Communist Study: Education for the Commons

Derek R. Ford argues that radical politics needs educational theory to bridge the gap between what is and what can be, accommodate ambiguity, and reclamation of testing. He develops a dynamic pedagogical constellation that opens up what education is and what it can mean for revolutionary struggle, reading theorists as diverse as Lenin, Agamben, Marx, Lyotard, Althusser, and Butler.

Format: Hardback
Length: 228 pages
Publication date: 14 January 2022
Publisher: Lexington Books

In the second edition of this groundbreaking work, Derek R. Ford contends that radical politics needs educational theory, posing a series of educational questions pertinent to revolutionary movements. How can pedagogy bridge the gap between what is and what can be, while respecting the gap and its uncertainty and contingency? How can pedagogy accommodate ambiguity while remaining faithful to the communist project? In answering these questions, Ford develops a dynamic pedagogical constellation that radically opens up what education is and what it can mean for revolutionary struggle. In charting this constellation, Ford takes the reader on a journey that traverses disciplinary boundaries, innovatively reading theorists as diverse as Lenin, Agamben, Marx, Lyotard, Althusser, and Butler. Demonstrating how learning underpins capitalism and democracy, Ford articulates a theory of communist study as an alternative and oppositional logic that, perhaps paradoxically, demands the revolutionary reclamation of testing. Poetic, performative, and provocative, communist study is oriented toward what Ford calls "the sublime feeling of being-in-common," which, as he insists, is always a commonness against.

In the second edition of this groundbreaking work, Derek R. Ford contends that radical politics needs educational theory, posing a series of educational questions pertinent to revolutionary movements. How can pedagogy bridge the gap between what is and what can be, while respecting the gap and its uncertainty and contingency? How can pedagogy accommodate ambiguity while remaining faithful to the communist project? In answering these questions, Ford develops a dynamic pedagogical constellation that radically opens up what education is and what it can mean for revolutionary struggle. In charting this constellation, Ford takes the reader on a journey that traverses disciplinary boundaries, innovatively reading theorists as diverse as Lenin, Agamben, Marx, Lyotard, Althusser, and Butler. Demonstrating how learning underpins capitalism and democracy, Ford articulates a theory of communist study as an alternative and oppositional logic that, perhaps paradoxically, demands the revolutionary reclamation of testing. Poetic, performative, and provocative, communist study is oriented toward what Ford calls "the sublime feeling of being-in-common," which, as he insists, is always a commonness against.

Weight: 517g
Dimension: 229 x 160 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781666901009
Edition number: 2nd Edition