7th International Conference of the Popular Education Network

Description

The Final(?) Insecurity of Academia: losing intellectual possibilities; creating radical spaces Recently, we have seen an increasing number of attacks on academics - for example the arrest of Turkish Academics, the repression and disappearance of critical education from UK universities, and the purge of critical educators from their jobs in the UK and the US in the name of employability and market driven HE. All of these factors point to the distinct possibility that universities are fast losing (or have already lost) their status as the last remaining spaces of radical possibility in the education system, and that there is a growing need to build alternative spaces of higher learning that are both intellectually free and more popular in ethos. So how do we, as popular and critical educators, build these spaces in an increasingly anti-intellectual culture? How do we find each other and work together without the insecurity of the academy looming over us? It seems that solidarity is key, not just within academic circles but with those who wish to enjoy an intellectual life outside the financial and intellectual confines of modern higher education. In this session, the current culture, particularly in English Universities, will be discussed, and some mapping of the already existing alternatives will be explored, and, through presentation of ideas and discussion, more sites of what Freire has called ‘untested feasibility’ will be imagined with a view to a call to action.

Period	22 Jun 2016
Event type	Conference
Location	Edinburgh, United KingdomShow on map