Derek R. Ford

Toward a theory of the educational encounter: Gert Biesta’s educational theory and the right to the city

This paper outlines a theory of the educational encounter, the space of, and the right to that encounter. Situated in response to neoliberal educational reforms, this theory is developed through a reading and synthesis of the educational theory of Gert Biesta, the architectural component of his theory, and literature on the right to the city. The author argues that the notion of the encounter is latent yet central in Biesta’s work and that it can be further cultivated and more precisely attended to by turning to theoretical work on the right to the city, which is engaged here primarily through the lens of the encounter. Several themes are drawn out from the literature that can help in formulating a theory of the educational encounter such as the habitat/inhabit dialectic, the use/use-value/exchange-value framework of space, and the role of struggle in the production and maintenance of space.

A Pedagogy for Space: Teaching, Learning, and Studying in the Baltimore Rebellion

While most educational literature on space has tended to ask what spatial studies can offer education, this article works primarily to educationalize theories of space. It does so by homing in on Henri Lefebvre’s theorization of the production of space as a potentially revolutionary activity. After spending some time situating Lefebvre’s historical and theoretical analysis, it takes his understanding of the production of space as an educational problematic, and in turn seeks to develop a spatial educational theory and a pedagogy for space, the latter being the mobilization of the former. In particular, I propose to augment Lefebvre’s spatial triad of (1) spatial practice, (2) representations of space, and (3) representational spaces with an educational triad of (1) teaching, (2) learning, and (3) studying. I propose that each component needs to be held in a precarious, contingent, and dialectical relation. In order to ask more precisely after this relationship and to grasp how we might deploy this educational theory to understand and produce space, I read the theory through the Baltimore Rebellion of 2015. I contend that the Baltimore Rebellion was a struggle over the space of the city, and that it was a deeply pedagogical affair that entailed the orchestration of teaching, learning, and studying.

Studying like a communist: Affect, the Party, and the educational limits to capitalism

Abstract In an effort to theorize educational logics that are oppositional to capitalism, this article explores what it means to study like a communist. I begin by drawing out the tight connection between learning and capitalism, demonstrating that education is not a subset but a motor of political-economic relations. Next, I turn to the concept of study, which is being developed as an educational alternative to learning. While studying represents an educational challenge to capitalism, I argue that there are political limitations to studying for which we need to account. Specifically, studying is not in itself political, but only represents the possibility of politics. To make this claim and to address these limitations, I turn to Jodi Dean’s work on the communist Party. Dean posits the Party not as a master, director, or prophet, but as an infrastructure of affective intensity that maintains a gap in the order of things. I show that the Party is one way to organize and to defend study. Throughout the article, I illuminate the ways in which educational philosophers can contribute to political movement building by showing, developing, and refining the educational components of politics that many organizers and theorists neglect.

Spatializing Marxist Educational Theory: School, the Built Environment, Fixed Capital and (Relational) Space

Over the last two decades, educational theory has begun to incorporate analyses of space where formerly temporal considerations dominated. In this article, Marxist educational theory is spatialized by considering the school as (1) a form of fixed capital, (2) a crucial aspect of the built environment and (3) a relational space. The author begins by sketching Marxist educational theory, relying heavily on the work of Glenn Rikowski. Critically taking up Rikowskis call to center the social reproduction of the labor power in educational analysis, he moves to an exploration of the role that space plays in this process, concentrating primarily on work by Marx and David Harvey. This spatialization helps to ground the current struggles over educational standardization and privatization within a broader critique of the capitalist mode of production.

The Pneumatic Common: Learning in, with and from the air

Abstract Air is an immersive substance that envelopes us and binds us together, yet it has dominantly been taken for granted and left out of educational and other theorizations. This article develops a conceptualization of the pneumatic common in order to address this gap. The specific intervention staged is within recent educational literature on the common by Noah De Lissovoy, Tyson E. Lewis, and Alexander Means. This literature is surveyed and analyzed in relation to educational theory, curriculum, pedagogy, and policy. Claiming that the air is a central feature of and paradigm for the common, I then concentrate on making the air conditions of the educational common explicit. I do this through a theoretical, historical, and sociological reading of air conditioning. While this explicitation is itself educational, I return to the educational common at the end of the article to ask how and what we can learn in, with, and from the air.

A Critical Pedagogy of Ineffability: Identity, Education and the Secret Life of Whatever.

Abstract In this article I bring Giorgio Agamben’s notion of ‘whatever singularity’ into critical pedagogy. I take as my starting point the role of identity within critical pedagogy. I call upon Butler to sketch the debates around the mobilization of identity for political purposes and, conceding the contingent necessity of identity, then suggest that whatever singularity can be helpful in moving critical pedagogy from an emancipatory to a liberatory project (a distinction I take from Marx). To articulate whatever singularity I situate the concept within the work in which it appears, and then take a detour into Agamben’s general philosophical project. I propose that, for critical pedagogy to take whatever singularity seriously, it must uphold a respect for the ineffability of being, which entails in part the suspension of dialogue. To help flesh out what I mean by this proposal, I turn to a fragment of Lyotard’s philosophy and his critique of democracy. I conclude by addressing a pressing ontological critique of Agamben, which leads me to argue for a materialist appropriation of the figure of whatever singularity, one that is held in tension with ontological concerns of identity.

Queer Communist Study: The Sinthomostudier against the Capital-Debt-Learning Regime.

ABSTRACT Presenting the current mode of production as a triumvirate of capital, learning, and debt, I argue that a certain education and rhythm reinforce exploitation and domination. I propose queer communist study to break out of this regime. I first turn to Lee Edelmans polemic against reproductive futurism, which commits us to the logic of identity, meaning, and repetition. Through mining and explicating Edelmans dispersed notes on education and pedagogy, I formulate the practice of sinthomostudying, which paradoxically situates us within the gap of identity and the internal surplus of the Symbolic order. The jouissance of sinthomostudying opens up a world of potentiality, but these potentialities do not necessarily stand in antagonism to the capital-debt-learning regime. This is a necessary but insufficient educational axiom as the configurations of communicative capitalism are sustained by the disruption and instability of the drive. Thus, I ultimately posit that for queer study to be communist it must be organized into a force capable of sustaining, inhabiting, and expanding the gap of identity, thereby redirecting the death drive toward a new way of being and relating.

Introduction: Toward an Educational Commons

The present historical moment is one of profound challenges and contradictions. A consolidation of global power has emerged amid a stark fragmentation of everyday life and organized forms of resistance. New modes of alienation from community proliferate alongside an intensification of digital connectivity, while the acceleration of socio-ecologically unsustainable capitalist modernization sharply contrasts with stultifying inertia in realizing viable alternatives. Within this context, reclaiming and redefining a global commons and commonality acquire a new energy and urgency.

Don’t Bring Truth to a Gunfight: Pedagogy, Force, and Decision

Many are in shock that today in politics truth doesn’t seem to matter. This analysis misses the mark: politics was never about a correspondence with an existing truth, but about the formulation of a new truth. The contemporary moment thus offers up an important opportunity to reclaim the nature of the political, to develop new political positions on that basis and, most importantly, to assert those politics. This is a deeply pedagogical task, but it is one to which critical forms of education aren’t suited. In this chapter, I draw on Lyotard and Dean to present a particular reading of the “post-truth” era. I locate the “post-truth” within what I term democratic communicative capitalism, which I argue traps the Left in a pattern of critique and exposition. To get out of this impasse, however, I contend that we don’t need to prove a truth, but assert one. Politics is, after all, about the materialization of new truths. In sum, I proffer that what the Left needs right now is clarity, organization, imagination, and force.

US sovereignty must not be defended: Critical education against Russiagate

Peters (2018) has correctly noted that the election of Trump has ushered in a new war against academia. And yet it seems that critical scholars in academia have yet to respond in kind. They are ins...