Lectures on Ahuman Pedagogy poster
This experimental lecture series will provide the terrain for emergent inter-disciplinary research on the topic of 21st century education in relation to what we call non-pedagogy, that is, pedagogy attuned towards that which is seemingly unthinkable given today's (so-called) Anthropocenic context and the advancement of AI technologies, machine 'learning' and other forms of non-human/inhuman, or ahuman, sense-making.
The pedagogical significance of this lecture series is two-fold: The first point is to recognize that in the era of the Anthropocene, both understandings and material conditions of the 'human' are undergoing modification and change. The question of the 'human' is being decentred by, on the one hand, the non-human- the agential role of animals, organisms and anorganic elemental forces - and, on the other hand, the role of automation, artificial intelligence, algorithms, and 'Big Data', or what we call here the inhuman. This results in a re-distributed notion of subjectivity along an assemblage that the neologism ahuman represents. The second point of pedagogical significance is that in today's world any research 'problematic' is itself interdisciplinary. The disciplinary collapse of art, media, science, technology, and design is but one example. But, the coming together of art, philosophy and science is another. In short, this series wagers that now, more than ever, we need educational forms that attend to both this disciplinary collapse and the conceptual/material transformation of the 'human,' what we propose here as a non-pedagogy.
Bringing together a diverse array of thinkers attuned to (non)pedagogical questions that take seriously the changing ecological, political, social, economic and aesthetic milieu within which education is situated today, this lecture series aims to offer a launch pad from which yet unthought pedagogical trajectories might take off.
When: Fall/Winter 2019/2020, Every Second Friday, 12-2 PM (Talk from 12-1PM; Discussion from 1-2PM)
Where: Arts-Based Research Studio, 4-104 Education North, University of Alberta
Organized by jessie beier + jan jagodzinski
With support from KIAS, Arts-Based Research Studio and more.
For more information visit the Lectures on Ahuman Pedagogy project website.