Abstract
ABSTRACT The current neo-liberalization of academia threatens the historical role of the university as a safe haven where critical thinking and intellectual emancipation can take place. Instead of educating questioning and independent knowledge seekers, much teaching centres on producing employable, efficient and uncritical workers who instrumentally solve problems within the given system. This essay considers the possibilities and limitations of contesting the neo-liberalization of academia through the teaching practice of not-knowing. This is done by drawing upon the work of Jacques Ranciére and by exploring how ignorant university teaching practices might lead to intellectually emancipated students. To push our imagination and understanding, the film Dead Poets Society is used as an empirical illustration.It is shown that ignorant (university) teachers can intellectually emancipated students through the practice of not-knowing by: (1) practising our own equality; (2) announcing the students’ inevitable equality; and (3) creating spaces for intellectual emancipation for our students.
Highlights
The current neo-liberalization of academia threatens the historical role of the university as a safe haven where critical thinking and intellectual emancipation can take place
This essay considers the possibilities and limitations of contesting the neo-liberalization of academia through the teaching practice of not-knowing. This is done by drawing upon the work of Jacques Ranciére and by exploring how ignorant university teaching practices might lead to intellectually emancipated students
To push our imagination and understanding, the film Dead Poets Society is used as an empirical illustration.It is shown that ignorant teachers can intellectually emancipated students through the practice of not-knowing by: (1) practising our own equality; (2) announcing the students’ inevitable equality; and (3) creating spaces for intellectual emancipation for our students
Summary
This is done by drawing upon the work of Jacques Ranciére and by exploring how ignorant university teaching practices might lead to intellectually emancipated students. The main question for this essay centers on how we as university teachers can contest the current neo-liberalization through a teaching approach that is characterized by not-knowing (i.e. being ignorant), and by first of all encouraging our students to become intellectually emancipated citizens.
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