pervasive jargon can become an obstacle to the sober evaluation of what may or may not be of cultural, political and strategic significance in the present moment. Its optimism and boosterism allies it with the ever-present requirement to generate novelty, originality, value (and to compete), which drives the thinking and practice of contemporary management and administration. The cynical temptation to think that one can 'game' the system is great, especially when financial and status rewards are (were?) considerable. In this session, I want to think through the ways in which the contemporary experience of teaching and its various ideologies are caught up in the 'affirmative' and competitive logic of the market-oriented university, and to ask whether pedagogy contains any resources for developing forms of opposition to the current administration of knowledge and schooling.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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12 Sep 2010 | 2:00pm - 8:00pm |
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