Resources for Faculty

Crystallizing the essential principles of social reproductive theory, this anthology provides long-overdue analysis of everyday life under capitalism. It focuses on issues such as childcare, healthcare, education, family life, and the roles of gender, race, and sexuality&;all of which are central to understanding the relationship between exploitation and social oppression. Tithi Bhattacharya brings together some of the leading writers and theorists, including Lise Vogel, Nancy Fraser, and Susan Ferguson, in order for us to better understand social relations and how to improve them in the fight against structural oppression.

What do activists know? Learning Activism is designed to encourage a deeper engagement with the intellectual life of activists who organize for social, political, and ecological justice. Combining experiential knowledge from his own activism and a variety of social movements, Choudry suggests that such organizations are best understood if we engage with the learning, knowledge, debates, and theorizing that goes on within them. Drawing on Marxist, feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial perspectives on knowledge and power, the book highlights how activists and organizers learn through doing, and fills the gap between social movement practice as it occurs on the ground, critical adult education scholarship, and social movement theorizing. Examplese include anti-colonial currents within global justice organizing in the Asia-Pacific, activist research and education in social movements and people's organizations in the Philippines, migrant and immigrant worker struggles in Canadaa, and the Quebec student strike. The result is a book that carves out a new space for intellectual life in activist practice. -- from back cover.

"In 1962 at a United Auto Workers' camp in Michigan, Students for a Democratic Society held its historic convention and prepared the famous Port Huron Statement, drafted by Tom Hayden. This statement, criticizing the U.S. government's failure to pursue international peace or address domestic inequality, became the organization's manifesto. Its last convention was held in 1969 in Chicago, where, collapsing under the weight of its notoriety and popularity, it shattered into myriad factions. Through brilliant art and they were-there dialogue, famed graphic novelist Harvey Pekar, gifted artist Gary Dumm, and renowned historian Paul Buhle illustrate the tumultuous decade that first defined and then was defined by the men and women who gathered under the SDS banner. Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History captures the idealism and activism that drove a generation of young Americans to believe that even one person's actions can help transform the world."--provided by publisher

"In 2010, young people across Britain took to the streets to defy a wave of government education cuts that slashed grants to college students and astronomically increased tuition fees. Education was no longer accessible for all, and students across the country refused to stand by silently. A well-publicized year of occupations and protests followed—ultimately, to little effect. The current government continues to threaten fresh budget cuts on higher education. What happened to the student revolt? And what can we learn from its failure?

Matt Myers tells the story of that momentous year through the voices of the people involved: activists, students, university workers, and politicians. He weaves their testimonies together to create a narrative that starkly captures both the deep divisions of the movement and the intense energy generated by its players. With an extended introduction by Paul Mason, Student Revolt provides a lively, poignant oral history of the 2010 movement for today’s activists, as well as a long-overdue reflection on its many lessons."--provided by publisher

"If there is one sector of society that should be cultivating deep thought in itself and others, it is academia. Yet the corporatisation of the contemporary university has sped up the clock, demanding increased speed and efficiency from faculty regardless of the consequences for education and scholarship. In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter this erosion of humanistic education. Focusing on the individual faculty member and his or her own professional practice, Berg and Seeber present both an analysis of the culture of speed in the academy and ways of alleviating stress while improving teaching, research, and collegiality. The Slow Professor will be a must-read for anyone in academia concerned about the frantic pace of contemporary university life."

"Non-Regular is a collection of stories, analysis, interviews and visual art concerned with the state of contract (sessional) teaching at Emily Carr University. Edited, designed and co-authored by a student, it consists of contributions by 28 instructors and artists speaking frankly (and largely anonymously) about the conditions of their labour. Topics include: teaching as low-wage work; job security; respect and the value of art(ists); maintaining professional practices; the politics of space at the new ECU campus; impacts on students; the role of tenured faculty; and the erosion of academic freedom and integrity. We also consider how these conditions are exacerbated by and amplify gender and racial bias within academia." -- T. Poirier

"In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town demanded the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the imperialist, racist business magnate, from their campus. Their battle cry, #RhodesMustFall, sparked an international movement calling for the decolonization of universities all over the world. Today, as the movement develops beyond the picket line, how might it go on to radically transform the terms upon which universities exist? In this book, students, activists, and scholars discuss the possibilities and the pitfalls of doing decolonial work in the heart of the establishment. Subverting curricula, demanding diversity, and destroying old boundaries, this is a radical call for a new era of education. Offering resources for students and academics to challenge and resist colonialism inside and outside the classroom, Decolonizing the University provides the tools for radical change in our disciplines, our pedagogies, and our institutions."--provided by publisher

"What does diversity do? What are we doing when we use the language of diversity? Sara Ahmed offers an account of the diversity world based on interviews with diversity practitioners in higher education, as well as her own experience of doing diversity work. Diversity is an ordinary, even unremarkable, feature of institutional life. Yet diversity practitioners often experience institutions as resistant to their work, as captured through their use of the metaphor of the "brick wall." On Being Included offers an explanation of this apparent paradox. It explores the gap between symbolic commitments to diversity and the experience of those who embody diversity. Commitments to diversity are understood as "non-performatives" that do not bring about what they name. The book provides an account of institutional whiteness and shows how racism can be obscured by the institutionalization of diversity. Diversity is used as evidence that institutions do not have a problem with racism. On Being Included offers a critique of what happens when diversity is offered as a solution. It also shows how diversity workers generate knowledge of institutions in attempting to transform them."-- from Amazon.ca

Indigenous and decolonizing perspectives on education have long persisted alongside colonial models of education, yet too often have been subsumed within the fields of multiculturalism, critical race theory, and progressive education.

The Silent University', initiated by artist Ahmet Ö'üt in 2012, is an autonomous platform for academics who cannot share their knowledge due to their status of residence, because their degrees are not recognized or regaining access to academia is blocked for other reasons. It is a solidary school by refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who contribute to the program as lecturers, consultants and researchers. 'The Silent University' proposes a new institution outside of the restrictions of existing universities, migration laws and the other bureaucratic or juridical obstacles many migrants face. At the same time it mimics the idea of exiting universities, using their representational logics by developing alternative structures of pedagogy beyond border politics, race/ethnicity and normative education. This first comprehensive publication about the Silent University introduces the initiative and contextualizes it in the wider framework of both radical pedagogy and socially engaged art projects. In addition, all current branches of the Silent University in Amman, Athens, Hamburg, London, Mülheim/Ruhr, and Stockholm describe their very different achievements as well as their struggles and failures. The book contextualizes this initiative within a broader picture of migration policies, critical pedagogy, artistic involvement and institutional engagement. It also hopes to be an introduction for all those who might want to get involved in the Silent University - as contributors, lecturers, students in the existing branches, or by initiating new SUs wherever they are needed: a need which is becoming urgent in more and more cities and countries all around the world. This book is published as an edition of Impulse Theater Festival, which initiated the foundation of Silent University Ruhr in Mülheim in June 2015.

"It is infuriating that most interesting artists are perfectly capable of functioning in at least two or three professions that are, unlike art, respected by society in terms of compensation and general usefulness. Furthermore, when the flexibility, certainty and freedom promised by being part of a critical ''outside'' are considered as extensions of recent advances in economic exploitation, does the field of art then become the uncritical, complicit ''inside'' of something far more compelling? This latest issue of e-flux journal addresses these important (though somewhat hostile) questions in the in-your-face style the journal is known for."--provided by publisher

"Throughout the world, the educational field is being transformed into a marketplace in which institutions must compete for students, and are called on to assess their cultural contributions in terms of finance and management. Is there any room left for art in such a system? Teaching Art in the Neoliberal Realm investigates the wide-scale reorganization of art education in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, Russia and The Netherlands, and seeks to determine both the current impact and future ramifications of market education on the arts and the artist. Most importantly, it provides prescriptions for a positive direction forward, steering between the cynical big business of the art market and the threatened idealism of classic art education. The thematic chapters, interviews and essays adopt both practical and theoretical approaches, and include such contributors as Richard Sennett, Marco Scotini and Dieter Lesage."--provided by publisher

"Provides a historical and current perspective regarding the unionization of academic librarians, an exploration of some of the major labour issues affecting academic librarians in a certified and non-certified union context, as well as case studies relating to the unionization of academic librarians at selected institutions in Canada"--

"Explores activist librarianship in the early 21st century"--

A collaborative intervention in art and design pedagogy. Offers faculty a radical rethink on how to work with queer and transgender students on their path to becoming artists and designers – from the first day of school through to seminars, studio classes, and critiques. Draws directly from student experiences to help faculty of all orientations bring equitable teaching practices and queer curricula into art and design classes. Queer Publishing Project is a working group of over 100 students, alumni, staff and faculty at OCAD University and beyond who identify as queer and/or transgender.