Intravenous ideological global apparatus – IISAs

I am holding out for the new intravenous culture industry critique. Cannot get students to leave their screen devices alone even if they are banned in the classroom. May as well be permanently plugged in – and then I get an email from microsoft who say I can now spend even more pointless time deciding which apps are exempt from the pointedly anti screentime mechanism I had in place – “Set screen time limits will be applied individually across all platforms. There will no longer be a single schedule for all devices” – and this is not a choice, I now actively have to go and log each app’s limits. Its for ‘family safety’, and ‘flexiblity’ – indeed ‘enjoyment’ and ’empowerment’ – As they say: “You can now enjoy platform-specific app limits, empowering you to set different time restrictions on each”. These are the days in which the Ideological Global Apparatus goes complete-Skynet – however much I enjoyed watching Ngô Thanh Vân battle scripted stereotype casting and cliche in The Creator.

Book Burning

Are we living in the greatest ever era of incineration?

Add your favourite book burning quotes here. Bradbury’s F◦451, Maugham’s Razors Edge, Umberto Eco’s name of the Rose, here and here and here…

But mainly I am keen to find stats on how many books are burnt after non-delivery by providers like amazon etc.

The history of book burning is inflammatory of course. Still surprises me when I ask who has burned a book (and how each page seems to be read as the book is consumed). The controversial historical memory of celebrity book burnings is storied enough – Libraries, Spanish Inquisition, Opernplatz, Bibles, The Koran, Rushdie, etc – But today, seems to me more books than ever are put to the torch. An anecdote from John J about living in the building where Progress Press had its offices back in the winter of 1990: in a fuel shortage, the building heating was stoked by feeding the Collected Works of V.I.Lenin into the furnace (sacrilege). Yet, this is minor compared to what I suspect is going on today with the flame put to the written word by the brutality of delivery services and their doublespeak – “energy recovery” (see article excerpt below).

This from a Katie Tarasov @KATIETARASOV article in January this year from the pretty mainstream source that is CNBC:

“Amazon told CNBC, “No items are sent to landfill. We are working towards a goal of zero product disposal and our priority is to resell, donate to charitable organizations or recycle any unsold products. As a last resort, we will send items to energy recovery, but we’re working hard to drive the number of times this happens down to zero.””

““Energy recovery” often means it’s burned. In the words of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it’s “the conversion of nonrecyclable waste materials into usable heat, electricity, or fuel through a variety of processes, including combustion, gasification, pyrolization, anaerobic digestion and landfill gas recovery.””

““The thing that really shocked me honestly, was the items that the computer system tells you to destroy,” said Shay Machen, a seasonal worker at an Amazon returns center in Mississippi. “I had a book come back, it was a children’s book, and the customer said that it was smashed upon arrival and bent, and it was not. And no matter what I put into the system, it said destroy the item. And that was kind of heart wrenching.””

“Disposal of returns is a widespread practice in e-commerce. Luxury retail brands like Burberry have been criticized in the past for burning millions in unsold merchandise to protect their brands, a practice Burberry told CNBC it stopped in 2018. A Danish TV station reported H&M burned 60 tons of new and unsold clothes since 2013, a claim that H&M told CNBC was a misunderstanding. An H&M spokesperson said, “The products media referred to had been affected by mold or did not comply with our chemical restrictions.” Similar claims have hit Coach, Urban Outfitters, Michael Kors, Victoria’s Secret, and J.C. Penney.”

““It’s the easiest thing to do and sometimes certain brands do it because, you know, they want to protect their brand and they don’t want lesser valued items out there on the market,” Moore said.””

CLIMATE

What really happens to Amazon returns

PUBLISHED FRI, JAN 28 20228:00 AM EST

Katie Tarasov@KATIETARASOV

On taking a survey.

My favourite Warramiri (?) story from Arnhem Land is of a maths teacher out on a river one time teaching kids to measure distances – how far to from the canoe to the river edge, how far to that mountain etc. It was hot, he asked them if they like swimming and were there any crocodiles in the river (this was long before Paul Hogan etc). They said “yes, this big” and gestured with their hands about a foot apart. “Oh, they are babies, we’ll be alright” said the teacher, and started to strip off his shirt. The kids freaked out insisting that the crocs were “this big” – two hands emphatically a foot or more apart. They were measuring the relevant size – the width of the croc’s mouth, not its length. Ha!. Habermas’s “Knowledge and Human Interests” had nothing on these kids. The maths teacher has retold this ‘lesson’ many times in the decades since.

Notes on education management – for the mmfs

https://capitalnctu.wordpress.com/author/hutnyk/

More of this sort of thing : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0725513620949009

https://philpapers.org/rec/HUTTPA-7

Study Study Study – then read like Bhagat Singh

Most interesting post of the day, and by far, has been this attached article on Bhagat Singh and anarchism, shifting to socialism. A few points fist though. I find this the most urgent imperative support for the importance of using a good library. This can never be overstated. Get into the stacks, and learn learn learn (as Godard says Lenin said, though this popular Russian slogan appears as study study study*)

[*”By any means we have to set ourselves a task to refresh our government staff: first, to study, second, to study, and third, to study, — and then check it so that our science would not remain a dead character or a fashionable phrase (which, truth be told, happens often with us), so that the science really would penetrate flesh and bone, become a part of everyday life at the fullest and for real”.

Better Less, but Better; Pravda, №49 March 4, 1923; also: Compendium of Works (in Russian), vol. 45, page 391.

«Нам надо во что бы то ни стало поставить себе задачей для обновления нашего госаппарата: во-первых — учиться, во-вторых — учиться и в-третьих — учиться и затем проверять то, чтобы наука у нас не оставалась мертвой буквой или модной фразой (а это, нечего греха таить, у нас особенно часто бывает), чтобы наука действительно входила в плоть и кровь, превращалась в составной элемент быта вполне и настоящим образом».

Лучше меньше, да лучше, газета «Правда, №49, 4 марта 1923 года. Также: ПСС, т. 45, стр. 391]

https://thewire.in/history/bhagat-singh-dwarka-das-library-lahore-chandigarh

Follow the link to read or listen to this piece from the wire.

https://thewire.in/history/bhagat-singh-dwarka-das-library-lahore-chandigarh

Letter to Jane

Lecture on Jean-luc Godard’s film “Letter to Jane” – much to discuss at TDTU. Parts 1 and 2.

https://m.facebook.com/686475210/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://capitalnctu.wordpress.com/author/hutnyk/&ved=2ahUKEwjSyZDDt7r7AhUkh1YBHRb9Dt44ChAWegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3vnFFm35gkv44kSjYzpKCF

Cleaver: concluding thoughts

Cleaver leaves with a final bit about education in his conclusion that also seems sensible (if still US-o-centric) :

‘We have many potential allies among our schoolmates or among our colleagues. Yes, administrators – at the behest of business – impose rigidities that cripple our learning. But the possibilities of resistance among students has been amply demonstrated by both local and widespread student movements, among teachers… by recent successful mobilizations and strikes in a growing number of states and at the university level by TAs and adjuncts forming unions. In courses, students can minimize doing what they are told to do and divert their energy into following their own individual and collective intellectual and political noses, while teachers can undermine rigid curricula by introducing more interesting materials and giving students as much time as possible to contemplate and think about them. They can subvert the whole edu-factory system by bringing its character to students’ attention, by suggesting that they find ways to use available resources for their own purposes and by opening discussions about alternatives to incarcerated learning’ (Cleaver 2019: 483).

Overall I have liked this book as much as I expected, with just the occasional quibble that I’ll attribute to his location, and to some sort of residual anarcho-communist anti-Leninism he can’t seem to get over. He curiously minimised the important schmatic conclusion of volume one where Marx talks of the ‘expropriation of the expropriators’. I’ve written on this end, chapter 32 – it is very schmatic and badly translated in English – but Cleaver eschews any discussion of why Marx includes it in favour of offering his opinion on the USSR – reduced to ‘state capitalism’ (Cleaver 2019: 90) and directly moving to a discussion of two Hegel phrases at teh end of the chapter as occasion for Harry to tell us about dialectics and the Science of Logic. Not in itself uniniteresting, but the rush paast that important section – die Hülle wird gesrpringt – seems whlly unusual in an otherwise pretty through book, that is absolutely recommended.

More Cleaver on Students

There is room for more here, but quoting George Caffentzis helps:

‘Once you recognize the piecework character of the work of professors in universities, it is easy to see how those professors, and the administrators for whom they work, impose the same kind of logic on their students. As students progress through elementary, middle and high schools… careful supervision is increasingly complemented by unsupervised homework. While parents are often admonished to make sure they do it, some do, many don’t. At the university level, although there are a few professors who behave like schoolteachers and take attendance, for the most part students can come or not come to classes as they like. They are expected to impose the discipline of coming to class on themselves and most do. For the most part, university students’ work is unsupervised study whose arcomplishment depends totally on the student’s self-discipline… Given the large number of courses most students are expected or required to take and the associated large number of tasks set by each teacher or professor, they rarely have either time or energy left over for any autonomous study or real appropriation of knowledge.’ (Cleaver 2019: 384)

Cleaver’s word choice requires some strategic omissions, such as the word ‘shirking’ which seems pejorative to me, but he correctly laments the

‘imposition of fully specified degree plans, with pre-established sets of tasks, at the expense of self-directed study, motivated by students’ curiosity. In short, students suffer the imposition of externally imposed, alienated labor of the sort Marx analyzed in the 1844 Manuscripts… As a result, а devoted to meeting those requirements. They want to know which pieces of knowledge they will have to know for tests and don’t want to waste their time on other, useless, topics. Similarly, the first question about required papers is “How long does it have to be? How many pages? How many footnotes? How many sources?”… Associated with such structuring of schoolwork by the piece are piece-rate-like payment systems. The most universal of these is grading in which students are “paid” by the piece, a grade for each task accomplished, each quiz, each test, each paper, each research report, etc. Grades, of course, are not money payments; but the promises that school administrators, professors and future employers attach to grades – that the better grades you get, the better jobs and higher wages you will eventually obtain–makes them “IOUs” on future income. Like piece-wages, grades are handed out  according to the number of pieces accomplished and according to the “quality” of those pieces. Teachers and professors, of course, play the role of quality control inspectors… In the enlightening thermodynamic metaphor pointed out by George Caffentzis, they play the role of “Maxwell’s Daemon,” sorting students according entropy, i.e., the degree to which they available for work.  From this, we can see that whereas piece-wages in industry produces a hierarchy of better and worse paid workers, piecework in schools produces a grade hierarchy, promised to eventually translate into an income hierarchy. As with all such hierarchies, this kind of grading system encourages competition and many students strive to get higher grades than others—both for the immediate satisfaction of demonstrating their superiority and in the hope that later they may get better jobs. Hence too, the common phenomenon of students banding together in various ways to overcome this alienation.’ (Cleaver 2019: 385)

Predator journals target ISSH2021 – be warned.

So, a process warning to those not used to getting chatty friendly emails from parasite journals that will charge you to publish. The ISSH2021 conference gets hit by these predators. Promising to publish, but they won’t peer review or copy edit, are not rated in Scopus or ISI clarivate and will charge you up to US$6000 at the end for being tempted.Someone needs to extend Marx’s discussion of piece rates and expose these 7figure ‘earning’ corporate cowboys preying on adjuncts and new researchers. Even as some profs are starting to be a bit more alert to their predicament, such as Harry Cleaver below:

‘Another white-collar job, which is structured by the dynamics of piecework, is that of university professors. While most formally receive pay in the form of a salary, in truth the size of that salary is largely determined by piecework. Although universities pretend to value the importance of teaching, large research universities–that dominate higher education and set the standards by which other universities are ingly base professors’ pay not on teaching but on research and publishing…. Professors are supposed to understand their fields well enough to choose appropriate projects and skilled enough to craft both research and articles reporting on that research without direct supervision. The more articles reporting on that research without direct supervision. The more articles they publish, the more likely their known as “merit” pay increases. They are, in short, paid according to the number of “pieces” they produce. Moreover, like other pieceworkers they are not entirely on their own. They too are subject to quality control when they submit grant proposals or articles to journals. Quality control takes the form of “peer review,” wherein other professors evaluate their proposals or articles and decide whether they should receive grants in the one case or publication in the other. This situation, again like other piecework situations, is highly conducive to intense competition. With research funds and space in prestigious journals limited, professors compete for both—as well, of course, for tenure and promotion. For almost four decades the last 20 years of the twentieth century and the first 18 of the twenty-first-conservative politicians have used tax reductions on the rich to produce rising by cutting social programs but also on higher education, including reduced funding for research, which intensifies competition and makes universities funding for research, which intensines competition.’ (Cleaver 2019: 383-4)

some of the ISSH2021 recordings wll be coming soon…

For those about to be assessed, Harry Cleaver helps cut throught he must…

To those doing assignments, be it single or collective projects, here’s a reminder to resist the stress and do it for your own reasons. This is another condensed Cleaver passage (one of many where he crams commonsense into a comprehensive takedown of the systems in which we are caught):

‘In school, students are prodded from a very early age to compete against each other for grades and honors. In the short run, it is a means of control; in the long run, they are being conditioned to compete in the waged workplace. Such competition in the class room is complemented and reinforced by competition in sports, whether between individuals or teams. In the case of teams, the enflaming of “animal spirits” is central to the realization of the powers of “cooperation” – to the point of encouraging animosity, scorn and hatred against other teams. At the level of the school system, interscholastic competition is institutionally encouraged not only in sports, but also in music, in debate and in science fairs. Along the dark path to popularity and social status, competition is also fostered between boys and girls, and among boys vis-à-vis girls and among girls vis-à-vis boys. In many places, it is also fostered between castes, ethnicities and races. From secondary school through the university, “school spirit” is roused with marshal band music and pep rallies pitting students against students, often with violent language and mob antagonism. Beyond the shop floor, the family and the school, capitalists have fostered competition throughout society, from professional sports through music, film, fashion, beauty and cooking contests to soap operas, electoral politics and the judicial system. Even where it organizes collaboration-from collective school projects through corporate ones to sports teams-it carefully structures it within a wider framework of competition’ (Cleaver 2019, 288)

Assange and how truth does not set you free

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On thursday 9th Dec 2021 the first 15 minutes of my lecture on Media outlined the reasons why the extradition of Julian Assange should be opposed and he should not have been locked up in 2017. Today. 10th December, the news comes that the British Court has caved to US pressure and ruled he can be extradited, though he can appeal – it drags on and on.

The rest of the lecture is about Police Killings – the film Injustice by Ken Fero and Tariq Mehmood and then the Working Day and factory inspections. The course is Mass Media and all the lectures can be seen here.

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And here is a recent comment, and the crucial linked video, from just one of those who can see (I do not know who this is, but they seem correct to me – he was ShadyChancer in the Corbyn group and was dismissed by Sir Kareer Starwarmer):

Richard Burgon MP 

4ftt611S24pfanlaume1ui78  · X “Julian Assange is being targeted for exposing US war crimes – in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.Extradition to the US is not only an attempt to silence him – but to stop all journalists from speaking truth to power.We must continue to oppose his extradition to the US. This shocking video from Iraq, revealed by WikiLeaks, shows the killing of civilians and Reuters journalists. It’s just one example of the journalism that has led to the USA demanding the extradition of Julian Assange”.

“https://fb.watch/9O-Xy3jvFk/“

30 Minute Methods in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, TDTU.

The most useful thing I heard anyone say (it was Olivia Harris) about a methods course is that it should never be a discussion of how to, but rather a debate about what and why. Methods in this sense is something we wrangle with – a philosophical, contemplative, political, convivial, agitator-practitioner, collective, considerate set of choices of how to talk with people. If methods were simply to be applied, the study will be too rigid for the varieties and surprises of social life.

In these three “30 Minute Methods” discussions, the sense of debate comes through in short significant sensibilities concerned with process and outcome in a moving, meaningful world. The social sciences, and media anthropology in particular, need to look outside media and anthropology for methodological inspiration, and to be thereby inspired to risk something on method. These talks given to the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Ton Duc Thang University in November 2021 do just that:

16 November 2021. Prof Paolo Favero, University of Antwerp, Belgium:

‘Expanded Ethnography: technologies and the senses’

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23 November 2021. Dr Ken Fero, Regents University, London:

‘Documentary as memory when dealing with national trauma through state violence‘

***

November 30 2021. Dr Jack Boulton, Leuven University, Belgium: ‘

TV, film and literature sci-fi as part of the new literary turn in anthropology’

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30 Minute Methods – Dr Sarunas Paunksnis, 21. 02 . 23

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30 Minute Methods TDTU talk by Runa Chakraborty Paunksnis March 7 2023

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30 Minute Methods TDTU Brett Neilson 12 12 23

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Joyce C H Liu Limit as Method TDTU Xh&NV 19.12.2023

5 min interview

I get the occasional cold call from secondary school students and always try to respond with some things that are expected and some unexpected. They might miss the mark, or be a bit wayward, but you know its a good sign when a year 11 student is interested in research. This one came from South Australia – literally five minuted response, so hardly even as taxing as the effort of posting it here (almost). The questions were about the Sundarbans, as the student Fariha had read a review essay on recent-ish books:

• Can you explain the situation that transpired in the Sundarban, after Cyclone Amphan hit?

To be fair, compared to you or anyone else with internet access, I cannot say anything much on this because I’m unable to travel at present and really, I would need to go and have a look for myself. Everything else I could tell you about the Sundarbans in the last year would be a summary of what is already online. I think having a look for yourself is the only way an anthropologist can say something different to what an year 11 researcher might find after a few weeks looking online. To some extent the habit of contextualising is something you learn with time, but if you are sensible you will know not to rush to judgement, to consider as many interpretations you can, and come up with your interpretation without thinking its always correct or final. That is the fun of research though, isn’t it.

• Why is the Sundarban area so important (culturally, ecologically, economically, etc.)?

Trees, people, animals. In Annu Jalais book Forest of Tigers, you can read heaps about the relationships  of humans to animals and jungle. Its fascinating, and there is a lot to learn for all of us.

• What strategies are being implemented and/or proposed in the Sundarban to protect the site and local communities?

Hmmm, many, good and bad. You should investigate the Marichjhapi massacre for an example of something that went wrong.

• What determines the livelihood of the local people in Sundarban? How has extreme weather events such as cyclone Amphan affected their livelihood?

Much. Much. Much. Much. But then, ‘extreme weather’ is becoming less extreme in the sense that its hitting everywhere, so that by definition is not extreme but the new normal, however much we’d like to keep thinking its not. I mean, is ‘extreme weather’ or ‘climate change’ not just a way of talking about pollution without putting the blame of the top 100 corporations that easily produce the majority of world pollution, from plastics to carbon monoxide to toxins, to the entire commodity system?

• How does the local community’s perspective on the Sundarban and what solution do they perceive will help mitigate the impact of extreme weather events?

The mitigation you speak of requires a wider revolutionary movement, the return and even greater engagement of people’s organisations to wrest control of the means of production from the greedy plutocrats that currently dominate and ensure no voice of the people can be heard except when they are controlling the microphone (platform, outlet, forum).

• Some writers and scholars have highlighted that dating back to the colonial era, the government has historically offered little help to victims of natural disasters. Do you see any parallels between the situation then and now?

What is the difference between colonialism and neo-colonialism? Perhaps the difference is that while people know about it now, people do less about it. A kind of mass paralysis of everyone sitting in front of a screen nodding to the ever slowing heartbeat of their own disengagement.

• How has the nature of the Sundarban itself changed over time as a result of lack of consultation and lack of political will for a solution and how has that impacted the lives of the community?

Lack of consultation – sounds like a thing, but consultation with who? The lack of political will is real at least I guess, even as communities have been forced out of the area for various reasons.

• What do you think needs to change in order for the situation in the Sundarban to improve?

Overthrow of the ruling class, defeat of corporate culture, opportunism and bigotry, a real critique of the so-called ‘climate crisis’ (pollution/world destruction). Of which a research project like yours can be a start, but cannot be all we do – it can start with research but it must expand to get more people involved, more people need to be reading and learning about revolutionary theory and thinking long and hard about forming organisations that are collectively run, counter-hegemonic (look it up if need be – against the dominant) and in the business of informed critical engagement, questioning everything, accepting nothing (including this)  and of course allowing for occasional five minute rants by grizzled old professors who wish they were a part of the coming global communist insurrection that will be the only thing that will save us all from rampant grasping crazy-ass capital.

ISSH2021

visit https://issh2021.tdtu.edu.vn/ for details.

Register here: https://issh2021.tdtu.edu.vn/conference-fees

30 Minute Methods – TDTU, Vietnam

30 minute methods’ seminar series [online in November] in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanites, Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam.

1. Tuesday November 16, 2021, at 4pm HCMC 

Prof Paolo Favero, Uni Antwerp, Belgium: 

‘Expanded Ethnography: technologies and the senses’

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2. Tues November 23, 2021, at 4pm HCMC. 

Dr Ken Fero, Regents University, London:

‘Documentary as memory when dealing with national trauma through state violence‘

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3. Tues November 30, 2021, at 4pm HCMC.

Dr Jack Boulton, Leuven Uni, Belgium: 

‘TV, film and literature sci-fi as part of the new literary turn in anthropology’

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Seminars via Zoom (email Johnhutnyk@tdtu.edu.vn for the link) all held at 4pm Ho Chi Minh City time – that’s 2.30pm in Kolkata, 9pm in Melbourne, 10am in Western Europe, 9am on Airstrip one, 4am in NYC (sozz).

Recent stuffs:

The Corporate Imaginary, In Thesis Eleven August 13, 2020

Co research in Vietnam for the anthropology classroom  with Do Thi Xuan Huong, in Education Philosophy and Theory, 2020, with supplement rept_a_1752187_sm3452

The Pecuniary Animus of the University in Education, Philosophy and Theory, 2020

If the Tigers and Cyclones Don’t Get You, the Law Will, South Asia 2019

Global South Asia on Screen. Book, India only edition 2019

What did you do in the war? History and Anthropology 2019

Marx in Calcutta, CITY 2018

Global South Asia on Screen, Book, World Edition, 2018

The Corporate Menagerie – Thesis Eleven

An article on the malaise that afflicts the UK university system, applicable to the US and Australia too possibly, not wholly tongue-in-cheek and riffing on true stories. Everyone will have their own versions of these tales, no doubt. Links below the screenshot.

 

Note: I am permitted to link here [The corporate menagerie] to the accepted version, but changes made during the editing process are not included so for those, and for citation, you should download the article from the journal using the doi identifier: https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513620949009. Cheers.

 

Education Philosophy and Theory Vol 52, Issue 11

Volume 52, 2020

Innovating Institutions: Instituting Innovation

– section editor John Hutnyk

Introduction An intuition of innovative new institutions Le Thi Mai & John Hutnyk Pages: 1120-1125 Published online: 20 Jul 2020 First Page Preview|Full Text|References| PDF (721 KB) |

Articles

The university in the global age: reconceptualising the humanities and social sciences for the twenty-first century. Scott Doidge, John Doyle & Trevor Hogan Pages: 1126-1138 Published online: 25 May 2020 Abstract|Full Text|References| PDF (1353 KB)

 

Meritocracy in Singapore Stefano Harney Pages: 1139-1148 Published online: 28 May 2020 Abstract|Full Text|References| PDF (726 KB)

 

Innovations in creative education for tertiary sector in Australia: present and future challenges Hiep Duc Nguyen, Le Thi Mai & Duc Anh Do Pages: 1149-1161 Published online: 10 Apr 2020 Abstract|Full Text|References| PDF (916 KB)

 

Beyond borders: trans-local critical pedagogy for inter-Asian cultural studies Joyce C. H Liu Pages: 1162-1172 Published online: 15 Apr 2020 Abstract|Full Text|References| PDF (899 KB)

 

Innovations of education socialisation in Vietnam: from participation towards privatisation Thi Kim Phung Dang Pages: 1173-1184 Published online: 26 May 2020 Abstract|Full Text|References| PDF (897 KB)

 

Co-research in Vietnam for the anthropology classroom Do Thi Xuan Huong & John Hutnyk Pages: 1185-1200 Published online: 28 Apr 2020 Abstract|Full Text|References| PDF (1377 KB) |Supplemental

 

Ways of life: Knowledge transfer and Aboriginal heritage trails Stephen Muecke & Jennifer Eadie Pages: 1201-1213 Published online: 25 May 2020 Abstract|Full Text|References| PDF (944 KB)

 

Regional aspirations with a global perspective: developments in East Asian labour studies Kim Scipes Pages: 1214-1224 Published online: 28 May 2020 Abstract|Full Text|References| PDF (929 KB)

 

 

Education Philosophy and Theory special journal issue on Innovating Institutions

Please read the intro (free access) and follow up the rest (you know how):

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2020.1757395

Whole issue: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rept20/52/11?nav=tocList

 

Bác Hồ’s Security Detail Lesson

Theodor is in grade 2 of primary (7 years old) and they study Ho Chi Minh thought. Here is an example of their little parables about Bác Hồ (Uncle Ho):

My rough translation is:

“Security like that is excellent*

Uncle Ho’s security unit at the battlefield.

The unit has a new soldier. It is Le Phuc Nha, an ethnic minority San Chi soldier.

The first day he stood guard in front of the camp house of Uncle, soldier Nha was both proud and nervous.

This Brother watches the road leading to the house. Observing, suddenly he saw from a distance a tall, skinny old man, wearing rubber sandals.

Nha at first did not react, the old man took it as greeting, nodding, he said:

– you are the guard here?

And saying that he went to go into his house.

Before he could go inside, Nha quickly said:

– Please show me your papers!

The old man happily said:

– Here they are.

– You must have a different additional paper. There is a new paper you need to pass here.

At that moment, the company commander ran up, flustered. He said to Nha:

– Uncle Ho is here. Why didn’t you let Uncle come into Uncle Ho’s house?

But Uncle Ho said quietly:

– He is very good at security. Very good.

Honky Tonk University

As I was chatting to Tony who wanted an update, here it for economies sake for the family and friends too: we are in week 12 of homeschooling. Heaven forfend, help the kids. We sailed past the ‘we have this’ phase into stir crazy part three in and out the other end of ‘this is how it will be forever’. Playing the Animals ‘We Gotta get Out of This Place’ over dinner. Vietnam = 0 deaths, under 300 infections found, yaaay, and all of those traced to a couple of folks returned from pommyland, one airline pilot who went clubbing!! Nevertheless, great effort and a system that works – go figure, communism for all, I say – and we hope it will just be a few weeks more before the schools welcome us back, otherwise, its forever and, well, at least life is cheap here. On the other hand, life is cheap here. Thankfully some factories and businesses have been paying wages and there’s a lot of govt support, but marginal, part-time, street-level workers, waste-pickers., lottery tix people, etc, must have it tough, so very, tough times for many people, but I am still surprised, a little, since not all that many are visibly losing it. People sit around as casual as ever in the smaller outdoor street cafes that are still functioning in a minor way; for the bigger cafes – and in our area, every second house is a small cafe or foodie joint – in terms of the near-subsistence level businesses here must be a lot of pain – 80% of shops still closed (though the guy selling Security System’s can’t be an essential service can he? I mean, everyone is at home, and the restaurant tips are empty. Who needs security gadgets right now?). There was a moment when we could think, ah, it is just like a long long staycation, – endless Tet – but its harder to concentrate on anything the longer this goes on without a clear outcome/prognosis. I guess we have a lot of people starting to construct these. Home kit versions mostly – and often prognosis by numbers. And Guesswork. When I do get a moment to think work things, apart from just getting the few articles out with others, the analytic side is a minefield of doom and chaos. Again, maybe in some ways, Vietnam should be ok because not so many foreign students come here compared to say, Australia, UK and US uni’s, who are gonna suffer extreme measures – part inflicted by the ‘crisis’, partly by the bodgy silver budgie management types that will cut to the bone to save their skins. Especially UK ones who recently spent tonnes of money on tarting up their facilities to attract more students. Expect a huge crash in the higher education sector there. That, plus travel, are going to be a long time coming back. Venture capital will no doubt be looking to invest in remote digital services for rich folks on islands. If they can secure private armies to defend their fibre optic links and helicopter/drone Amazon deliveries, their life will be the same – well, wall-to-wall Rolling Stones ‘at home’ videos are the saddest part of it. Quite a long way from the Honky Tonk, eh Mick.

https://www.academia.edu/42809668/The_pecuniary_animus_of_the_university

The Pecuniary Animus of the University

After some time, and somewhat shorter (tighter) edited to be less of a devotional prayer for Thorstein Bunde Veblen, this piece – The Pecuniary Animus of the University – is out with Education Philosophy and Theory. Look out for more soon.

Thanks to the many who helped get this together with good advice, critique and suggestions. Its taken a while, but all to the good.

 

 

This just in from Taylor & Francis. I comply, with a wink and a nod, but email if the 50 run out and I will work out a way…

“Want to tell others you’re published? Use your free eprints today
Every author at Routledge (including all co-authors) gets 50 free online copies of their article to share with friends and colleagues as soon as their article is published. Your eprint link is now ready to use and is:

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/REBTG2ZTTJJDJ9VYDMPB/full?target=10.1080/00131857.2020.1735357

      

You can paste this into your emails, on social media, or anywhere else you’d like others to read your article. Author feedback tells us this is a highly effective way of highlighting your research. Using this link also means we can track your article’s downloads and citations, so you can measure its impact.

 

Innovations in the Social Sciences and Humanities #ISSH2019

 

An International Conference at Ton Duc Thang University October 4-5, 2019

Innovations are the key. In method and analysis, in the ways in which scholarship engages with society and organisations today, there can be no doubting the relevance of the social science and humanities to all our pressing questions. The Innovations discussed at the conference challenged our thinking. The topics were wide-ranging and varied, the approaches distinctly alive; some of the papers demonstrated a vivid combination of theoretical and practical research, some were insistently in a humanities’-oriented style, others more forthright and strictly social science, and still others experimented with the form and tone of the social sciences. Perhaps while bringing new methods to Vietnam, the creativity of the social sciences and relevance of the humanities for contemporary understanding was brought out even more by the diversity of themes and perspectives. Of course the traditional scholarship of the social sciences was also represented, but in writing that has an urgency and verve that excited discussion.

 

See the conference reported on TV news HTV9:

http://www.htv.com.vn/hoi-thao-quoc-te-ve-de-tai-khoa-hoc-xa-hoi-va-nhan-van-1

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Guido Abbattista, University of Trieste (middle)

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Professor Guido Abbattissta from the University of Trieste in Italy said the conference ‘was an exciting experience’. Dr Arnab Choudhury from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, said it was an ‘immensely wonderful conference, by far one of the most well-organised conferences I have ever attended’.
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Stephen Muecke Flinders University

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The featured keynotes included a powerfully engaging presentation from Professor Stephen Muecke of Flinders University Australia. Prof Muecke is a hugely important voice in cultural studies and theorist of notions of the cultural landscape and ways of reading cultural relations between settler and Aboriginal Australia. His explanation of the walking method innovated by Aboriginal traditional landholders will inspire reflection and new practices, and perhaps some in Vietnam will want to take up the invitation of Aboriginal elder Paddy Roe to visit Western Australia and walk the ancient dreaming tracks near Broome with his family.
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Professor Joyce Liu (NCTU Taiwan) and Professor Ursula Rao (Uni Leipzig, Germany)

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A keynote lecture by Professor Joyce Liu from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, on new methods of inter-Asian joint and multi-site research inaugurated a perspective on political and cultural research that promises new opportunities for collaboration and debate across borders. She spoke with an engagement that should never be sacrificed in scholarship while there are so many urgent and relevant issues upon which scholars must comment as the leading presenters of, explorers of, and advocates for ideas.

The conference as a whole addressed debates about why innovation and new methods in the social sciences and humanities in Vietnam are needed. This was to respond to clear demands within Vietnam for such methods and enthusiasms (perspectives of a number of Government and non-Government agencies have supported this with relevant statements, such as the government Global Challenges position papers in 2018, and the work of independent research units like Social Life). Mild Hombrebueno from the Philippines said she had ‘learnt a lot from the conference, built new networks, friendships and linkages’ and claimed enthusiastically:

‘I have been to other international conferences, but so far, this is the best experience I’ve ever had. The host university and the organizing committee were so accommodating even up to the last leg of the program. It was indeed full of intellectual discussions, where I made many realizations’

/

Professor Rao

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Participatory development projects need a new lease of life and a major rethink – and this was provided by Professor Ursula Rao from the University of Leipzig in Germany as she explored new thinking on the challenges of development in anthropology.

Ms Hombrebueno again commented:

‘meeting with Prof. Rao and her advocacy on Shaping Asia is just so exciting one! I am grateful [to have] the chance to be with the team’

Professor Elaine Carey from Purdue NorthWest in Indian a, USA, spoke on women and research on drugs in the archive, the depredations of the war on drugs and the lives of women drug lords were fascinating topics, with side excursions into the interests of American author William Burroughs and images from the press of mid-20th century Mexico and South America. The thinking here was deep as well as a gripping story – if there are no short cuts and no easy solutions, we are challenged at least to think hard – and it is also an inspiration to hear how we can also care about writing well, and hear this from the leading international scholars of our times.
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/

The conference had articles/panels on over 40 topics by cutting edge thinkers and on themes that remain urgent and pressing – for example, there was a session on the new area of sociobiology, there was the panel on education provision and socialization with a discussion of Vietnam and Australia on higher education successes. There was an engaging panel on participatory methods as a research tool eminently suited for new ways of doing research in the social sciences and humanities. Experts were involved and risking their ideas and critiques in every panel of the conference, though the discussions also spilled over into conversations in the corridors and in cafes afterwards. And the conference will continue to have an impact on scholarship in Vietnam and the region because the papers were published in a conference volume and some will be rewritten for journals and books in the coming months. The effect of the conference will help make TDTU one of the major centres in Vietnam for discussion of new research in these areas.
\

/

The conference was open-ended and its assessment will continue long afterwards, with consequences that will shape ongoing research. As such, the papers presented are not only about new results, so much about new ways of going about getting those results and discussing those results – fostering a culture of research in the Universities that are open to the experience of social change, the challenges of the times and globally, shifting the locus of advanced research towards the region again, so that perhaps we will begin to arrest the so-called brain-drain where so much budding talent leaves the country for several, sometimes many, years . The conference will be part of a much-needed boost to refresh the social sciences and humanities.
/

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The key point to make is: that with such a large number of regional delegates – from India, Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines – and a significant number of wider international guests – from the USA, Europe and Australia – this conference can be seen as a crucial establishing part of the project of making Vietnam, and TDTU, a key hub in the region for discussions about innovative research in the social sciences and humanities. It is highly appropriate then that this conference was held at TDTU – a young university, able to do things in a creative and exciting new way. We can only hope for more of this.

JH

See the conference reported on TV news HTV9:

http://www.htv.com.vn/hoi-thao-quoc-te-ve-de-tai-khoa-hoc-xa-hoi-va-nhan-van-1

and the abstracts: https://issh2019.tdtu.edu.vn/…/files/2019-09/Abstracts.pdf

Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, saying…

From The Undercommens: Fugitive Planning and Black Study:

 

So, as a youngster heading out to do what damage I could to the world, I inadvertently joined, as if by accident and certainly by bluff, a research project in which, in the end, it turned out that the leader, when report time came around, decided that the report back to the funding council should say that I had been incapable of doing the research required. This  because I was too cautious in not wanting to orientalise the other,. Damning indictment. I saw the thing rather differently – having joined the project to maim it, there was nothing cautious in a critique of lame versions of identity, hybridity, and oooh, culture. The critique of ethnomusicology logically followed, for form’s sake, and of exoticism, of egoistic cult scholarship and professor-ism, of the inheritance of baubles and trinkets of election to a clergy that no-one believed, not even themselves. There wasn’t even any need to condemn them as they condemned themselves, and the riposte ‘I thought you were dead’ still brings laughter and joy. In amongst the ashes and horrors, and rent-a-kill terrors. They do have the resources that still make some things possible, get in an grab some, since soon it will be gone. And all the while give some back, not just lip – I have lent out more books than I own, and I own a lot of the bloody things. leaving them lying around (though particular about not leaving them spine open, or on a wet bench. Yes, bloody things they are – written in letters of blood and fire, shares of a capital produced through pain and struggle just to escape beyond the enthusiasm-sucking routine of having to pay the rent and feed the kids while syphoning a substantial packet off into projects, and more books, because, yes, the research councils were a bit wary after that. Oh, and then apparently named the enemy of anthropology from within. I’ll take that too. With chips. More soon.

International Conference on Innovations in the Social Sciences and Humanities at Ton Duc Thang University October 4-5, 2019

International Conference at Ton Duc Thang University October 4-5, 2019

Innovations in the Social Sciences and Humanities

Innovations are the key. In method and analysis, in the ways in which scholarship engages with society and organisations today, there can be no doubting the relevance of the social science and humanities to all our pressing questions. The Innovations to be discussed at the conference challenge our thinking. The topics are wide-ranging and varied, the approaches distinctly alive; some of the papers demonstrate a vivid combination of theoretical and  practical research, some are insistently in a humanities’-oriented style, others more forthright and strictly social science, and still others experiment with the form and tone of the social sciences. Perhaps bringing new methods to Vietnam, the creativity of the social sciences and relevance of the humanities for contemporary understanding is brought out by the diversity of themes and perspectives. Of course the traditional scholarship of the social sciences is represented, but in writing that has an urgency and verve that will excite discussion.

The features include a keynote lecture by Professor Stephen Muecke, a hugely important voice in cultural studies and theorist of notions of cultural landscape and ways of reading cultural relations between settler and Aboriginal Australia. His walking method will inspire reflection.

A keynote lecture by Professor Joyce Liu on new methods of inter-Asian joint and multi-site research inaugurates a perspective on cultural research that promises new opportunities for collaboration and debate across borders, and with an engagement that should never be sacrificed in the social science and humanities. There are many urgent and relevant issues upon which scholars must comment as the leading presenters of, explorers of, and advocates for ideas

The conference as a whole addresses debates about why innovation and new methods in the social sciences and humanities in Vietnam are needed. This is to respond to clear demands within Vietnam for such methods and enthusiasms (perspectives of a number of Government and non-Government agencies have supported this with relevant statements, such as the government Global Challenges position papers in 2018, and the work of independent research units like Social Life).

Professor Ursula Rao will explore new thinking on the challenges of development in anthropology. Professor Elaine Carey on women and research, in the archive, on drugs. There are no short cuts and no easy solutions – we are challenged to think hard with the leading international scholars of our times.

The conference brings articles/panels on 43 topics by cutting edge thinkers and on themes that are urgent and pressing – for example, there is a session on the new area of sociobiology by Jon Solomon and Samiksha Bahn, or there is the panel on education provision and socialization with discussion of Vietnam and Australia on higher education successes and problems. There is an engaging panel on participatory methods as a research tool eminently suited for new ways of doing research in the social sciences and humanities. Experts and serious scholars are involved in every panel of the conference, though the discussions will spill out into conversations and publications that will continue to have an impact on scholarship in Vietnam and the region. The effect of the conference is to make TDTU one of the hubs in Vietnam for discussion of new research in these areas.

The conference is open-ended and will continue long afterwards, with consequences that will shape ongoing research. As such, the papers presented are not only about new results, so much about new ways of going about getting those results and discussing those results – fostering a culture of research in the Universities that are open to the experience of social change, the challenges of the times and globally, shifting the locus of advanced research towards the region again, so that perhaps we will begin to arrest the so-called brain-drain where so much budding talent leaves the country for several, sometimes many, years . The conference will be part of a much-needed boost to refresh the social sciences and humanities.

The key point to make is: that with a number of regional delegates – India, Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines – and a number of wider international guests – from the USA, Europe and Australia – this conference can be a crucial establishing part of the project of making Vietnam, and TDTU, a key hub in the region for discussions about innovative research in the social sciences and humanities – highly appropriate then that this conference will be held at TDTU – a young university, able to do things in a creative and exciting new way.

More soon…

See https://issh2019.tdtu.edu.vn

Jadavpur University and the pecuniary investment jealousy rag (need some infrastructure surely).

I don’t have cause to say so often enough, but I consider Jadavpur a second alma mater for me (just as second breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so is what I have learned at Jadavpur over 30 years sustaining). There is a long background behind this below, but those with the ability to read between the lines can make the necessary analytic dot joinings…

 

In a widely shared post on FB Somak Mukherjee writes passionately about what is being done to Jadavpur:

Friends and colleagues there [at JU]; I applaud your sense of integrity and courage. Stay safe. The machinery of politics is not merely random and arbitrary, but peculiarly random in its vengeful rhetoric.

Absolutely wonderful to see a large turnout yesterday for the protest procession. Current or former students, kudos to you.

A humble request in anticipation of a rising narrative, maliciously aimed at the students community of the university: that Jadavpur’s “aimless and disorganized environment/ politics” is the result of a decline in academic standard”. This rhetoric will find a large following/support in a rising section of Bengali bourgeoisie welcoming unprecedented cultural regression in our city/state. Political IT cells will ensure this narrative finds wide currency in tv shouting matches/whatsapp forwards/facebook communities.

Nothing is further from the truth. Students/teachers/scholars there already know this. But please combat this narrative with consistency and conviction.

Jadavpur University is still among the top five public universities in the naton: an astonishing feat considering the comparative but consistent against state public universities in India in the last several decades. When looking at rankings, please consider the fact that IITs lack the diversity of disciplines taught here. There are Depts+schools+centers= almost 60 academic units alone in this university, outnumbering JNU. This university always punched above its weight in the national arena with a self assured recognition of being an underdog. It champions underdogs going beyond the tired binary of success/failure in meritocracy.

I had to do a little bit of research for an article about the recent academic progress of JU. Some facts:

a) Under a specific scheme of RUSA ( Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyaan) aimed at 10 state public universities, JU has been a rare exception in timely utilization of the funds disbursed in the last 4 years.

b) There are only two state public universities getting the coveted Institution of Eminence (IOE) tag: Jadavpur and Anna. If the 1000 Crores indeed get disbursed over the next five years, it can potentially double the university budget ( Proviso: this fund, apparently, cannot be allotted for additional posts: a MHRD criteria. Bizarre.) for research and overall infrastructure. Again, JU qualified despite the odds, countering indifferent and arrogant educational bureaucracy at the center. At least three major newspapers in only the last weeks have published confused and misleading news reports about 1. Amount of funding requested and, this is more crucial, 2. the proviso of state government providing the supplementary funds, attaching negative comments from state government officials. Again, apparently there is no proviso that the full funding is tied to supplementary funding from “bankrupt” state govern An independent verification and clarification of this might be useful.

3. 2018 FET placements have been astonishingly good.

Story 3 was tucked away in the corner of page 8 of a Bengali daily recently. Story 1 was hardly reported. Story 2, as I mentioned, has been reported in a confusing and self contradictory manner. My larger points: this fits a narrative of intention of the mainstream India ( English or vernacular) about which specific optics about the university should be fed to public discourse. The spectacle of passionate protest, while incredibly effective, can also take time in realizing the double edged sword of the media rhetoric. This is why the awareness of the institutional progress can be quite useful.

This university was once “unfashionably” nationalistic in pre-independence time. It did not care when critics railed against the university enrolling revolutionaries as mature students. This university employed one of the greatest 20th century Bengali poets despite his lack of formal ‘qualifications’. This university made a 25 year old founding HOD of its economics department. Then, it was made fun of for its suburban obscurity. Yet it thrived: because of its gloriously scattered intellectual currents relished the accusation of suburban subversions with delightful irony. Times changed: hell, KP took over jurisdiction. But JU remained sufficiently downmarket for the elite of the ‘proper south’ and yet marvelously dreamy for suburbia kids like myself.

I know these are deeply cynical times, but I will stick my neck out and say: best days for Jadavpur are yet to come. If you agree then good: strength of optimism can be quite revolutionary itself. If you disagree, then disregard this rant as an inevitable outcome of suburban longings. Jadavpur was never Calcutta’s university. It was/and still is, a gateway university.

The Higher Learning

“even the scholars occupied with the “humanities,” are at pains to find some colourable answer that shall satisfy the worldly-wise that this learning for which they speak is in some way useful for pecuniary gain” – Thorstein Veblen, 1919.

building my TB fan site.

 

Also: “Among the immediate consequences of this latter feature, as shown in the example of the law schools, is a relatively high cost. The schedule of salaries in the law schools attached to the universities, e. g., runs appreciably higher than in the university proper ; the reason being, of course, that men suitable efficiently to serve as instructors and directive officials in a school of law are almost necessarily men whose services in the practice of the law would command a high rate of pay. What is needed in the law school (as in the school of commerce) is men who are practically conversant with the ways and means of earning large fees, that being the point of it all”  Veblen on p214 of The Higher Learning. [My italics]

JNU & University Strikes in Delhi

“On Friday, the Congress had voted — unsuccessfully —for amendments proposed by the CPM and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to the government’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act Amendment Bill. But when the time came to vote on the bill itself, the Congress voted in favour”

Oh dear. Yet…

From the Telegraph 4th August 2019

Don’t rely on Parliament, MP Manoj Jha tells teachers

Jha called for street protests

By Our Special Correspondent in New Delhi

 

Manoj Jha, a professor of social work with Delhi University, was addressing teachers gathered in solidarity with 48 of their JNU colleagues who face disciplinary charges for going on strike last year against alleged rule violations in appointments and the withholding of salaries.(Screengrab: RSTV)

Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Jha on Saturday asked protesting teachers not to depend any more on Parliament, a day after the Congress voted in favour of a law that empowers the government to declare individuals as terrorists even without trial.

Jha, a professor of social work with Delhi University, was addressing teachers gathered in solidarity with 48 of their JNU colleagues who face disciplinary charges for going on strike last year against alleged rule violations in appointments and the withholding of salaries.

The teachers say the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, which have been invoked against them, do not apply to university faculty, who are governed by the ordinances of their universities.

“I’m not talking about adversaries. They are known. You don’t know about those who stand with you as friends,” Jha said.

“Don’t ever any more rely on Parliament. Ultimately, when it comes to voting, friends disappear. There is a very good instrument called ‘walking out’. You say lots of things on a bill: ‘I disagree, I disagree, I disagree, I disagree’. And subsequently you walk out. What is that? You are helping the government muzzle your own voice.”

He went on: “Probably, you will have to create a ’75-like situation (that triggered the Emergency). Let’s work on it. Let’s take away responsibilities from the political parties and politicians not because of anything else but simply because they are suffering from drudgery. They have started believing that there is no alternative…. You don’t always cross the floor from here to there. You disappear from the floor.”

Jha called for street protests. “They have won the majority; they are winning in Parliament. The only space they are not winning is the universities, JNU being one. But there are hundreds of universities in this country where there are voices of dissent. You can’t defeat them in elections.”

He added: “Let’s gherao Parliament itself; let’s talk about coming in big numbers. I only see hope in that. Otherwise, I can’t tell you the way I have seen legislative business (conducted) in Parliament. I’m worried whether Parliament will have any meaning in the coming days.”

On Friday, the Congress had voted — unsuccessfully —for amendments proposed by the CPM and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to the government’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act Amendment Bill. But when the time came to vote on the bill itself, the Congress voted in favour.

Earlier this week, the Janata Dal United and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had opposed the bill that criminalises the instant talaq but walked out after that. Several Opposition MPs too were absent during the voting.

Speaking to The Telegraph after Saturday’s event, Jha said: “I spoke out because whatever has happened in Parliament worries me as a citizen and an MP. The best fight is when you link anguish in the street with anger in Parliament. The anguish is there on the street, but the anger in Parliament has disappeared.”

The JNU 48 have received support from teachers’ unions across India and several renowned academics outside India, including Akeel Bilgrami, Arjun Appadurai, Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, Partha Chatterjee and Sheldon Pollock.

After protests following the University Grants Commission’s attempt to bring all universities under the CCS rules, which govern bureaucrats, then human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar had last October tweeted: “We have neither put any restrictions nor intend to put any restrictions on ‘Freedom of Speech’ in JNU, Delhi University or any other university.”

Rajib Ray, president of the Federation of Central University Teachers Associations, said: “It (his tweet) was a blatant lie…. The attack is not on the 48 or 200 teachers, it is on higher education itself.”

cut from the draft of the pecuniary animus of the university…

We might consider the university as that space where the practice of education for life, with all its contemporary contextualisations, difficulties and possibilities, is a collective responsibility and resource, and so all have an interest in participation within, and ownership of, its spaces. The resources of which the university can be custodian are many, they should not be sequestered to the privileged few. If we must characterize the present conjuncture in some way relevant to the shape and place of the university in societal life, we might remark on several such resources (some more obviously progressive than others):

• collective inquiry, multifaceted interdisciplinarity
• team work, research teams, networks
• training, questioning, critique
• libraries, databases, tertiary retentional devices, algorithms
• translation, cultural communications
• hive-mind, conceptual, automated
• administration, organization, plasticity
• gender, difference, inclusion-exclusion
• technology, environment, animals, events
• service, affect, desolation, automation
• competition, disposability, composition
• digitalisation, proletarianisation
• bureaucratisation, auditing, calculus

.

Is it not possible to reject the elitist presumption that only some people are suited to research or salon theory? Luxemburg (1913), Gramsci (1971), Mao (1949), Spivak (2102) could each be deployed to illustrate both the necessity and potential of bringing all cadre onto the path of knowledge ‘management’ – even if that word is code for separating head and hand, salon and grunt, rich and poor. For some, just saying it this way is to name a prejudice – white supremacy – that joins a much larger battle in which the effort is destroy and displace outmoded assumptions. Even in a minor militant mode…

Innovations… Conference 4-5 October 2019, TDTU, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Innovations in the Social Sciences and Humanities

4^th and 5^th of October 2019.
Ho Chi Minh City, Socialist republic of Vietnam

Welcome to the website for the conference Innovations in the Social Sciences and Humanities, jointly organised by The University of Trieste, Italy; the Universität Leipzig, Germany; National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan; University of Warwick, UK; College of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (CHESS) at Purdue University Northwest (PNW), USA; and Ton Duc Thang University, Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Conference Venue – Ton Duc Thang University

Address: 19 Nguyen Huu Tho Street, Tan Phong Ward, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Invitation and Call for papers:

For the International Conference 4-5 October 2019 at Ton Duc Thang University, HCMC, Vietnam, we would like to hear from those working on innovative approaches to public engagement in the social sciences and humanities. Methodological, empirical, archival or conceptual-theoretical work is encouraged, especially where a keen interest in application, consequence, practice or outcome is involved. Sometimes this is called impact on the one side, or intervention on the other, but we are nevertheless interested in all inquiries and investigations which advance the emancipatory possibilities of scholarship in a radically changed global context.

Social and cultural practices in both modern life and in the preservation of historical memory, could suitably connect sociology, social work, history, ethno-anthropology (museums, exhibitions, fairs, monuments, collective ceremonies), cultural tourism, eco-preservation policies, and other urgent contemporary social issues. Comparative studies are welcome, but not the only focus. We are especially interested in deep and detailed studies which have wider significance and suggestions for ‘best practice’. After many years of ‘interdisciplinarity’, or at least talk about this, we are interested to see examples where this works well in practice. We can assume all studies are comparative and interdisciplinary in a way, and all certainly have consequences, implications…

We are especially keen to hear from those working in three overlapping areas of engaged activity: these may be people working as anthropologists, historians, museum and preservation/heritage studies; cultural geographers, sociologists and in cultural studies; or on border studies, migrant labor and workplace and institutional inquiries. Our themes will interact within the structure of the conference, but we are keen in particular to go deeply into each area.

With Innovations in Public Engagement we anticipate discussions of the ways scholarship might best go about communicating in public the experience of the past and of human, cultural and environmental diversity, including technological and bio-political innovations and their contemporary reshaping of pasts and presents. Challenges to questions of who produces scholarship and why, for whom and by whom, can apply to past and present uses of knowledge, where the models of research and inquiry are actively reworked in the face of new public demands.

With Historical/contemporary practices and policies we seek to address issues related to contemporary forms of social conflict, including unequal citizenship and new racisms, the rise of right-wing populist movements and infiltration of religious power in secular governmentality, migrant workers as neoliberal slavery, questions of human trafficking and refugees, developmentalism and environmental pollution, crony capitalism and geo-economic zoning politics.

With Innovations of methodology, training and new skills for the future it seems to us crucial that our work respond to rapid reconfigurations of the very possibility and consequences of engaged social sciences and humanities scholarship. Whether the changing context is imposed by governments by industry or by civil society, when we deal with institutional change and competitive and imperative demands, we do need to develop new tools for knowledge(s) and new sensibilities/sensitivities. Education, reform and responsiveness, new skills and objectives, new modes of investigation and teaching in general. An urgent and targeted focus on how scholarship might remain relevant and critical in the face of global trends – funding cuts, social constraints, new demands, new conservatism, and crises of certitude.

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam will be our venue, but it need not necessarily be the context or focus of all papers, nor are comparative, or East-West or ‘post’ or neo-colonial framings always to be foregrounded in the papers. We are interested however in papers that encourage us to think anew about the implications of where we are and about how to re-orient humanities and social sciences scholarship in contexts where rising tensions in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia call on us to innovate and apply once more.

On acceptance of your paper, we will provide you a letter of acceptance or an invitation letter for your visa application to Vietnam or financial sponsorship from your institution. Therefore, you are encouraged to submit your paper at the earliest time possible.

Language:

The conference proceedings and papers will be in English.

Important dates:

• Abstract Submission: By February 28^th, 2019
• Notification of Paper Acceptance: Before March 30^th, 2019
• Full Paper Submission: By May 30^th, 2019
• Registration and Payment by: August 20^th, 2019 (early bird discounts apply)
• Conference Dates: October 4^th– 5^th, 2019

We look forward to receiving your contributions and kindly ask you to disseminate the call to your colleagues who may be interested in participating the conference.
Please do not hesitate to contact us at issh2019@tdtu.edu.vn if you need any further information.

________

Assoc. Prof. Le Thi Mai, Ph.D
Head of  Sociology Department

 

scamming journalographica (trinketization at large)

Was helping a colleague find a place for a journal article. I thought a one day turnaround was rapid – its unlikely the article was read, only the abstract (and even then misapprehended). What seems to be going on is a funnelling system designed to entrap younger researchers into open access pay to publish (even after not being paid to write):

For future reference (the tricks and traps in publishing a getting more and more dubious).

Article is sent to journal. A day later the article is praised by the editor but regrettably not suitable for the journal, but perhaps could be placed in x series. Two days later, a personal message from some assistant editor of an previously unheard of series:

Dear L xxxx, I think your paper could be of particular relevance to Cogent Social Sciences (indexed in Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), amongst others), and I would be very pleased should you decide to take us up on this offer. Please email transfer@cogentoa.com with your existing manuscript ID number (this can be found in the subject line of this email) to automatically transfer your manuscript, or if you have any further queries. Please also let us know which Cogent journal you would like to transfer to in this email. I look forward to hearing from you.

The message is signed, the links check out, Taylor and Francis are not exactly pretending to be completely altruistic – but I find it very dubious that younger researchers are offered this. I’ve never had such a letter, and frankly, if I’d got one I would kick off much more than you can see in this little squib about my colleague (who rightly already had questioned this ‘model’.

A few seconds’ search about Cogenta yields some other squibs, well expressed:

But in looking at the original journal, I noticed this crazy business model they have. The journal, Cogent Social Sciences, is an open-access outlet published by Cogent OA. It charges $1350 to publish an article, unless you don’t have $1350, in which case they’ll take some unspecified minimum.
Okay, so far it sounds like every other scammy “peer-reviewed” open access journal. But wait. Cogent OA, it turns out, is owned by Taylor & Francis, one of the largest academic publishers. Taylor & Francis owns Routledge, for instance, and publishes Economy and Society, Environmental Sociology, and Justice Quarterly, to pick a few I’ve heard of.
Cogent OA has a FAQ that conveniently asks, “What is the relationship between Cogent OA and Taylor & Francis?” Here’s the answer (bold is mine):
Cogent OA is part of the Taylor & Francis Group, benefitting from the resources and experiences of a major publisher, but operates independently from the Taylor & Francis and Routledge imprints.
Taylor & Francis and Routledge publish a number of fully open access journals, under the Taylor & Francis Open and Routledge Open imprints. Cogent OA publishes the Cogent Series of multidisciplinary, digital open access journals.
Together, we also provide authors with the option of transferring any sound manuscript to a journal in the Cogent Series if it is unsuitable for the original Taylor & Francis/Routledge journals, providing benefits to authors, reviewers, editors and readers.
So get this: If your article gets rejected from one of our regular journals, we’ll automatically forward it to one of our crappy interdisciplinary pay-to-play journals, where we’ll gladly take your (or your funder’s or institution’s) money to publish it after a cursory “peer review”. That is a new one to me.
https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/that-gender-studies-hoax-is-dumb-but-look-at-this-business-model/

 

Keep in mind this happens just a month after Sweden made the impressive move to cancel contracts with Elsevier (not renew them, not quite the same) and that follows France, and indeed various controversial aspects of so-called open access (as opposed to property ownership v squatting or v access to all by all for all etc). See The Scientist here and THE here (the latter is paywalled – the original article from THE, how apposite).

Open access or not – both are now worse.

(screen grab from Por la ilusión de un Ministerio de Ciencia)

PS. Contrary to some views I’ve heard out and about, Sci-hub is still operating. Search around and you can find a live link/proxy – though this is never an official recommendation. Pay the labourer.

PPS. in the interests of Fairness (!) here is the Cogenta position on payments. Of course no self-respecting institution is going to fork out a subsidy for you. Discounts for world bank designated low-income apply – but since when did designation mean extorted? – ahh, oops, there goes the rhetoric of fairness. Ah well, I suppose the rhetoric of freedom had been bashed enough in the following:

Freedom Article Publishing Charges
Freedom Article Publishing Charges, pioneered by Cogent OA, allow authors to choose how much to contribute towards the publication of their research in an open access journal.

Authors with funding, institutional support, or from commercial organizations should select the recommended Article Publishing Charge (APC) of $1350.

Authors without direct funding/support should talk to their librarian and faculty about options that may be available:

Your institution may be part of the Taylor & Francis pre-payment membership scheme, which also covers Cogent OA publications. So, your APC may already be covered.
Alternatively, most funding bodies will allow authors to use part of their research grant to cover the cost of article publishing charges.
Cogent OA operates a Freedom APC model; whereby, if you don’t have funds available to you, you can choose to pay what you can. In order to support sustainable open access publishing, a minimum APC applies to ensure we cover the costs of the peer-review process, copyediting, typesetting, publication on our website, marketing, and indexing in major databases. To ensure the integrity of peer review, our team of editors and reviewers receive no information about payments at any stage.

Mushies

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing has written an amazing book. The Mushroom at the End of the World (2015) is all about forests and foraging and revitalising teaching and diasporas and and and – it’s a dense thicket and forest of meanings. There is much in it, but towards the end where generalities are I guess expected, it is only possible to nod sadly in agreement:

“ONE OF THE STRANGEST PROJECTS OF PRIVATIZATION and commodificarion in the early twentieth-first century has been the movement to commoditize scholarship. Two versions have been surprisingly powerful. In Europe, administrators demand assessment exercises that reduce the work of scholars co a number, a sum total for a life of intellectual exchange. In the United States, scholars are asked to become entrepreneurs, producing ourselves as brands and seeking stardom from the very first days of our studies, when we know nothing. Both projects seem to me bizarre — and suffocating. By privatizing what is necessarily collaborative work, these projects aim to strangle the life out of scholarship” page 285

The book is very much worth a look and could be a model for research presentation on global commodity chains and/or Trinketization.

Assembling the early 1990s again in Melbourne

There was a time when the Clever Country was the buzzword – in a time of buzzwords – the multifunction polis and the Precincts model were then fairly obvious code for back-door privatisation, and higher ed was slipping companies into campus ‘Science Parks’ to benefit from the free tax-payer-funded “synergies” that would ‘incubate” start-ups for commercialisation whoopee.

Well, this latest plan from the my alma mater, the University of Melbourne, has the merit of replacing a hospital (my sister and nephew born there) and offers a prime front door site for Uni.Melb Inc. Privatisation is such a dated word these days that it passes by in a blink… Further below I will offer as contrast an old essay on university-commercial research complicity, questioning the premise of these new premises for learning. Learning – is that what universities are still for, or research, or are the caveat’s obsolete and dated, very early 1990s, and we are in the realm of future business? Well, there is an old critique to be made nevertheless (someone said to me today that the key to moving forward is how criticism is handled – push back with exo-punitive denial, or quietly get on an fix-up your practice. I know Uni.Melb has a long history of not being able to handle criticism. In terms of institutional memory it will seem far far and long ago when the then Vice Chancellor Pennington, in the days when a vice-chancellor was basically a jumped-up after-dinner speaker and raconteur of limited means, who just happened to be friends with the Liberal machine… but anyway, Pennington had said the sign of a troubled department was disagreement within, and for the politics department then that was as laughable as it seems. Nowadays not so much, and vice-chancellors are armed against criticism so any dissent means its time to shoot the messenger, with intent).

But by and by – having just been reading Seuss to the kid, I have to stop rhyming so as to get through this bit… Let’s list some absurds in the precint proposal:

“Planning … innovation” – it goes without saying this is a proxy for nothing.

“The University of Melbourne and its [unnamed] partners” – were the partners not invited to the press conference, or did they refuse to stump up their cut for the reslease? Maybe they are secret or sect-like or shy. It anyway leaves me with a big question why. [away, Sneed, away]

“one step closer” – no need to worry about how long this white elephant will take, we are all the more closer to the rhetoric of the early 1990s. The Precinct model for Melbourne was Jeff Kennet vintage at least – have we just been Jeffed again? Ahh those were the days.

“The new precinct will host researchers, companies, government bodies” – as we saw, privatisation. Companies can access the tax-funded thrills of the library and the University Club, though I suspect Jimmy Watson’s might do OK, if anyone still does lunch without whimpering.

“community members from different backgrounds” – obligatory diversity statement up front. Always welcome. Will it mean a whole department of such, or still here and there brochure-freindly photo-inclusiveness? Don’t tell me class is a bigger factor than the racist demographic of University as usual. It continues.

“innovative solutions to society’s biggest challenges” – how would it be if someone suggested exclusion of corporate interests from research agendas? A fresh impetus for critical multicaulturalism, radical barefoot legal theory, Co-research inquiries, activist-in-residence programme, counter-mapping and Marxism 101-999? You know its needed. get in.

“vision… precinct… innovation…” – the circular rhetoric of recycled prose.

““Innovation emerges from vibrant and collaborative environments where people are encouraged to share skills and ideas as they work and socialise together,” Professor McCluskey said” – oh my, this is word for word straight out of the original brochure documents for setting up the multifunction polis, the work of Kenichi Ohmae, the Aust Govt Collaborative Centres definition of a science park – a pleasing environment adjacent to a a university (they do not mean Princess Park). the idea that boffins will leave their labs and sit having lunch under trees chatting until Eureka! Gold is panned from Sovereign alley/Elgin Hill. No need to go to Ballarat, the new rush starts here, well, heavily recycled, but wow. McCluskey does not stray far from the brief. “vision… precinct… innovate…”  (raconteur speaker as I said, with crib notes).

“buildings arranged around a central and publicly-accessible open space” – panoptic 101. never before in Carlton have so many been sold out for so little.

“Fab lab… Superfloor… hackathons… ” – and bean bags I bet. The Graduate School already had them in 1990 too, hat tip TT.

The upsides: Childcare, student accommodation… and Spotless as facilities partner (the partners get named at the end). We should be overjoyed and confident that it is Spotless. Recall, they were recently taken over by Downer EDI, so a check on their spotless industrial relations and court records, mining deaths, dubious pressures to settle strikes, and well, lets not think the Uni of Melbourne is going through some sort of subtle shift into touch love to redeem by association. Clever dialectic that would be.

An innovation precinct only works if, bottom line, there is a big profit player that makes the lead. An old book but informative, have a look at Peter Hall and Manuel Castells “Technopoles of the World” Check out Complicity below (after the Uni.Melb press release (sorry, journalism article) and if you are really keen, come back later and read up on Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Curry Puff, a similar plan under PM Mahathir (who, well frankly, maybe those were the good old days…).

 

Planning approved for Australia’s leading innovation precinct

Alumni Magazine 20 April 2018

The University of Melbourne and its partners are one step closer to developing Australia’s leading innovation precinct, receiving planning approval from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP).

The University of Melbourne purchased the former Royal Women’s Hospital site in 2012 and announced in 2017 a partnership with a consortium led by Lendlease to redevelop it. Early works commenced in November 2017 and construction is expected to commence in mid-2018 for completion in 2020.

The new precinct will host researchers, companies, government bodies and community members from different backgrounds and disciplines who will work together to develop innovative solutions to society’s biggest challenges.

University of Melbourne Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Jim McCluskey said by enhancing research and education, the precinct will support the vision of Melbourne as a ‘Knowledge City’ and play an important role within the Melbourne Innovation Districts.

“Innovation emerges from vibrant and collaborative environments where people are encouraged to share skills and ideas as they work and socialise together,” Professor McCluskey said.

The precinct will be ideally located adjacent to the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus, which hosts some of the world’s top researchers, and within close proximity to the Melbourne CBD. It will have the tools, platforms and services to create an ecosystem where start-ups emerge and cutting-edge products and services are developed.

Mark Menhinnitt, Lendlease Urban Regeneration Managing Director, said the development will regenerate the former Royal Women’s Hospital site into an open, light and modern precinct, delivering a bold new architectural statement.

“This purpose-built facility will set a new benchmark in education and industry collaboration that meets the highest standards of design and sustainability, while also honouring the site’s heritage and history,” he said.

The 74,000 sqm precinct will feature a series of connecting buildings arranged around a central and publicly-accessible open space. In addition to co-working and commercial office space, the precinct will feature a Fab Lab, student accommodation and a ‘Superfloor’ dedicated to collaboration and fostering the exchange of ideas.

Dr Julie Wells, University of Melbourne’s Vice-Principal (Policy and Projects), said that the precinct will be a place for the local community to live, work and exchange ideas through a vast program of events such as hackathons, workshops, exhibitions and social events.

It will also include shops, cafes, public spaces, accommodation for graduate students and visiting academics, a childcare centre and Science Gallery Melbourne, which will deliver cutting-edge exhibitions, events and experiences.

The consortium delivering the innovation precinct in partnership with the University of Melbourne comprises Lendlease as developer, builder, co-investor and investment manager of the commercial space; GIC as major co-investor of the commercial space; Spotless as the facilities manager; and Urbanest as investor and manager of the student accommodation.

 

So, 18 years ago,the early 90’s already seemed old.

‘Complicity’ essay for Assembly catalogue 2000

Click on the pages to enlarge and read.

 

and:

The https://hutnyk.wordpress.com/2017/04/29/semifeudal-cybercolonialism-technocratic-dreamtime-in-malaysia/

Semifeudal Cybercolonialism: Technocratic Dreamtime in Malaysia

Thanks Kaloy Cunanan for recovering this from ascii-land.

An article on the multi-function polis in Malaysia, from 1999

Hutnyk 1999 Semifeudal Cybercolonialism Technocratic Dreamtime in Malaysia

appeared in Bosma, Josephine et al (eds) 1999 Readme! ASCII Culture And The Revenge Of Knowledge, New York: Autonomedia.

A longer unpublished version is Semi-Feudal Cyber-Colonial.

Spivak: What time is it on the world clock?

Spivak on time, speaking on education and critiquing the knowledge management toolkit template at die Akademie des Verlernens \unlearning academy\. Has some anecdotes of crying boys and vids from the field to soften you up, then in a rising tone, strikes several times and clocks you for six.

 

https://youtu.be/f199qcIDZxw