E Wayne Ross – Page 52 – Critical Theories in Education

Call for manuscripts: The Lure of the Animal: Addressing Nonhuman Animals in Educational Theory and Research

Call for Manuscripts: Special Section of Critical Education

The Lure of the Animal: Addressing Nonhuman Animals in Educational Theory and Research

Special Section Guest Editor:
Abraham P. DeLeon
University of Texas at San Antonio

Critical Education is seeking manuscripts that address the question of the nonhuman animal in educational research, theory and praxis. Examining the representations of nonhuman animals provides opportunities to explore ideology, discourse, and the ways in which the construction of nonhumans mirrors the representation of the human Other in contemporary and historical contexts. Schools are filled with social practices concerning nonhuman animals, whether that is the food served in the cafeteria, dissection in Science classrooms, or representations in textbooks. Linked to an agenda of social justice that has emerged in the educational literature over the past decade, the treatment of nonhuman animals needs to be addressed by critical theorists in education that seek to change structures of oppression for all of life on this planet. Traditional representations of the animal persist (unfettered desire, wild, barbaric, brutish, and savage), despite the fact that we know little outside of Western empirical science. To be animal then is to be wild and something apart from supposedly human traits of rationality, language, and logic. In turn, this allows highly exploitive and torturous industries to emerge and flourish that exploit nonhumans. However, ruptures existed that threw into question what it meant to be human, such as the case of wild people and feral children. As the category of human is often reified in educational scholarship unquestioningly, this provides a unique opportunity to deconstruct these categories and their exclusionary functions.

The recent literature surrounding eco-pedagogy and critical animal studies (Andrzejewski, et. al., 2009; Best, 2009; Bowers, 2001; Kahn, 2008; Martusewicz & Edmundson, 2005; Riley-Taylor, 2002) and the cultural politics of nature (Shukin, 2009) begs us to examine how the question of the animal is tied to the larger project of educational theory and practice. Published over a series of issues, this section will allow scholars to explore what this means for education. Some possible topics can include:

Have schools largely ignored nonhuman animals in historical and contemporary contexts? If so, why and in what specific ways?
How is the cafeteria implicated in relationships of domination over the nonhuman body?
What do intersecting oppressions (racism, speciesism, classism, sexism) mean for educational theory and practice?
Do anthropocentric ideologies emerge in educational, theory, practice, or policy? How does anthropomorphism emerge in traditional forms of curriculum or textbooks?
What have been the roles of nonhuman animals in schools historically?
How can critical educational theory respond to the paradox of the “animal”?

The guest editor seeks theoretical, conceptual, and qualitative papers addressing the central theme and any work submitted will be peer-reviewed.

Nonhuman animals need to be accounted for within the broader educational literature and this special section allows scholars to explore this important and timely topic.

Any questions can be directed to Dr. Abraham DeLeon, University of Texas at San Antonio, abraham.deleon@utsa.edu.

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Critical Education is an international peer-reviewed journal, which seeks manuscripts that critically examine contemporary education contexts and practices.

Please see, http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/criticaled/index for more information and submission information.

Workplace #16 Academic Knowledge, Labor, and Neoliberalism

The Editors of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor are pleased to announce the release of Workplace #16—”Academic Knowledge, Labor, and Neoliberalism.”

Check it out at: http://www.workplace-gsc.com

Table of Contents

Articles
Knowledge Production and the Superexploitation of Contingent Academic Labor
Bruno Gulli

The Education Agenda is a War Agenda: Connecting Reason to Power and Power to Resistance
Rich Gibson, E. Wayne Ross

The Rise of Venture Philanthropy and the Ongoing Neoliberal Assault on Public Education: The Eli and Edith Broad Foundation
Kenneth Saltman

Feature Articles
Theses on College and University Administration: A Critical Perspective
John F. Welsh

The Status Degradation Ceremony: The Phenomenology of Social Control in Higher Education
John F. Welsh

Book Reviews
Review of The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities
Desi Bradley

Authentic Bona fide Democrats Must Go Beyond Liberalism, Capitalism, and Imperialism: A Review of Dewey’s Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform
Richard A. Brosio

Review of Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools
Prentice Chandler

Review of Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire: Towards a New Humanism
Abraham P. Deleon

Review of Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University: Poetry, Politics, and the Profession
Leah Schweitzer

Review of Rhetoric and Resistance in the Corporate Academy
Lisa Tremain

Read the Workplace Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/workplace/
Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24374363807&ref=ts

Cornell Employees’ Email Blunder from Hell

The all-time worst email mistake.

A Call for Copyright Rebellion

Today’s Inside Higher Ed reports on Lawrence Lessig‘s call for copyright rebellion at the Educause Conference in Denver. Lessig is an open access advocate and law professor at Harvard University.

Lessig basic argument is that “the manner in which copyright law is being applied to academe in the digital age is destructive to the advancement of human knowledge and culture, and higher education is doing nothing about it.”

Academics — presumably stakeholders in the effort to advance knowledge — have been uncharacteristically and disturbingly silent on the copyright “insanity” that has befallen the information trade, Lessig said.

“We should see a resistance to imposing the Britney Spears model of copyright upon the scientist or the educator,” he said. “…But if you would expect that, you would be very disappointed by what we see out there in the scientific and and education communities.” Scholars, he said, have allowed the copyright conversation to be steered by lawyers and businesses who are not first and foremost to intellectual discovery.

To them, Lessig delivered a simple message: “Stop it.”

See this, for example.

Call for papers: Neoliberalism and public education

CALL FOR PAPERS

Educational Studies Special Issue:
Neoliberalism and Public Education

Guest Editors: Richard D. Lakes & Patricia A. Carter
Social Foundations of Education
Georgia State University, Atlanta
Email: rlakes@gsu.edu

Increasingly neoliberal economic policies are transforming the delivery of
public education. In the current era of marketplace reforms the idea of
the public has been supplanted by a private ideology of risk management;
whereby, under individualization, students as consumers are taught
responsible choice strategies designed for competitive advantage in the
so-called new economy.

Under Keynesian economics, which held sway in the U.S., Britain, Canada,
and Australia from the 1930s to the Thatcher-Reagan era of the 1980s, the
public sought to ameliorate inequities stemming from race, class and
gender bias, but under neoliberalism the state has shifted to promoting a
meritocratic myth of governing the self. As old collectivities and their
support structures such as working-class labor and unions have begun to
disappear under advanced capitalism so too have their counterparts within
the school system.

In this special issue we seek manuscripts that explore the devolution of
public education under neoliberalism. We are interested in scholarly
papers that trouble the notion of risk in an educational environment of
competitive capitalism, the nature of specialized curriculums that are
devoted to social advantage, the ways in which schools have outsourced
services and privatized operations; and the assaults on teachers’ rights
through de-unionizing practices, the dismantling of seniority, and the
erosion of benefits. We are interested in case studies of neoliberal
designed school-based reforms as well as accounts of teaching about
neoliberalism in the social foundations classroom.

To submit manuscripts please use our online submission and review system
at Manuscript Central: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/heds.

Be sure to include a note that your submission is for the Special Issue on
Neoliberalism and Public Education.

Deadline for manuscript submissions: June 1, 2010.

No it’s not a conspiracy, it’s “educational reform”

In her latest “Outrage” Susan Ohanian exposes the web of connections among the CEO of Detroit Public Schools, mega textbook publisher Houghton-Mifflin, the American Federation of Teachers and the Broad Foundation’s effort to take control of city school systems via the mayors, while pacifying teacher unions.

Who benefits from this tangled web? Not the kids, not the teachers …

CALL: March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education

On October 24 more than 800 students, teachers, and other workers met to plan how to advance the struggle to defend and transform public education in California and beyond.

The 10/24 conference endorsed the U of California and California State U strike and mobilization on Nov. 17th– 20th and decided to call for statewide solidarity actions on these days.

In addition, Conference participants also called for a “Strike and Day of Action that is inclusive of all different tactics, including: walkouts, rallies, march to Sacramento, teach ins, occupations, and all other forms of protests chosen by schools and organizations.”

CALL: March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education

On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education – Pre K-12, Adult Education, CC, CSU and UC – to “decide on a statewide action plan capable of winning this struggle, which will define the future of public education in this state, particularly for the working class and communities of color.”

After hours of open collective discussion, the conference democratically voted, as its principal decision, to call for a statewide Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. The conference decided that all schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics – such as strikes, walkouts, march to Sacramento, rallies, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. – for March 4, as well as the duration of such actions.
We refuse to let those in power continue to pit us against each other. If we unite, we have the power to shut down business-as-usual and to force those in power to grant our demands. Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services.

We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations across the state to endorse this call and massively mobilize and organize for the Strike and Day of Action on March 4.

Let’s make this an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and educational segregation in California.

To endorse this call and to receive more information, please contact march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com and consult www.savecapubliceducation.org