Halifax Media Co-op
News from Nova Scotia's Grassroots
Can you support independent journalists with $5? donate today!
Video: Why Education Shouldn't Be A Debt Sentence: A Panel - Part One
Part Two can be found HERE
Rising tuition fees are putting education out of reach for more people each year. What impact does that have on young people? Why is this happening, and does it have to be that way? What alternatives exist? How can accessible education become a reality? These questions and more will be explored in this informative panel discussion.
The following speakers will be featured:
Laura Penny is a professor in the Early Modern Studies and Contemporary Studies programmes at the University of King's College. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, National Post, Chronicle Herald, International Journal of the History of Philosophy, Philosophy and Literature and Theory and Event. She is the author of Your Call is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit (2005) and More Money than Brains: Why School Sucks, College is Crap and Idiots Think They're Right (2010), both of which made the Globe and Mail's 100 Books of the Year list.
Catrina Brown is an associate professor in the Dalhousie School of Social Work and Faculty of Gender and Women's Studies. She is also the president of the Dalhousie Faculty Association. In addition to negotiating a new collective agreement this year, she has hosted many engaging events at Dalhousie on engaging topics such as "Whose priorities? Whose choices? - Exploring Program Prioritization" and "Money, Myths and Manipulation: Debunking Austerity Economics."
Max Haiven is a writer, teacher and organizer, and an Assistant Professor in the Division of Art History and Critical Studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in K’jipuktuk in Mi’kma’ki (Halifax, Canada). His research focuses on themes including the financialization of society and culture, social movements and the radical imagination, the politics and economics of culture, critical art practices, and social and cultural theory. He is author of Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power (2014), The Radical Imagination (with Alex Khasnabish, 2014) and Cultures of Financialization (2014).
Michaela Sam is the president of the King's Students' Union and chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students - Nova Scotia. She is in her fourth year of a combined honours degree in Early Modern Studies and History.
356 words
Comments
Bleh. I can't stand Laura Penny's argument in this.
Submitted by Brad Vaughan on Thu, 01/29/2015 - 20:17.
I feel like I heard her give a more-or-less identical speech a few years ago - and the premise is still bankrupt: "Students are good for the economy!" "Affordable education will make for better capitalism!"
The thing is, Laura points to the actual function of universities at this juncture latter in her speech - producing a layer of politically compliant professionals/workers constrained in their activity by debt. Somehow, Laura both sees this, and still insists, "But a better capitalist university is posible!"
Well, plausibly, at some point, the capitalist university might see itself fulfilling a different particular role - but that's not the point.
Let's get to the root of the problem already. Hint: Capitalism. Not "neo-liberalism capitalism that replaced the good old days of white supremacist post-war Keynesianism", not "bad corporate crony capitalism", not "bad American-style capitalism".
Bleh.
The site for the Halifax local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.