Sloterdijk's 1999 lecture, known as the Elmau Speech, posited that all existing humanisms, including Heidegger's Fundamental Ontology, were rendered obsolete by the emergence of the so-called new media, and that education faced a similar fate. Taking a step further, the Elmau Speech establishes a connection between post-humanism in the sense of…

Wendy Brown in her book, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution, outlined the spread of neoliberal logics to every sphere of life. It is hard to imagine challenging such a seemingly ubiquitous force. Indeed, Brown's perspective on neoliberalism conjures the aphorism that 'it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to…

This article examines the power of special topoi to characterize the discourse of literary criticism, and through emphasis on rhetorical action, it sheds light on the limitations of topos analysis for characterizing research articles in disciplinary discourse more generally. Using an analytical approach drawn both from studies of topoi in…

For at least half a century, there has been a broad consensus that indoctrination is a pernicious form of miseducation and a distinctive vice of teaching. In recent years, a number of educational theorists have sought to cast doubt on this view. They suggest that the attention traditionally given to the threat of indoctrination, and the anxiety…

In the post-Darwinian approach, the 'blank slate' is synonymous with the modern denial of human nature. This article is a call for the restoration of the first layer in the portrait of the blank slate through Quentin Skinner's contextual-intentionality method to challenge this approach. Rather than denying human nature, John Locke shifted the…

'Decolonise education!' This exhortation has travelled far and wide -- in the Global North and Global South, in formally independent former colonies and settler colonial societies. As such voices grow, we might ask: What does decolonising education entail? How should this be undertaken? And, importantly, who decides on the terms by which such an…

Contemporary forces of deglobalisation and neo-tribalism have renewed questions about the public role of the humanities. In this essay, I draw on Edward Said's reflections of secular criticism and observe how his problematisations of traditional practices of criticism provide a foundational basis for post-critical criticism. Specifically,…

In "Anti-Oedipus," Deleuze and Guattari saw the difficulty of disentangling the question of Spinoza and, later, of Reich from the very limit of a system of representation by which they mean Oedipus. As "A Thousand Plateaus" would emphasize later, this limit brings out the question of the desire for democracy ('democracies are…

This essay analyzes Pierre Hadot's reading of Aristotelian "theoria" in order to evaluate "theoria's" relevancy for the contemporary field of Contemplative Education. It emphasizes the limited engagement with "theoria" against a backdrop of heightened attention to mindfulness-based practices. The essay critiques the…

In this article, I will try to elucidate the relevance of Deleuze and Guattari's approaches in the philosophy of education, along the lines of the Deleuzean pedagogy of 'do with me' and the absence of pre-established rules for learning or methodological anarchism. To do so, I will consider three important milestones in Deleuze and Guattari's…

This essay analyzes the educational significance of the metaphysical novel, that is, how it can be used to educate ourselves and our students. Mordechai Gordon begins by describing the nature of the metaphysical novel while contrasting it to "pure" philosophy and theory building. Gordon also situates Beauvoir's insights in the broader…

"Waiting for Waiting for Godot" (2016) is a biographical and award-winning two-act play, a parody of Beckett's seminal work "Waiting for Godot" (1953). It is one of the most renowned works of the newgeneration American playwrights by actor and comedian Dave C. Hanson, who is relatively unknown to scholars. Having used the text…

This paper considers notions of spaces and relations in research design for critical education researchers, based on Freirean principles of empowerment education. Three reflective 'narratives of praxis' from community-based research are explored. The first narrative takes a community arts approach to research and is situated in an urban…

This paper mobilises the psychoanalytic concepts of desire and enjoyment to better understand how processes of education aimed at extending and defending democratic life might respond to and engage with populist politics. I approach this task by engaging with a particular vector of Mouffe and Laclau's political philosophy, moving from a critique…

Decolonization of higher education policy and practice has become an increasing concern and interest in recent years. This article provides a critical review of the application of decolonization to higher education. It discusses what its proponents mean by the term and how they seek to apply it in practice. It identifies outstanding issues with…