THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 6^th JULY 2009

A message from Rich Gibson

Dear Friends 
 
The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil (with those good-for-the-rest of your life posters on sale!) is updated at: http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/ 
 
On the Madness and Boredom Front: 
Substance News is carrying reports from the National Education Association's Representative Assembly, running through Monday, here: http://www.substancenews.net/ 
 
On the Educational Miracles Front: 
Substance has exposed the Chicago Miracle, the reason Arne Duncan holds his position as Ed Boss, for years. However, here is another expose, from an unexpected source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/downloads/CPS.pdf 
 
On the What Do You Mean We Had Something to Do With that Coup and What Do We Know About the School of the Americas Front: http://www.soaw.org/ 
 
On the Everyone Can Make it in America Front, the Jobless Rate Hits a 26 Year High: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/02/us-unemployment-june-467000 
 
On the Someone is Actually Doing Something About all of This Front: The San Francisco Freedom School is open for summer: http://educationanddemocracy.org/SFFS/2009program.html 
 
Russian Students are Resisting:   
You can do something too. There is one organization in ..North America.., rooted in education, that connects the wars, unemployment, de-industrialization, class struggle, and the crises in schools: The Rouge Forum. Next week we will circulate a call for nominees for this year's Rouge Forum Steering Committee. We urge you to join us. Please spread the word. 
 
Thanks to all the courageous delegates at the NEA RA who spoke to me and gave me so much information. You'll see it in print in the coming days. If you are still at the RA and we have not met, please email me asap, or we can talk when you get home. 
 
Thanks too to Amber, Wayne, Adam, Bob, Colleen, Tammy, Christina, Katie and Greg, Bill, Joe, Sally, Sue, Donna, Kathy Y and E, Gil, Tony, Jill, Eric, Marcie, Isabella, Victoria, Donnie, Tally, Shawndre, Teeyah, Pete, and Doug. 
 
Good luck to us, every one. 
 
Rich Gibson

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Mike Cole on Marx and ‘Capital’

My friend Mike Cole has an excellent reflective review of Capital: Volume 1 by Karl Marx in this week’s Times Higher Education.

I was particularly struck with how Mike started the article with an autobiographical note on how he read Capital: Volume 1 under the tutelage of Tom Bottomore for his Masters degree, and then moved on to outlining some of Marx’s key ideas. As someone interested in Marxist educational theory, I also appreciated how Mike made clear the significance of labour power for Marx’s theory of exploitation in capitalist society. I have explored the role of education and training in the social production of labour power in capitalism for many years now*.

You can see Mike’s reflective review at:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=407196&c=2

* See, Online Publications by Glenn Rikowski, at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Professor Mike Cole is Director of the Centre for Education for Social Justice, Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln. He is author of Marxism and Educational Theory: Origins and Issues (2008) and Critical Race Theory and Education: A Marxist Response (2009).

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All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski     

THE FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL MATERIALISM

Call for papers - Educational Philosophy and Theory

As a starting point for this discussion one might take this quote from Ray Brassier: “While transcendental orthodoxy wastes time staving off the imminent liquidation of reason, sense, and life, transcendental materialism celebrates the deterritorialization of intelligence.”

There are a least three inter-related strands of educational materialism that this special edition will interrogate:

1. Materialist dialectics: Deriving in main from the work of Karl Marx – the basic thesis behind this strand of educational materialism is that teaching and learning systems are directed towards the manipulation of capital. Schools deliver human capital to the markets - that assess and place qualifications, social status and individual capabilities in terms of capital. This situation has been further accelerated and complexified due to the global use of electronic markets and the emergence of virtual capital. This strand of educational materialism may include work on social capital that is often theorised using the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu.
2. Transcendental materialism. The second theoretical platform for understanding educational materialism is derived from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. This strand accepts material dialectics, yet intensifies and broadens the scope in the ways capital transforms situations. This is because capitalism also acts on an irrational level, and this can be clearly seen if one analyses advertising or takes into account the ways in which media systems manipulate emotions. Transcendental materialism looks for escape routes out of situations that might lead to internalisation - and in the case of education, this includes putting contemporary practises such as examinations under erasure.
3. Speculative materialism. This recent development in materialist theory reconciles materialism with realism - and avoids the potential for duality between materialism and idealism. The essential thesis of this strand of educational materialism stipulates that the designation of ‘the human’ or ‘the subject’ defines limiting criteria that restrict research. The path to forthright understanding of education therefore requires the elimination of phenomenology or any ‘mentalism’ that might contain and lock up the possibilities of material agency.

Interested scholars should send a 500 word abstract in the first instance to David R Cole at david.cole@uts.edu.au by December 1^st 2009

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

THE JOURNAL FOR CRITICAL EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES

ISSN 1740-2743

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies is a free e-journal published by The Institute for Education Policy Studies (IEPS)

IEPS is an independent Radical Left/ Socialist/ Marxist institute for developing policy analysis and development of education policy. It is at: http://www.jceps.com

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS) seeks to develop Marxist and other Left analysis of education.

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies seeks and publishes articles that critique global, national, neo-liberal, neo-conservative, New Labour, Third Way, postmodernist and other analyses of policy developments, as well as those that attempt to report on, analyse and develop Socialist/ Marxist transformative policy for schooling and education from a number of Radical Left perspectives. JCEPS also addresses issues of social class, 'race', gender, sexual orientation, disability and capital/ism; critical pedagogies; new public managerialism and academic / non-academic labour, and empowerment/ disempowerment. JCEPS welcomes articles from academics and activists throughout the globe. It is a refereed / peer reviewed/ peer juried international journal.

Volume 7, Number 1:
June 2009

Michael Viola, University of California Los Angeles, USA
The Filipinization of Critical Pedagogy: Widening the Scope of Critical Educational Theory

Mike Cole, Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln, England
On 'white supremacy' and caricaturing, misrepresenting and dismissing Marx and Marxism: a response to David Gillborn's 'Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory in Education'

Guy Senese, Northern Arizona University, USA
'Like the Other Kings Have:' a theory of sovereignty and the persistence of inequality in education

Helena Sheehan, Dublin City University, Ireland
Contradictory transformations: observations on the intellectual dynamics of South African universities

Anastasia Liasidou, Roehampton University, London, England
Critical Policy Research and Special Education Policymaking: A Policy Trajectory Approach

Antoinette Errante, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Structure, Agency and Cultural Capital as Control over Knowledge Production in Policy Formation: Mozambique’s Education Sector Strategic Plan

Angela C. de Siqueira, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Higher Education Reform in Brazil: Reinforcing Marketization

Pierre W. Orelus, New Mexico State University, USA
Beyond Political Rhetoric and Discourse: What type of educational, socio- economic, and political change should educators expect of President Barack Obama?

Sara Zamir, Ben-Gurion University at Eilat, Israel, and Sara Hauphtman, Achva Academic College of Education, Israel
The portrayal of the Jewish figure in Literary Texts Included in the Present Matriculation Curriculum in Hebrew for Students of the Arab Sector in Israel

Phoebe Moore, University of Salford, England
UK Education, Employability, and Everyday Life

Rebecca A. Goldstein, Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA, and Andrew R. Beutel, Ramapo Ridge Middle School, Mahwah, New Jersey, USA
'Soldier of Democracy' or 'Enemy of the State'? The rhetorical construction of teacher through 'No Child Left Behind'

Stephen Philion, St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, USA
Is Race Really Controversial in the University Classroom?

Michelle Early Torregano and Patrick Shannon, Penn State University, Pennsylvania, USA
Educational Greenfield: A Critical Policy Analysis of Plans to Transform New Orleans Public Schools

Dennis Beach and Margata Carlen, University College Borås, Sweden
New partnerships – New interests: An ethnographic investigation some of the effects of employer involvement in trade union education

Rodolfo Leyva, Kings College London, University of London, UK
No Child Left Behind: A Neoliberal Repackaging of Social Darwinism

Ioannis Efstathiou, Institute of Education, University of London, UK
Enhancing Students' Critical Awareness in a Second Chance School in Greece: Reality or Wishful Thinking?

Mompati Mino Polelo, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana
The Small State, Markets and Tertiary Education Reform in a Globalised Knowledge Economy: Decoding Policy Texts in Botswana’s Tertiary Education Reform

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Public Meeting, July 8 in London:

Andrew Kliman on 'Causes and Implications of the Economic Crisis'

The Institute for Education Policy Studies

Website Update – May 2009

The Institute for Education Policy Studies is an independent Radical Left/ Socialist/ Marxist institute for developing analysis of education policy. It is at http://www.ieps.org.uk.

The Institute seeks to develop Marxist analysis of policy, theory, ideology and policy development. It also seeks to develop Marxist transformative education theory, analysis and policy analyse and develop socialist/Marxist transformative policy for schooling and education from a number of Radical Left perspectives, including Freirean perspectives. The IEPS and its journal address issues of Social Class, 'Race', Gender and Capital/ism; Critical Pedagogy; New Public Managerialism and Academic / non-Academic labour, and Empowerment/ Disempowerment.

The IEPS critiques global, national, neo-liberal, neo-conservative, New Labour, Third Way, and postmodernist analyses and policy, together with New Public Managerialism . It was set up in 1989 and hosted the formation of the Hillcole Group of Radical Left Educators (1989-2001). The IEPS organises and publicises national conferences and also publishes on-line papers by Radical Left/ Socialist/ Marxist writers.

IEPS publishes an online journal, the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (http://www.jceps.com/) twice a year. The editors of JCEPS are Prof Dave Hill (Chief/ Managing Editor), Prof Pablo Gentile (Latin America) and Prof Peter McLaren (North America). The journal welcomes articles from academics and activists throughout the globe. It is a refereed / peer juried international journal.

The Institute for Education Policy Studies has recently updated its web site. In particular, the biographical details of the Institute’s key writers have been updated, for: Dave Hill, Glenn Rikowski, Paula Allman, Mike Cole, Peter McLaren and Sharhzad Mojab. You can view these updates at: http://www.ieps.org.uk/iepsbios.php

The Institute for Education Policy Studies: http://www.ieps.org.uk/

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

All that is Solid: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com 

Constantin – Live at the 229 Club

Here are links to two tracks from last Saturday’s live show by Constantin at the 229 Club, Great Portland Street, London, from YouTube:

She’s Got No Money:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af-JkGoAlnA

London Girl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a82fd6W_fWQ  

Gregory Rikowski was there for the show and has written a review of this excellent band’s performance.

See Gregory’s review at:

http://www.constantin.uk.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=34&Itemid=53

Constantin will be playing at the Water Rats, King’s Cross, London on 12^th June.

Gregory Rikowski’s blog, GREGSWORLD, is at: http://www.gregrikowski.blogspot.com

Constantin’s web site is at: http://www.constantin.uk.com

Gregory’s MySpace Profile is at: http://www.myspace.com/92945414

Constantin’s MySpace Profile is at: http://www.myspace.com/constantinspace  

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Marxism and Education: Renewing Dialogues XII

From Critique to Contestation

MARXISM AND EDUCATION: RENEWING DIALOGUES XII

A Day Seminar  
10.00– 4.30, Saturday July 4^th 2009

Birmingham City University, Perry Barr, B42 2SU, Attwood Building, Room: 044

This is to announce: the 12th Marxism and Education: Renewing Dialogues (MERD) Seminar

We will be focusing upon: Current Issues in Marxist Education Research

We are pleased to confirm the following line-up of speakers:    
Andrea Beckmann, Charlie Cooper, Richard Hatcher, Ken Jones, and Gurnam Singh

More information on paper titles and details of the timetable will be sent to you in due course.

The seminar is free but places are limited.

To reserve a place and receive a numbered ticket, please contact Joyce Canaan at: joyce.canaan@bcu.ac.uk 
A waiting list will come into operation when all the places have been allocated

Please forward this invite to those who may be interested

Convenors: Joyce Canaan and Richard Hatcher

The Marxism and Education: Renewing Dialogues (MERD) Seminars were founded by Tony Green (University of London, Institute of Education) and Glenn Rikowski in 2001. The first MERD Seminar was run at the Institute of Education in October 2002. For details on MERD Seminars 1-10, see: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=events&sub=MERD

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

All that is Solid: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Marx and Philosophy Society – 2009 Conference Abstracts

Abstracts of papers for the Annual Conference of the Marx and Philosophy Society are now available at:

http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk

To reserve a place at the conference in advance, please email: martin.mcivor@ alumni.lse. ac.uk

Andrew Chitty

---

Marx and Philosophy Society
Sixth Annual Conference
Saturday 6th June 2009, 9.30am - 6.00pm
Room 642, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1

PROGRAMME:

Nicole Pepperell (RMIT, Melbourne)
Beyond Telos and Totality: Immanent Critique as Selective Inheritance
Geoffrey Kay
Derivatives: 'Metaphysical Subtleties and Theological Niceties'
Nick Dyer-Witheford (University of Western Ontario)
Twenty-First Century Species-Being

Graduate panel:

Jeremy Cohan (NYU)
What Marx really thought about class
David Marjoribanks (Kent)
Marxism and morality: out of the 'moral wilderness'?
Caleb Basnett (York University, Toronto)
Re-inventing the subject: Marx and ethics

£10 waged, £5 unwaged, payable at the door
(provides annual membership of the society and entrance)

To reserve a place in advance please email: martin.mcivor@ alumni.lse. ac.uk
Travel directions: http://www.ioe. ac.uk/sitehelp/ 1072.html
Further details at: http://www.marxandp hilosophy. org.uk

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid: http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Rouge Forum Update – 20^th May 2009

Rouge Forum Update: War, Decay and Sane Resistance!

A Message from Rich Gibson

Constantin – Live at 229 Great Portland Street

Constantin are an exciting new electro-pop band. They played their second live show at 229 Great Portland Street last Saturday. Gregory Rikowski was there for the show and has written a review of this excellent band’s performance.

See: http://www.constantin.uk.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=34&Itemid=53

Constantin will be playing at the Water Rats, King’s Cross, London on 12^th June.

Gregory Rikowski’s blog, GREGSWORLD, is at: http://www.gregrikowski.blogspot.com

Constantin’s web site is at: http://www.constantin.uk.com

Gregory’s MySpace Profile is at: http://www.myspace.com/92945414

Constantin’s MySpace Profile is at: http://www.myspace.com/constantinspace  

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com