Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Convicted felon and former U Louisville ed school dean Robert Felner to be released from federal prison today

Cross-posted from Workplace Blog:


Robert Felner, former dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville and convicted felon, is schedule to be released from federal prison today.

Felner was sentenced to 63 months in prison for his role in defrauding the U of L and the University of Rhode Island of $2.3 million of US Department of Education funds earmarked for No Child Left Behind Act research.

The U of L reported suspected fraud to federal officials and, in June 2008, on Felner’s last day of work at U of L, federal officers conducted simultaneous raids on the U of L College of Education and Human Development and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, where Felner had accepted the presidency and was in the process of moving. The investigation involved the US Secret Service, US Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service.

In January 2010, Felner pleaded guilty to nine Federal charges, including income tax evasion.

For a refresher course on the felonious Felner see PageOneKentucky.com’ summary of events. For a full course of Felner on PageOneKentucky click here. (Shout out to Jake at PageOneKentucky for excellent investigative reporting on Felner and the U of L.)

For Workplace Blog coverage of Felner click here.

Here is a Louisville Courier-Journal profile of Felner: Robert Felner profile: Arrogant, outrageous, abusive and duplicitous.

A couple of footnotes to the Felner Story:

(1) Los Angeles school superintendent, John Deasy, has had his academic credentials called into question. Deasy was given a PhD by the University of Louisville after he was enrolled for four months and received a total of nine credits. Deasy’s doctoral advisor was Robert Felner. Deasy had previously awarded $375,000 in consulting contracts to Felner, while Deasy was Superintendent of Santa Monica schools.

(2) U of L has been making double retirement payouts to administrators in exchange for their silence.

Records show that the school paid a full year’s salary to outgoing vice presidents Michael Curtin ($252,350) and Larry Owsley ($248,255) and to assistant to the president Vivian Hibbs ($66,391) to induce them not to “disparage, demean or impugn the university or its senior leadership.”

And last month U of L made a $346,000.00 settlement with Angela Kosawha:

The University of Louisville is paying another large settlement in connection with the retirement of a high-ranking official — this time, $346,844 to its top lawyer. University counsel Angela Koshewa is on a three-month leave of absence before she officially retires June 1. Documents obtained under the Kentucky Open Records Act show the university is paying Koshewa — who has questioned some expenditures and proposals backed by President James Ramsey and Dr. David Dunn, the executive vice president for Health Affairs — twice her final salary.

Current U of L President James Ramsey and Provost Shirley Willihnganz are the same campus officials who hired Robert Felner, and defended him when he was initially charged with defrauding the university.

Page 2 — The weird saga of how the BC Ministry of Education funded a teenager to study Finnish teacher education

Hello British Columbians, stand by for news!

As Paul Harvey used to say, now it’s time for “Page 2,” in the weird saga of the $16,000 sole-sourced “research” contract handed out by Rick Davis, the BC Ministry of Education’s “superintendent of achievement,” to a recent high school grad so she could travel to Finland to study teacher education, “from a student’s perspective.” But something tells me we’ll have to wait for the “rest of the story.”

If your memory needs some refreshing check out out the original Vancouver Sun story, Janet Steffenhagen’s blog post, and Where The Blog Has No Name posts (here and here) from when the story first broke.

A big shoutout to Jordan Bateman, the BC Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation who today put the story back into play along with 115 pages of documents the CTF received as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request in an attempt to get to the bottom of why BC Liberals would give two research contracts to Anjali Vyas, an 18 year-old with no qualifications as a researcher, to spend 10 months conducting a “study” of teacher education practices at the University of Victoria and the University of Helsinki (with a 3 day stop over in London for a little holiday).

In his post on the CTF blog today, Bateman adds the following elements to the story:

1. The origin stories don’t match. Anjali Vyas told the Sun that she was deejaying her friend’s wedding when she somehow met Davis and started talking education philosophy. “We instantly hit it off and he was so interested in my project,” Vyas said.

But the emails in our possession leave a different impression. On page 11, a document that appears to have been prepared by Davis claims, “Anjali came to the attention of Rick Davis… she was referred by her teacher to him with the expectation that Mr. Davis may be able to narrow in the central questions around teacher education.” This was reinforced in an email from Anjali to Rick (page 88): “[Anjali’s teacher] Gord mentioned he had talked to you, and that I should get in touch with you [in] regards to my research… I was hoping to meet with you sometime soon and further discuss how this research could benefit not only my own knowledge of educational systems, but more importantly, it could illuminate some new and innovative ideas the BC government could implement.”

2. Rick Davis seems very unhappy with bureaucracy. Normally, I’d agree with cutting red tape in government, but rules that prevent sole-sourced contracts to 18 year olds seem pretty wise to me. In one email to Anjali (p. 34), he writes: “Have not forgotten but waiting for a few things to land on the contract front. Will call soon. It is really difficult in government to do things out of the box – but fun!” In another email to Anjali (p. 43), he writes: “You are on new turf. Cool but a little scary but you have lots of us close at hand.” In that same email, he compares Anjali to a historic, young explorer in charge of his own ship: “That is your destiny.”

3. Rick Davis funnels the money to the Saanich school district and has them contract Anjali Vyas (pp. 54, 57 and 115). Further, he has the Teacher Regulation Branch pay for her airfare to Finland (pp. 50 and 89).

4. When confusion arises that somehow the University of Victoria is sanctioning the Vyas project, UVic makes it clear they are not. “This project is not certified by the UVic Research Ethics Board,” wrote Eugenie Lam of UVic (p. 23). “We ask that on the consent form you remove the reference to the UVic Office of Research Services because the UVic Research Ethics Board has no oversight on this project.”

5. Claims that Anjali Vyas had a special connection to the University of Helsinki appear to be rubbish. Anjali told the Sun she was “obsessed” with the work of University of Helsinki professor Pasi Sahlberg, including his book Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland?. Amusingly, Rick Davis gave her that book (p. 96).

Okay, so I understand that for Rick Davis, $16,000.00 for a little trip to Europe is really a drop in the bucket, in 2011 he racked up $77,657.00 in travel, more than any other BC government employee.

But, what about this important “research” project. Based on the emails from Vyas to Davis and other folks in the Ministry, the Finns were as incredulous as the rest of us about this scheme:

Can you believe it? The Finns think someone conducting research on teacher education ought to have some credentials, perhaps even a graduate degree. The Finns were “dubious” of a teenage researcher funded by the BC government to study professional education of teachers, eh? But hey, I guess that’s the way Rick Davis and the BC Ministry of Education rolls when it comes to conducting research. I can almost hear Davis now …

“Credentials? Who needs credentials, we do whatever we the heck we please. Ethics Board clearance for BC government research? That’s just a bunch of red tape and we’re trying to reduce the size of government. By the way, has anyone see my Aeroplan card, I had it right here just here a minute ago when I was checking the latest travel expense standings.”

I haven’t seen Vylas’s final report (the contract stated it was due September 20, 2013), but here is the interview protocol that she planned to use in her study in Finland:

What can we say about these questions? Well, they’re of the sort one might expect from an inquisitive person with an interest in education, and no knowledge of professional or scholarly literature. Completely unnecummbered by the history, theory, research or practice of teaching and teacher education. I’m sure Vylas (and Davis) might learn something from this endeavour, but there’s no other way to describe this scenario than as colossal waste of taxpayer’s money and, as I’ve pointed out before, an insult to the communities of education practitioners, researchers, and serious policymakers.

With no travel budget, but connection to the internet, here’s a short list of things I’ve found that Finland does when it comes to teaching and teacher education:

  • Higher education is completely free.
  • There are high standards for entry into teacher education programs and admissions are highly selective (about 10% of applicants are accepted).
  • Teacher education programs are typically 5 years long and include study of the liberal arts, teaching subject speciality, theory and practice of teaching, including teaching students with disabilities.
  • There are no “alternative” routes to teaching (no shortcuts, that means no Teach for Finland, no online degrees, no one without pedagogical training is allowed to teach).
  • Finnish teachers and principals have autonomy to make educational decisions. The national curriculum is a guideline not a road map. Finnish teachers are not mere conduits for the transfer of information and skills dictated from the government.
  • National student assessment is based upon a sampling model (not every student is tested) and there are no consequences from these assessments for students, teachers, principals, or schools.
  • There is no standardized testing. And, no “value-added” models of teacher evaluation.
  • Finnish schools have small class sizes.
  • Finnish teachers and principals belong to unions.
  • As a result of the above, teaching is highly respected profession in Finland.

As Pasi Sahlberg writes in his book Finnish Lessons, Finnish schools promote the wellbeing of their students in a model that reflects many of the primary elements of John Dewey’s progressive approach to learning and teaching.

My suggestion to Davis, Education Minister Peter Fassbender, and Premier Christy Clark is, if you’re serious about looking to Finland for ideas on education then  stop the ongoing, obsessive attacks on the British Columbia Teachers Federation and start doing what is necessary to bring each of the above elements to reality in BC.

Here’s a short video on Finland’s formula for educational success:

CFP: Inside Stories: Teach For America Corps Members Speak Up and Speak Out

Inside Stories: Teach For America Corps Members Speak Up and Speak Out

Founded in 1989, Teach For America (TFA) has grown into a massive organization with a presence in thirty states and twenty-six countries, financially supported by a host of philanthropic foundations and other organizations with considerable influence. Additionally, TFA constitutes an integral part of the larger neoliberal goal of privatizing education and teacher training. Though a number of narratives from corps members exist, the vast majority of them are controlled or suppressed by TFA. Moreover, as the organization uses supportive narratives to further its rhetoric of educational reform, the large body of corps member and alumni voices that desire to express discontent, discouragement, frustration, and even anger associated with their experiences with TFA has, until now, been largely silenced. Following the lead of a critique of TFA by academics over the last few years, slowly TFA corps members and alumni have offered narratives to challenge the official rhetoric of TFA and the supposed “prestigious” position of being a TFA teacher.

In an effort to highlight and continue this counter-narrative, this volume will provide a collection of stories from current and former TFA corps members. We would also consider narratives of parents of TFA corps members. While the most effective tool of promoting TFA as a righteous and prestigious organization are the narratives from supportive corps members who tend to parrot approved talking points, this volume will provide a necessary counter-narrative that should be heard.

Proposals could highlight overall experiences, specific experiences with recruitment/application into TFA, summer Institute experiences,placement experiences, leaving TFA, etc. The finished narratives
should be between 5 and 10 double-spaced pages in APA format. Alternative formats such as poetry or other arts-based representations are also welcome.

Audience
Given the broad audience interested in TFA, we anticipate the audience to include researchers, school board members, principals, parents, and teachers and pre-service teachers.

Schedule
1) Proposals due by May 17, 2014. Include the following to Jameson Brewer at tbrewer2@illinois.edu:

  • a) Proposed title of chapter
  • b) Author(s) name, with complete addresses and 150-word biography for each author
  • c) 500-word abstract of proposed chapter

2) Confirmation of selected chapters by June 17, 2014;
3) Contributors will have their first drafts completed by July 17, 2014.
4) The editors will review these first drafts, and provide detailed comments and suggestions by September 17, 2014.
5) The contributors will make all of the necessary edits, and send the final chapters to the editors by October 17, 2014.
6) The editors will draft a comprehensive introductory chapter and have the foreword written by a well-known scholar in the field, which will be ready along with the index and other editorial issues by November 17, 2014.
7) Once the publisher’s Editor has approved the text, the finalized,formatted volume will be submitted to the publisher shortly after November 17, 2014 which should allow for copy-editing and other related matters to be completed for a publishing date sometime mid 2015.

For questions or queries, contact Jameson Brewer at tbrewer2@illinois.edu and/or Kathleen deMarrais at kathleen@uga.edu

25th Annual Peace Studies Conference: Security, Surveillance, and U.S. Imperialism

25th Annual Peace Studies Conference

!! FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC !!

THEME: Security, Surveillance, and U.S. Imperialism
December 7, 2013
12PM to 7PM
Building: University Union West
Room: UUW 324 & 325
Binghamton University, New York, USA
___________________________________________________________
University Map, Directions, Lodging, etc:
http://www.binghamton.edu/visiting-campus/maps-and-directions.html

For General Questions contact Anna Pinchuk with Peace Action: 607-245-6695
___________________________________________________________
SCHEDULE

12:00 – 12:30 Tabling & Arrival Time
12:30 – 12:45 Welcome Address – Mallory Schmackpfeffer, President of Binghamton University Peace Action
___________________________________________________________

1:00 – 2:30 PANEL 1. PEACE IN EDUCATION

(1) Peace Studies for SUNY
The desirability of a SUNY-directed model of Peace Studies that would promote alternatives to violence through the creation of a minor by 2016 and a major by 2020.

Jack Gilroy is a high school teacher at Maine-Endwell and has been a peace activist since the Vietnam War. He was the director of the Committee of Responsibility in Upstate New York working to bring back war injured children from Vietnam.

(2) Activist Strategies for Peace Education
Educational pedagogies and projects that promote the implementation of peace that can be implemented in anti-bullying and other existing programs directed at youth.

Tim Wolcott teaches Life and Physical Science and supervises the greenhouse projects at Waverly Middle / HighSchool. As Adjunct Professor at the University of Albany he also directed Waverly’s Science Research Program.

(3) Guns on Campus: Securitization and Campus Policing
An interrogation of debates surrounding the campus presence of guns to police student populations and securitize the university environment to the detriment of peace.

Ben Brucato is a doctoral candidate in Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has published research on surveillance and policing at colleges and universities.
___________________________________________________________

2:30 – 4:00 PANEL 2. RESISTANCE FOR PEACE

(1) End of Prisons
This is a two person presentation on a recently released book “The End of Prisons,” which provides an in-depth look at what prisons try to accomplish and how we can dismantle them through an abolitionist strategy of decarceration in the relation to the American legal system, national security, and human rights.
Mechthild Nagel is Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Cortland and is the Director of the Center for Gender and Intercultural Studies.

Ute Ritz-Deutch received her PhD in History From Binghamton in 2008 and currently teaches out of the History Department at SUNY Cortland.

(2) Resisting Federal Surveillance: The Case of Burning Books
After a decade of being under heavy federal surveillance for exercising free speech in support of the Earth Liberation Front, Leslie James Pickering discovered his associates are being questioned by the FBI, the Post Office copying his mail, and was individually put on a secret list for maximum security screening at airports. This multimedia presentation will show the methods of federal government uses to repress activists and ways in which they can be resisted.

Leslie James Pickering is an activist, author, and co-owner of Burning Books in Buffalo, NY. He was a spokesperson for the Earth Liberation Front Press Office from the late 1990s to the early 200s.

(3) The Embodied Resistance of the Black Body
Argues that resistance must come from one’s epistemic privilege and that the black body offers a unique positionality to confront sites of violence through their constant engagement with anti-blackness.

Raul Cepin is an undergraduate at Binghamton University and is a Varsity member of the University’s debate team.
___________________________________________________________

4:00 – 4:30 Break
___________________________________________________________

4:30 – 6:00 PART 3. Drone Warfare: Consequences and Resistance

(1) A History of Drones and Resistance
As drone warfare has increased the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars has begun campaigning to say no to targeted assassinations. Their actions of civil disobedience has resulted in numerous jailings and detentions of activists.

Jim Clune has been active with the Upstate Coalition to Down the Drones and End the Wars since its inception and has been to El Salvador, Iraq, and Palestine to stand in solidarity with those who have suffered.

(2) Syracuse’s Hancock Airbase
A focus at the 174th Attack Wing of the NY Air National Guard and recent court rulings that have issued orders of protection meant to suppress collective outcries against the victimization of women, children, and other non-combatants.

Ed Kinane formerly worked on Wall Street and taught high school and college. He has worked with Peace Brigades International in Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, and Sri Lanka.

(3) Drones as War on Terror
An account of people on the ground who have been killed by drone strikes and the absence of reports from the United States to provide a justification for their strikes, as drone policy finds itself exempt from national and international laws.

Judy Bello was jailed for 3 days for protesting the Hancock Air National Guard Base, co-led a FOR Delegation in Iran, administers the website for Upstate Drone Action Coalition, and blogs at The Deconstructed Globe.
___________________________________________________________

6:00 – 6:45 Awards – Dr. Amber E. George

Anna Pinchuk
“2013 Peace Studies Undergraduate Scholar of the Year”

Drew Winter
“2013 Peace Studies Graduate Scholar of the Year”

Reies Romero
“2013 Peace Studies Undergraduate Project of the Year”

Sarat Colling
“2013 Peace Studies Graduate Thesis of the Year”

Dean Nieusma
“2013 Peace Studies Faculty Project of the Year”

Animals and War: Confronting the Military-Animal Industrial Complex
“2013 Peace Studies Book of the Year”

Greedy Lying Bastards
“2013 Peace Studies Media of the Year”

Louis Kriesberg
“2013 Peace Studies Lifetime Achievement Award”

6:45 – 7:00 Concluding Remarks – Dr. Mechthild Nagel
___________________________________________________________

Popular Education Network Conference 2014

The 6th International Conference of the Popular Education Network (PEN)
Thursday 24 – Saturday 26 April 2014
University of Malta Valletta Campus

This conference seeks to build on the success of previous PEN conferences held in Edinburgh (2000), Barcelona (2002), Braga (2004), Maynooth (2007) and Seville (2011).

The conference is an opportunity for university-based teachers and researchers, student-activists and others involved in higher education, who share a common interest in popular education – many of whom work in considerable isolation in their own institutions – to meet, exchange ideas, learn from each other and enjoy some much needed solidarity and conviviality.

The language of the conference will be English.

For a better understanding of the rationale of the conference and for immediate steps to follow, you are kindly asked to click on the following: (1) programme; and (2) expression of interest form.

For queries regarding the academic programme contact:

Professor Carmel Borg
Faculty of Education
University of Malta
Msida MSD 2080
MALTA
Tel: +356 2340 2935
Email: https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/carmelborg

For queries regarding the conference arrangements contact:
Ms Lucienne M. Bugeja
Senior Executive, Logistics & Events Coordination
University of Malta Valletta Campus
Old University Bldg
St Paul Street
Valletta VLT 1216
MALTA
Tel: +356 2340 7511
Email: https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/luciennembugeja

CFP: Critical Theories in the 21st Century

Call For Proposals
Critical Theories in the 21st Century

Due to the success of last years’ inaugural event, we are very excited about the upcoming Critical Theories in the Twenty-First Century conference at West Chester University. Due to the deepening crisis of global capital and the anti-capitalist movement in embryo (since last November), this year we added a special theme: Critical Education Against Capitalism. As many reactions to the ravages of capital are reformist in nature, failing to identify and target the true causes (i.e. private property as a complex historical process) of exploitation, injustices, war, educational expansion as well as educational budget cuts, ideological indoctrination, and so on, especially in critical pedagogy, this discussion targeting the root capitalist cause of life at the present moment is particularly relevant and needed.

Consequently, whereas last year “the call for proposals” was “general enough to be inclusive of many critical approaches to transformative or revolutionary pedagogies and theory,” this year we ask the critical pedagogy community to present their works in a way that demonstrates how it contributes to achieving a post-capitalist society. As such, we can suggest a few relevant themes for proposals: Marxist educational theory, Anarchist pedagogies, austerity/educational budget cuts, ignoring poverty, racialization and hegemony, (anti)settler-colonialism/imperialism, indigenous critical theory/autonomous governance, anti-capitalist eco-pedagogy, atheism and education, queer theory against capital, etc.

While this conference will include important presentations and debates between key figures in critical pedagogy, it will not be limited to this focus. In other words, as critical theory becomes more inclusive, global, and all encompassing, this conference welcomes more than just academics as important contributors. That is, we recognize students and youth groups as possessing authentic voices based on their unique relationship to capitalism and will therefore be open to them as presenters and discussion leaders (as was done in 2011). While this inclusivity is obviously designed to challenge traditional distributions of social power in capitalist societies, it will not be done romantically where participants’ internalized hegemonies are not challenged. Put another way, while students will be included as having something valuable to contribute, they will both be subjected to the same scrutiny as established academics, as well as invited to share their own critiques. All participants will therefore be included in the discussions of why and how to achieve a post-capitalist society.

when:

November 16th and 17th 2012

duration:

Friday evening and all day Saturday

where:

West Chester University, West Chester, PA

purpose:

To contribute to the wide and deep network of critical educators throughout the world working with students and workers building a vast coalition of critical thinkers who know that a meaningful life after capitalism is possible.

More info here.

CFP: Graduate Studies and the Academic Labor Market

Call for Papers:
Graduate Studies and the Academic Labor Market

Special Issue of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor 2012
Guest Editors: Bradley J. Porfilio, Julie A. Gorlewski, and Shelley J. Jensen

 Workplace invites and authors to submit papers for a special issue on Graduate Studies and the Academic Labor Market. What are the futures of the academic labor market for graduate students? Or more to the point, is there a future in academic labor for graduate students? Even a casual glance at The Chronicle of Higher Education and, in Canada, at the CAUT Bulletin and University Affairs, suggests a shrinking job market for PhDs. In some disciplines, academic careers have all but disappeared. Post-PhDs are increasingly tracked or streamed into adjunct and sessional appointments, most of which are dead-end and even on full time bases may amount to less than $25,000 per year. This “income” is oftten typically annulled by student loan payments; indeed, the income to debt ratio for post-PhDs adds to a heavy burden of anxiety. We readily romanticize the life of the intellectual, but – more and more – this life does not put food on the table. Food banks are becoming more and more common on university grounds and the lines are not limited to students.

  •  What is the nature of this phenomenon in higher education?
  •  What do these trends mean for the future of education and learning beyond mere technical training?
  •  How do economic hardships affect scholarly pursuits?
  •  How might graduate students reclaim their futures in the professoriate?
  •  What roles exist for the scholar activist – both novice and veteran?
  •  What other questions we should be asking?

The editors request abstracts for papers by September 15, 2012, with full drafts due by December 15, 2012.

For more information and due dates contact Brad Porfilio (porfilio16@aol.com)

2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CRITICAL EDUCATION (Athens, Greece)

The Department of Education, University of Athens, Greece is hosting the

2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CRITICAL EDUCATION

10-14 July 2012, Athens, Greece

Organized by the journals:

 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES (UK)

CULTURAL LOGIC (USA/CANADA)

KRITIKI (GREECE)

RADICAL NOTES (INDIA)

ICCE Conference Website: http://icce-2012.weebly.com/index.html

Some of last year’s papers (from the 2011 conference) will go into a special edition of JCEPS, the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, coming out in around April 2012. In addition, all the papers that were presented at the 2011 conference and were submitted in written form will be published as conference proceedings in the next couple of months.The website is in process of improvement, e.g. re methods of payment, also final keynote speakers not yet confirmed.. we are asking Dennis Beach, Dave Hill, Marnie Holborow, and Alex Callinicos. As well as leading Greek Marxists/critical educators. So, hope to see you at this conference in Athens in July! Last year’s was great- politically, intellectually, socially!

 

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE (subject to confirmation)

Kostas Skordoulis (University of Athens, Greece)

Dave Hill (Universities of Middlesex, United Kingdom; Limerick, Ireland; Athens, Greece)

Peter McLaren (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

Grant Banfield (University of South Australia, Australia)

Dennis Beach (University of Göteburg, Sweden)

Ramin Farahmandpur (Portland State University, Oregon, USA)

Marnie Holborrow (University College Dublin, Ireland)

Alpesh Maisuria (Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom)

Sharzad Mojab (University of Toronto, Canada)

Ravi Kumar (South Asian University, New Delhi, India)

Deborah Kelsh (College of St. Rose, Albany, NY, USA)

Curry Malott (West Chester University, Pennsylvania, USA)

Gregory Martin (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

Micheal O’Flynn (University of Limerick, Ireland)

Perikles Pavlidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)

Brad Porfilio (Lewis University, Romeoville, Illinois, USA)

Martin Power (University of Limerick, Ireland)

Helena Sheehan (University College Dublin, Ireland

Juha Suoranta (University of Tampere, Finland)

Spyros Themelis (Middlesex University, United Kingdom)

Salim Vally (University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa)

New issue of Cultural Logic: “Culture and Crisis”

Cultural Logic

2010
SPECIAL ISSUE:
CULTURE AND CRISIS

EDITED BY JOSEPH G. RAMSEY

 Introduction

Joseph G. Ramsey
“Culture and Crisis”

The Current Conjucture:
Capitalist Crises and the Crisis of the Left

Michael Joseph Roberto, Gregory Meyerson, Jamey Essex, and Jeff Noonan
“Moment of Transition:
Structural Crisis and the Case for a Democratic Socialist Party”

Jeffrey Perry
“The Developing Conjuncture and Some Insights from
Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen
on the Centrality of the Fight against White Supremacy”

Julie P. Torrant
“Class and the New Family in the Wake of the Housing Collapse”

Dan DiMaggio
“Road Maps, Dead Ends, and the Search for Fresh Ground:
How Can We Build the Socialist Movement in the 21st Century?”

Crisis, Imagination, and the Return to Marx’s Capital

Max Haiven
“The Financial Crisis as a Crisis of the Imagination”

Vesa Oittinen and Andre Maidansky
“A Marx for the Left Today:
Interview with Marcello Musto”

Amedeo Policante
“Vampires of Capital:
Gothic Reflections between Horror and Hope”

Robert T. Tally Jr.
“Meta-Capital:
Culture and Financial Derivatives”

Rethinking Crises in
Twntieth-Century Socialism and Communism

Joseph Ball
“The Need for Planning:
The Restoration of Capitalism in the Soviet Union
in the 1950s and the Decline of the Soviet Economy”

Grover Furr
“Stephen Cohen’s Biography of Bukharin:
A Study in the Falsehood of Khrushchev-Era ‘Revelations'”

Remembering the Depression Era:
Recovering Left Culture in a Time of Crisis

Benjamin Balthaser
“Re-Staging the Great Depression:
Genre as Social Memory in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler“

Barbara Foley
Forward to Wrestling with the Left:
The Making of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

Joseph G. Ramsey
“Invisible Tragedies, Invisible Possibilities:
Or, Re-Reading What’s Left of a Great American
(Anti-Communist) Novel”
(Review of Barbara Foley’s Wrestling with the Left)

Tristan Sipley
“Proletarian Pastoral Reconsidered:
Reading Mike Gold in an Age of Ecological Crisis”

Chris Vials
“Fight Against War and Fascism and
the Origins of Antifascism in US Culture”


Theoretical Practice in a Time of Crisis:
Adorno, Benjamin, and Brecht

Rich Daniels
“Non-Pious Discourse:
Adorno, Ethics, and the Politics of Suffering”

Kevin Floyd
“The Importance of Being Childish:
Queer Utopians and Historical Contradiction”

Carl Grey Martin
Review of
Walter Benjamin and Bertold Brecht —
The Story of a Friendship


Reading Crisis as Ruling-Class Strategy

Kanishka Chowdhury
“Deflecting Crisis:
Critiquing Capitalism’s Emancipation Narrative”

Kim Emery
“‘Crisis Management’ in Higher Education:
RCM and the Politics of Crisis at the University of Florida”

Heather Steffen
“Student Internships and the Privilege to Work”

Poetry

Mary Kennan Herbert
“Been There, Done That” and
“Nothing to Say”

George Snedeker
“Progress” and Other Poems

Joseph G. Ramsey
“Fault Lines: Haiti, Two Years On”

CFP: Children’s Human Rights and Public Schooling in the United States

Call for Chapters/Chapter Proposals

Book: Children’s Human Rights and Public Schooling in the United States

Editor:

J. Hall, Associate Professor of Sociology
D’Youville College, Buffalo, NY   USA

Under Contract with Sense Publishers

Foreword by Christine Sleeter

Book Description

This volume draws attention to serious human rights violations taking place among children in the US, and the fact that public schools are in many cases implicated in these breaches.  The definition of “children’s human rights” under consideration is taken directly from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [CRC].  More countries have ratified the CRC than any other human rights treaty in history, with only Somalia and the United States yet to ratify this agreement.   The CRC is critiqued for its Judeo-Christian bias, and like most conventions put out by the UN, it is not enforceable, and is routinely violated by ratifying nations. The refusal of the US to ratify the CRC has weakened the efforts of those who advocate for children’s human rights as a political concept, both worldwide and in the US (e.g. Ensalaco & Majka, 2005).

The premise behind the CRC is that there are significant vulnerabilities related to childhood that require a special set of protections, especially when it comes to the young from marginalized groups.  As outlined in the convention, all children have the right to protection from physical and mental violence and mistreatment.  It is also contended that schools be free of violence, and that school discipline be based on the dignity of the child.  This volume will address the incongruence between these specific state responsibilities in the CRC and the realities of life in public schools in the US.

Clarifying ways in which US public schools are in direct violation of the high profile CRC may help draw more interdisciplinary attention to already existing work on education inequality. A coalition of those in education, government, NGOs, non-profits, human rights advocacy, law, health care, social work, child development, and those who care about preserving the public must push back against the UN P5, IMF/World Bank, and transnational policy networks (e.g. World Economic Forum, World water Forum) that protect markets instead of human rights (Goldman, 2006).  This volume provides a way to enter this conversation.

Contributing chapters –- from a broad range of interdisciplinary perspectives — are sought in the following two areas, each of which are directly reflective of specific protective promises made to children in the CRC (the editor will be responsible for making particular connections to the CRC):

*Schoolchildren as Vulnerable Populations.  Seeking research on the schooling experiences of US children who are impoverished, live in isolated urban/rural areas, those from culturally marginalized groups, those with transient lifestyles, those who are migrant workers, refugees, those with disability, those engaged with issues related to sexual orientation, etc.

*Violence, Punishment, and the Juvenile Justice System among Schoolchildren. Seeking research on the schooling experiences of US children who bear witness to domestic and street violence; the school to prison pipeline; the juvenile justice system; metal detectors, zero tolerance policies, searches in schools, and other forms of surveillance and criminalization; the militarization of schooling; types of punishments experienced by children in schools, etc.

Process for Chapter Proposals
Submit the following:

a) Proposed title of chapter

b) Authors, with complete addresses and 150 biography for each author

c) 300-word outline of proposed chapter, including, where applicable, theoretical, methodological, and conceptual considerations

d) To J. Hall jhalledu@yahoo.com

e) By October 1, 2011.

*final chapter requirements: times new roman 12 pt. font., APA 6th edition, and approx. 25 pp. double-spaced, by January 1, 2012

For questions or queries, contact J. Hall at <a href=:mailto:jhalledu@yahoo.com”>jhalledu@yahoo.com</a>