Academic Activism in Higher Education : A Living Philosophy for Social Justice

This book argues for renewed understandings of academic activism, understandings that conceive of the ideas, arguments and scholarship of the academe as embedded within the practices of what the academy does. It examines why and how a renewed notion of academic activism informs a philosophy of higher education specifically in relation to teaching and learning. The book focuses on the theories and practices of teaching and learning, in particular how such pedagogical actions are guided by social, political and cultural influences outside of the university as a higher education institution. The authors advocate for a living philosophy of higher education that is commensurate with real actions and imaginary fictions of what constitutes higher education and what remains in becoming for the discourse. With a focus on South African social justice education, the book imagines pathways for academic activism to manifest in revolutionised pedagogical actions or actions that bring into contestation what already exists with the possibility for the cultivation of renewal. MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Preface 6 Setting the Scene 6 A Complexity of Dilemmas 9 Why Academic Activism? 12 Through the Lens of a Philosophy of Higher Education 17 Organisation of the Book 19 References 26 Contents 29 About the Authors 31 Chapter 1: Philosophy of Higher Education and Interpretivism 32 Introduction 32 Conceiving Academic Activism 33 Academic Activism as Academic Freedom 37 Academic Activism as a Mode of Rupturing 39 Towards a Renewed Understanding of Philosophy of Higher Education 43 Concluding Thoughts 45 References 46 Chapter 2: Criticality and Higher Education 48 Introduction 48 Critique 49 On Self-Reflective and Communicative Autonomy 53 Relooking Academic Activism According to Critique 57 References 60 Chapter 3: Turning to the Subjectivity of the Individual 62 Introduction 62 Power, Resistance and the Subject of the Individual 63 Power, Knowledge and Freedom 68 References 74 Chapter 4: Deconstruction Through Writing 75 Introduction 75 On Deconstruction, Reading, Writing and Activism 76 A New Type of University Responsibility 79 Academic Responsibility as Activism 83 References 86 Chapter 5: The Pursuit of a Living Philosophy 88 Introduction 88 ‘What Is, Is All That Is’ 89 Perhaps ‘What Is, Is [Not] All That Is’? 92 Towards a Living Philosophy and Academic Activism 94 Living Philosophy Is a Matter of Opposing ‘New Fictions of Evil’? 96 References 99 Chapter 6: Revolutionary Action 101 Introduction 101 Revolution as Freedom 102 Towards a Revolutionary Spirit of Activism 104 Activism as ‘Perplexities of New Beginnings’ 107 References 112 Chapter 7: A Pedagogy of Courage 113 Introduction 113 On a Pedagogy of Courage 114 Representational Politics as Conscientisation 119 Academic Activism as a ‘Pedagogy of Contentment’ 123 References 125 Chapter 8: A Feminist Critique of University Education 126 Introduction 126 A Feminist Critique of the University as Corporeal and Embodied Education 127 Bodies Matter Because They Do 130 The University as Unregulated 132 Towards a University of Criticism, Non-mastery and Fallible Truths and Their Implications for Academic Activism 135 References 138 Chapter 9: Academic Activism and the Postmodern Condition Revisited 139 Introduction 139 Narrative Knowledge as an Enactment of Academic Activism 140 The Risk of ‘Performance Maximisation’ 146 On Philosophy as a Restoration of Unity 149 References 151 Chapter 10: Through the Agency of the Muselmann 152 Introduction 152 The Muselmann and Bearing Witness to Inhumanity 153 On Shame 156 Academic Activism as Testimony and Responsibility 159 References 162 Postscript: Constraints and Impediments to Academic Activism 164 Introduction 164 A Philosophy of Muslim Higher Education 166 Activism as Democratisation 168 References 170 Index 171