In this article, I discuss how the principle of exemplarity developed in the 1970s by the Marxist educators and theorists Oskar Negt and Knud Illeris can be a model for a deliberative curriculum. Today's crisis-ridden discourses of 'taking back', 'reclaiming', etc., the practices and purposes of the university are evidence of a widespread…

In this paper, Matthew Cowley advances a theoretical approach toward higher education drawn from critical race theory (CRT) and Black Marxism. After an overview of CRT and Black Marxism, Cowley builds a working understanding of two recent (re)conceptualizations of race and class analysis that draw from both: (1) "economies of racism" and…

While many LIS publications have focused on Wikipedia, no LIS study has used intersectional class analysis to consider the site as a transmitter and reproducer of hegemonic ideology. Using both Antonio Gramsci and LIS theorist Michael Harris as starting points, this paper argues that Wikipedia is predicated on a philosophy of pluralism that serves…

In this position article, we tackle fungibility, precariousness and separateness in the academia. Speaking as young humanities and social sciences scholar in North America, we argue that the current neoliberal conditions in higher education can be understood as alienation from work in the Marxian sense. Hence, the kind of intervention that…

On October 16, 2017, over 12,000 faculty, librarians, and counsellors in 24 independent postsecondary colleges in Ontario, Canada went on strike for the fourth time since they organized in 1971 as members of the Civil Service Association of Ontario and won their first collective agreement the next year. Begun as an apolitical, self-consciously…

This "master volume" is a printed archive of all papers published in a peer reviewed online journal, "The Roundtable," which ceased to exist in 2013. The volume includes a total of 22 scholarly papers by 18 authors on the philosophical foundations of education published originally in the aforementioned online journal during…

While the loss of space for critical engagement has been a primary focus for critics of the neo-liberal transformation of higher education, the recasting of the relationship between education and economy has not meant the death of critical thinking. Instead, I argue that critical thinking has emerged as a binding point in higher education…

In this conceptual paper, I contend that the soul of academic labour is becoming lost in performativity. Performativity, I explain, is a form of regulation and control that deploys technical rationality and judgements to incentivize and punish academics. Indeed, performativity is central to the culture of measurement within contemporary…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) take university lectures and other educational materials and make them available for free as online "courses." Liberal and neoliberal MOOC supporters laud these courses for opening up education to the world while incorporating market dynamics to improve quality and drive down costs. Skeptics claim…

In this paper we make an argument for paying close attention to the materiality of practice in understanding the work of teacher educators; specifically, the meanings of artefacts used by teacher educators in the course of their daily work. We locate this analysis within a dialectical materialist understanding of the development of human activity,…

Karl Marx's revolutionary call, "Workers of the World Unite," resonates with many in today's society. This article describes and assesses an easily reproducible classroom activity that simulates both alienating, and perhaps more importantly, non-alienating states of production as described by Marx. This hands-on learning activity gives…

Despite the world slowly recovering from the 2008 recession and reducing levels of unemployment, the problem of underemployment persists. Underemployment is a problematic work status determined by an array of factors, including hours worked, comparative wages, and various subjective elements. This particular employment condition is affecting a…