Joff P. N. Bradley

Fukushima : The Geo-Trauma of a Futural Wave

Abstract: The enduring effects of the March 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan are explored in this paper through the notions of “geo-trauma” in the authors’ work and geophilosophy in Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy. At the fulcrum of the 2011 global disaster was the nuclear meltdown and the emittance of radioactive material such as Caesium-137 and Strontium-90. This event mattered and matters, dispersing and deterritorializing organic, non-organic, and anorganic life in all of its articulations. In the wake of the singularity of Fukushima and the Anthropocene epoch more generally, it is timely to ruminate upon in what way this event as a futural wave makes “us” as the present generation both responsible for and part of the ongoing Fukushima meltdown. The questions that Fukushima provokes are not about the specific clean-up operation and environmental impacts around the plant, but more about how we can understand Fukushima as an event in nuclear history, or a singularity of “geo-trauma.” The folly of Fukushima and its aftermath, points to something fundamental about the Anthropocene, in the sense that the interconnected patterning that one may derive from the site of the disaster, gives new life to understanding the darker/non-human sides of ecology, the media, the unconscious, contamination, and space. The posthumanism of Deleuze and Guattari combined with the extinctional impetus of the Anthropocene will drive this analysis forward in terms of uncovering new forms of understanding about the Earth, World, territory, land, and Nature.

Stiegler Contra Robinson: On the hyper-solicitation of youth

Abstract This paper examines the affective disorders plaguing many young people and the problem of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in particular. It aims to define the limits of the critique of British educationalist Sir Ken Robinson in terms of his philosophy of ‘creativity’ through a consideration of the ideas of French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, especially the notions of ‘industrial temporal objects’ and stupidity (bêtise). It makes the case for adopting elements of each distinct research paradigm as a prolegomena to forging a social critique of capitalist-dominated, market-led educational institutions. The former, it will be seen, identifies some of the problems facing teachers in terms of the use and application of technology, the false divide between arts and the humanities, but falls short of explaining the root of the structural and psychic malaise in neo-liberal regimes regarding classroom breakdown in general. The latter, despite the apocalyptic tone of some his pronouncements provides an update and radicalization of Deleuze’s societies of control thesis in terms of what Stiegler designates ‘uncontrollable societies’. Stiegler, it will be seen, presents a critique of technology that is all the more pressing in an age in which the loss of expectation in the lives of young people can lead to a corresponding fall off or destruction in ‘deep attention’. I want to test the hyperbole of Stiegler’s assertion that young people today suffer from a ‘colossal’ attention deficit disorder of unprecedented scale and magnitude.

A Pedagogy of Cinema

A Pedagogy of Cinema is the first book to apply Deleuze’s concept of cinema to the pedagogic context. Cinema is opened up by this action from the straightforward educative analysis of film, to the systematic unfolding of image. A Pedagogy of Cinema explores what it means to engender cinema-thinking from image. This book does not overlay images from films with an educational approach to them, but looks to the images themselves to produce philosophy. This approach to utilising image in education is wholly new, and has the potential to transform classroom practice with respect to teaching and learning about cinema. The authors have carefully chosen specific examples of images to illustrate such transformational processes, and have fitted them into in depth analysis that is derived from the images. The result is a combination of image and text that advances the field of cinema study for and in education with a philosophical intent.

Educational Philosophy and ‘New French Thought’

One could argue that the greatest challenge for the philosophy of education today is to stake its claim amidst the increasing prominence and competitive nature of evidence-based and profit-motivated theories of education. On one side of this point of contention are philosophies of education that owe their heritage to the analytical and empiricist mindset, on the other are those that may be derived from what can be broadly termed continental philosophy and the specific endeavour to develop theory. In the contemporary, globalised situation, where the philosophy of education needs to be appropriate for non-European and non-‘developed’ milieux, the demand to find alternative modes of enquiry is more palpable than ever. It is to ‘New French Thought’ that the editors of this special edition have turned in the hope that some of the tensions, dilemmas and complexities of the current sociopolitical situation may be understood, and a new philosophy of education may be fashioned from an array of contemporary French thinkers. It is anticipated that the new thought that one may derive from France will not allay the clamour for evidence-based claims in education, but it could open up novel avenues for thought, whereby the impasse to non-thought and the obsequy of the philosophy of education may be mitigated. Firstly, what is ‘new’ about the French thought of this collection, and how may it be defined? Foucault (1998) has asserted that recent French philosophy could be read as being divided on two separate lines: on one, there is a philosophical position that takes individual experience as its starting point, conceiving it as irreducible to science (existentialist or phenomenological). On the other, there is an analysis of knowledge which takes into account the real productions of the mind, as are found in science and human practices (empiricist). What is notable about this special edition of Educational Philosophy and Theory is how each thinker has attempted to broach, contest and rethink these positions—and this is what makes this philosophy ‘new’. In 2010, Alexander R. Galloway proposed a series of lectures called: ‘French Theory Today: An Introduction to Possible Futures’, through the Public School in New York, a selforganising educational programme where class ideas are generated by the public. The new French theorists that were covered in this course were: Catherine Malabou, Bernard Stiegler, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, Quentin Meillassoux and François Laruelle. This special edition of Educational Philosophy and Theory takes the ideas and philosophical constructions of these thinkers and others and applies them to

Afterword: Zhibo, Existential Territory, Inter-Media-Mundia

In undertaking transversal research into the problems of contemporary Japanese urban life, we shall critically examine the production of subjectivities pertaining to live streaming. This is undertaken to conceptualize the changing nature of subjectivity and social relations in contemporary transnational and transcultural capitalism. We shall look to Felix Guattari’s semiotic theory to interpret the era of Integrated World Capitalism (IWC). For Guattari, the production of subjectivity is pivotal to explaining the functioning of contemporary capitalism. As he claimed in his lifetime, subjectivity has become the number one objective of contemporary, capitalist society. Contra the trend to exploit subjectivity for monetary gain, Guattari’s goal is to identify mutant nuclei of subjectification which may engender a change in the order of things. His work is applied to new communication technologies like live streaming (Zhibo) to account for the existential breakdowns and breakthroughs which may ensue for individuals who use these technologies. Bradley has designated this as the Zerrissenheit or torn-to-pieces-hood of subjectivity (Bradley in Tamkang Review, 44(2): 37–62, 2014).

On Philosophical and Institutional “Blinkers”: SOAS and Transversal Worldviews

In the wake of the report “Degrees of Racism” on the attitudes of Black and minority ethnic students attending the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London—(BME Attainment Gap project, 2016)—and the resultant verdict of the students’ union at the university on the realities and prospects of a “decolonized education,” this chapter, with the concept of transversality operating at its core, reflects not only on the possibility of writing contra “epistemic violence” via a transversal curriculum but also how one might compose a philosophy of education consistent with such a task. Transversality is pitched as a tool to critique non-inclusive curricula. The chapter aims to set out “lines of flight” for what can be termed a transversal geophilosophy of education, whose aim is to connect the practical problems of a transversal curriculum and the abstract philosophy of education that springs from it. We shall make the case that transversality cannot be thought of as anything other than outlandish—so from precept to precedent, the very premise of transversality is transformatory and radical, which is to say, it grasps the matter at the root of itself.

Educational ills and the (im)possibility of utopia

The idea for this special issue on utopia and educational philosophy flashed into the mind from a serendipitous confluence of historical events, the primary of which was the 500th anniversary of th...

Exhausted philosophy and islands-to-come

Abstract Drawing on an array of sources, from Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy (schizoanalysis) through to non-philosophy (cinema, literature), this paper concerns itself with the manifestation of the concepts of hope and despair in utopian thought and continental philosophy and the experience of hopelessness, despair and exhaustion in the contemporary moment. I aim to demonstrate such pressing concerns through a comparison of Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani and Japanese fiction writer Ryū Murakami with the American science fiction-thriller film directed by Michael Bay, The Island. What is explored in these works is the dialectic of exhaustion and possibility. The focus of the paper is on the fecund moment inhering in the incapacity of thought to think the possibility of utopia. In terms of the philosophy of education, this hones in on the perceived lack of vision of such a possibility among youth and the failure of the university qua institution to proffer an alternative world to its cohort. To demonstrate this, the paper contrasts both ‘affirmative, transcendent, and authoritarian utopias’ (‘ignoble’ utopias as philosopher Gilles Deleuze calls them) and the possibility of ‘immanent, revolutionary, libertarian utopias’—which we shall consider in terms of ‘absolute reterritorialization’.

Congruent Theories of Time, Image and Education

What does ‘a pedagogy of cinema’ tell us about contemporary life as defined by globalisation? And how does ‘a pedagogy of cinema’ (re)invent theory? This chapter works by reimagining a theory of globalisation and education through the pedagogic notion of cinema, and the analysis of images that underpins this book. The variant metaphysical, ontological and epistemological constructions in this section rely on images from the films: ‘Brazil’, 2018Memento’, ‘Snowpiercer’ and ‘Melancholia’ (Figures 67–82).

Conclusion to ‘A Pedagogy of Cinema’

What are we left with in terms of the analysis of ‘a pedagogy of cinema’, and where does this book point to? This chapter is a culminating act, and provides educational insight into what thinking through the images that have been congealed by a concept of cinema can tell us. Furthermore, this section, that makes the case for movement in visual thought in and through a confluence of images, leads to the deepest question to be considered by ‘a pedagogy of cinema’, which is: What does image analysis reveal about value? The question of value acts as a pivotal and final aspect of the connection between the inside and outside of cinema-thinking that strafes this book through ‘a pedagogy of cinema’.