Year: 2022
Type: article
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.
Source: Culture and Organization
Author: Mathias Karlsson
Institution: Linnaeus University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
Award: G2674525112
OpenAlex ID: W4210312801