Notes from “Meeting the Universe Halfway”

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Phenomena: the primary ontological unit as in the differential patters of mattering; the ontological inseparability, or entanglement of intra-acting agencies; they are not produced in a lab and engineered by humans but through complex agential intra-actions of multiple material-discursive practices or apparatuses of bodily production.

Reality: it is composed not of things-in-themselves or things-behind-phenomena but of things-in-phenomena.

Intra-actions instead of interactions: relata do not preexist but emerge through specific intra-actions. Agential intra-actions are specific causal material enactments that may or may not involve “humans.”

Posthumanism: it marks the practice of accounting for the boundary-making practices by which the “human” and its others are differentially delineated and defined; it refuses the idea of a natural division between nature and culture.

Matter: it is neither fixed and given nor the mere end result of different processes. Matter is produced and productive, generated and generative. Matter is agentive, not a fixed essence or property of things. Mattering is differentiating, and which differences come to matter, matter in the iterative production of different differences. The world is an open process of mattering through which mattering itself acquires meaning and form through the realization of different agential possibilities. The universe is agential intra-activity in its becoming; Matter is always already an ongoing historicity; it is substance in its intra-active becoming-not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency. Matter is a stabilizing and destabilizing process of iterative intra-activity; matter comes to matter through the iterative intra-activity of the world in its becoming.

Apparatuses: they are specific material reconfigurings of the world that do not merely emerge in time but iteratively reconfigure space-time-matter as part of the ongoing dynamism of becoming; they are not passive observing instruments; on the contrary, they are productive of (and part of) phenomena; they are discursive practices.

Discursive practices: Discourse is not what is said ; it is that which constrains and enables what can be said; they define what counts as meaningful statements; they are specific material reconfigurings through which “objects” and “subjects” are produced; they are specific material (re)configurings of the world through which the determination of boundaries, properties, and meanings is differentially enacted.

Agential Realist Ontology: it refuses representationalism in favor of a relationality between specific material (re)configurations of the world through which boundaries, properties and meanings are differentially enacted and (form?) specific material phenomena.

Knowing: is a matter of intra-acting; it entails specific practices through which the world is differentially articulated and accounted for; it entails differential responsiveness and accountability as part of a network of performances; it is not a bounded or closed practice but an ongoing performance of the world.

Εthics: it is not simply about responsible actions in relation to human experiences of the world; rather, it is a question of material entanglements and how each intra-action matters in the reconfiguring of these entanglements, that is, it is a matter of the ethical call that is embodied in the very worlding of the world.

Humans: to the extent that concepts, laboratory manipulations, observational interventions, and other human practices have a role to play, it is as part of the larger material configuration of the world. That is, the phenomena produced are not the consequences of human will or intentionality or the effects of the operations of Culture, Language, or Power. Humans do not merely assemble different apparatuses for satisfying particular knowledge projects; they themselves are part of the ongoing reconfiguring of the world (…) That is, human bodies, like all other bodies, are not entities with inherent boundaries and properties but phenomena that acquire specific boundaries and properties through the open-ended dynamics of intra-activity. Humans are part of the world-body space in its dynamic structuration.

Objectivity: (In Bohr’s account), objectivity is a matter of the unambiguous communication of the results of reproducible experiments, hereby replaced by agential separability-an agentially enacted ontological separability within the phenomenon.

References

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham; London: Duke University Press.

Architecture and Silence, by Christos P. Kakalis

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I am so delighted to have been part of this book my dear friend and collaborator Christos P. Kakalis has edited so beautifully. The chapter we co-authored (Chapter 7), discusses silence in architectural education. I hope you’ll like it as I am very proud of this work and the people who made this happen.Thank you Christos for trusting me with this!

From the Routledge official webpage

This book explores the role of silence in how we design, present and experience architecture. Grounded in phenomenological theory, the book builds on historical, theoretical and practical approaches to examine silence as a methodological tool of architectural research and unravel the experiential qualities of the design process.

Distinct from an entirely soundless experience, silence is proposed as a material condition organically incorporated into the built and natural landscape. Kakalis argues that, either human or atmospheric, silence is a condition of waiting for a sound to be born or a new spatio-temporal event to emerge. In silence, therefore, we are attentive and attuned to the atmosphere of a place. The book unpacks a series of stories of silence in religious topographies, urban landscapes, film and theatre productions and architectural education with contributed chapters and interviews with Jeff Malpas and Alberto Pérez-Gómez.

Aimed at postgraduate students, scholars and researchers in architectural theory, it shows how performative and atmospheric qualities of silence can build a new understanding of architectural experience.

Thesis Full Text Freely Available on NDC Site

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This thesis draws from current learning theories and pedagogical approaches to determine whether architectural education can benefit from online learning practices. The author examines the latest developments in the understanding of knowledge creation and how adopting new learning tools and practices impacts the learners, with particular focus in architectural studies.

How has the learning process evolved and what are the tools available for the production of knowledge? What is the profile of today’s learners? Has the role of teachers been affected? What happens when technology allows individuals to establish an online presence and seek the resources and information they need on their own and/or interact with other individuals? Could this development produce alternative educational models for architectural studies? And if so, what might these be? And what would be the consequences for those involved in the process?

Theoretical research covers three main areas; the first uncovers the complex landscape of the predominant learning theories -and to a certain degree-, the latest key shifts in the epistemology of knowledge. The second examines contemporary pedagogical approaches and monitors the changes in the perception of what constitutes a curriculum. The third area investigates traditional architectural education formats and how these have evolved over the years with the use of ICT technology. Finally, considering that the applied research involved mainly design studio courses, the theoretical research also monitors the changing nature of the relation between design and research.

Applied research was originally tested on a postgraduate urban research course. In the following years, however, it expanded to five urban design studios implemented both at postgraduate and undergraduate programs. Six different case studies are presented in total. The thesis describes the design of two basic course models based on blended and networked learning principles and their two subsequent variations introduced in the following years with the addition of new learning environments and networking tools.

A large part of the applied research examines the data retrieved from learning analytics and the systematic monitoring of the courses that describe the quantity and quality of learner attendance; the different taxonomies of interactivity between those involved in the learning process; the changes in the curriculum; the formal and informal activities that were developed; the multiple learning spaces the models accommodated and also the process of making meaning in this new setting.

The last section of the thesis presents the overall benefits of blended and networked learning in architectural education and how thinking in terms of open pedagogy can facilitate the design of design courses, culminating in the description of a new type of design course, hereby called Cooperative Studio.

Full text is available (in Greek). Click here

Revolutionary Learning

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  • Image retrieved from here

The influence of a non-dialectical reading of Marx under conditions of patriarchy and racism continues to produce substantial errors in scholarship, including: the inability to understand class and labour power as relations and processes; a causal and deterministic articulation of consciousness and praxis as external relations; culturalist and identity-based approaches to ‘difference’ that cannot illuminate inter-constitutive social relations; confusion over the relationality between colonialism, fundamentalisms, imperialism and neoliberalism within capitalism; and the continued marginalization of feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial scholarship within the academy (…) we also contend that critical education theory cannot commit itself to, nor move forward with, a revolutionary project without profound attention to the social relations of difference – that is, gender, race, ability, sexuality – and the exploration of these as inter-constitutive relations both with and within capitalism and its expansion through colonialism and imperialism

Revolutionary Learning: Introduction: Revolutionary Feminist Praxis, epub edition

I just started reading it and I am already loving it. Thought I’d share this with you.

Networks as predictive tools

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BARABASI.png

Networks play a key role when there is no objective way to determine performance, claims Barabasi in his new book called: “The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success.” Barabasi examined the career paths of scientists and artists both successful and less successful ones by tracing their networks.  While performance is about each individual, their success is about the people they connect to, therefore for Barabasi, success is a collective measure.

However appealing this research may be I resist the predictive character the author implies. I’d love to read the book eventually, but still, this bothers me. Networks are the very representation of complexity and it is inconsistent to consider them as normative tools where quantitative/statistical data can lead to predetermined results. Networks are all about emergence; thus the inability to predict how and when they will evolve. Sure, sometimes it could be that some patterns reappear, but just like the author says, networks are bigger than us or our ability to control them.

I also fail to see the relevance of the term success in this context. It looks so arbitrary and shallow. As much as I would love to see some professionals’ networks and the way they penetrate society, I’d rather the research focused on their ability to change the world for the better. If success is a collective measure, then it should be evaluated in regard to α collective benefit.

 

For more on this book and image, click here

Critical Pedagogy, new book by Sean Michael Morris & Jesse Stommel

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URGENCY OF TEACHERS

Critical Pedagogy is an approach to teaching and learning predicated on fostering agency and empowering learners (implicitly and explicitly critiquing oppressive power structures). The word “critical” in Critical Pedagogy functions in several registers:

  • Critical, as in mission-critical, essential;
  • Critical, as in literary criticism and critique, providing definitions and interpretation;
  • Critical, as in reflective and nuanced thinking about a subject;
  • Critical, as in criticizing institutional, corporate, or societal impediments to learning;
  • Critical Pedagogy, as a disciplinary approach, which inflects (and is inflected by) each of these other meanings.

Our work, the writers say, has wondered at the extent to which Critical Pedagogy translates into digital space.

In short, Critical Digital Pedagogy:

  • centers its practice on community and collaboration;
  • must remain open to diverse, international voices, and thus requires invention to re-imagine the ways that communication and collaboration happen across cultural and political boundaries;
  • will not, cannot, be defined by a single voice but must gather together a cacophony of voices;
  • must have use and application outside traditional institutions of education.

 

Preface by Audrey Watters. Book available for online reading here

Education Related Research

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CALFEE

The three themes that address this connection are:

  • research as complex learning: In educational research, the goals are to understand and influence significant social practices that are inherently complicated, dynamic, and changeable (…) The generalizability of educational research is obviously challenged by differences among people and contexts, but time and space also matter.
  • research valid for applied outcomes:  To meet the considerable challenges of practical applications, educational research must meet high standards of scientific inquiry (…) Our first point under this theme is the importance of establishing a conceptual framework as a foundation (…) A second point about quality centers on methodological adequacy (…) A third point that has emerged from our experiences centers around generalizability methods  to extend the concept of test reliability
  • research on the application of research to practice: The third theme centers around the possibilities and problems of applying “what we know,” realizing that knowledge is always imperfect. Given the research base of the highest quality, engineering is required to fit the results to new and different settings. Primary among the challenges to this task in education is the disconnect between the worlds of research and practice.

 

Reference

Calfee, R. C., Miller, R.G., Norman, K., Wilson K., Trainin, G., 2006. Learning to Do Educational Research. In Translating Theory and Research Into Educational Practice: Developments in Content Domains, Large-Scale Reform, and Intellectual Capacity, edited by Mark A. Constas and Robert J. Sternberg, Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 77-104

Image available here

Illich’s 1971 proposal for deschooling society. Rings a bell?

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ILLICH

The most radical alternative to school would be a network or a service which gave each man the same opportunity to share his current concern with others motivated by the same concern.

Let me give, as an example of what I mean, a description of how an intellectual match might work in New York City. Each man, at any given moment and at a minimum price, could identify himself to a computer with his address and telephone number, indicating the book, article, film, or recording on which he seeks a partner for discussion. Within days he could receive by mail the list of others who recently had taken the same initiative. This list would enable him by telephone to arrange for a meeting with persons who initially would be known exclusively by the fact that they requested a dialogue about the same subject.

References

Illich, I., 1971. Deschooling Society. London; New York: Marion Boyars Publications ltd.

Image available here

Activity Theory and Expansive Learning

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Engestrom2001expansive1

Cultural-historical activity theory was initiated by Lev Vygotsky (1978) in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was further developed by Vygotsky’s colleague and disciple Alexei Leont’ev (1978, 1981). In my reading, activity theory has evolved through three generations of research (Engeström, 1996).

  • The first generation, centered around Vygotsky, created the idea of mediation (…) Vygotsky’s idea of cultural mediation of actions is commonly expressed as the triad of subject, object, and mediating artifact (…) Objects became cultural entities and the object-orientedness of action became the key to understanding human psyche (…) The limitation of the first generation was that the unit of analysis remained individually focused.
  • The second generation, centered around Leont’ev (…) Leont’ev explicated the crucial difference between an individual action and a collective activity (…) object-oriented actions are always, explicitly or implicitly, characterized by ambiguity, surprise, interpretation, sense-making, and potential for change. The concept of activity took the paradigm a huge step forward in that it turned the focus on complex interrelations between the individual subject and his or her community.
  • The third generation of activity theory needs to develop conceptual tools to understand dialogue, multiple perspectives, and networks of interacting activity systems (…) Wertsch (1991) introduced Bakhtin’s (1981) ideas on dialogicality as a way to expand the Vygotskian framework. Ritva Engeström (1995) went a step further by pulling together Bakhtin’s ideas and Leont’ev’s concept of activity, and others have developed notions of activity networks, discussed Latour’s actor-network theory, and elaborated the concept of boundary crossing within activity theory.

In its current shape, activity theory may be summarized with the help of five principles:

  • a collective, artifact-mediated and object-oriented activity system, seen in its network relations to other activity systems, is taken as the prime unit of analysis
  • the multi-voicedness of activity systems
  • historicity as activity systems take shape and get transformed over lengthy periods of time
  • central role of contradictions as sources of change and development
  • possibility of expansive transformations in activity systems

Expansion is a form of learning that transcends linear and socio-spatial dimensions of individual and short-lived actions (…) learning is understood in the broader and temporally much longer perspective of a third dimension, that is, the dimension of the development of the activity (…) Expansion is the result of a transition process from actions currently performed by individuals to a new collective activity (…) A transition from action to activity is considered expansive when it involves the objective transformation of the actions themselves and when subjects become aware of the contradictions in their current activity in the perspective of a new form of activity.

 

References

Cambridge University Press. Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory. Edited by Annalisa Sannino, Harry Daniels and Kris D. Gutierrez Frontmatter, 978-0-521-76075-1.

Yrjö Engeström. Expansive learning: Toward an activity-theoretical reconceptualization.

Image available here (Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of education and work, 14(1), 133–156. Taylor & Francis)

Jane Gilbert’s, ‘Catching the Knowledge Wave’

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GILBERT

Knowledge society: the social, economic and political changes that are taking place as countries move from the industrial to the post-industrial age

  • based on developing and exploiting new forms of knowledge
  • shows increase in the creative, technology or service based industries
  • linked with developments in information and communications technologies while people’s understanding of time, space and place are changing
  • new forms of info, new ways of presenting info and new forms of money emerge
  • more complex forms of personal identity
  • in economic terms new work order based on fast capitalism and new forms of production and new management systems. this changes the meaning of knowledge, innovation and learning. knowledge is now innovation, innovation is quality and quality control is knowledge management. knowledge, in the Knowledge Society, has a different meaning from the one it has in educational contexts.

Castells: knowledge is not a thing; it is energy; it is defined by its effectiveness in action and the results it achieves; it’s what causes things to happen; it is sth produced collaboratively by teams of people; it is constantly changing. [The Network Society]

Lyotard: he too advocated for knowledge as energy or ability to do things (performativity); used in an as-and-when-needed basis; many reasons, many truths, many knowledges are possible and desirable; traditional disciplinary boundaries will dissolve; new conceptions of learning will develop; people will develop and understanding of an organized stock of public and professional knowledge to pursue performativity, to apply it to new situations. [The Postmodern Condition]

Knowledge:

  • process, not a thing
  • does things
  • happens in teams
  • can’t be divided into disciplines
  • develops in an as-and-when-needed basis
  • develops to be replaced, not stored

Learning:

  • involves generating new knowledge, not storing
  • is a group activity
  • happens is real-world
  • should be just-in-time not just-in-case
  • needs to be a la carte

Minds are not containers, but resources that can be connected to other resources for the purpose of generating new knowledge

To summarize then, developing a Knowledge Society education system involves approaches that can:
•Develop new knowledge – through real research, not teacher-initiated projects. Knowledge Age schools need to be producers – not consumers – of knowledge;
•Develop multi-modal literacy (understanding and using non-print modes of making meaning – images, sounds, gestures/body language and so on);
•Foreground the relationships, connections and interactions between different knowledge systems and different modes of representation;
•Emphasize difference and diversity, not sameness and/or one-size-fits-all approaches;
•Foreground process not product;
•Help learners build a sense of themselves as active knowledge- builders – as having a unique niche, role and/or point of difference/contribution to make.

 

References

Jane Gilbert, 2010. Catching the Knowledge Wave. In Education Canada Vol 47 (3) www.cea-ace.ca,  ISSN 0013-1253

Image available here

information v informational society

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INFO GRAPH

  • information society: focuses on the role of info in society, communication of knowledge as it has always existed
  • informational society: indicates the attribute of a specific form of social organization in which information generation, processing and transmission become the fundamental sources of productivity and power because of new technological conditions emerging in this historical period /in parallel to industry and industrial where industrial stands for a society whose ind organization permeate all spheres of activity/ one of its key features is the networking logic of its basic structure which explains the basic concept ‘network society’, however, the rem doesn’t exhaust all the meaning of informational society

 

References

Castells, Manuel (1996, second edition, 2009). The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol. I. Malden, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-22140-1, pp.21-24

Image available here

academic V applied knowledge

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ACADEMIC-APPLIED

It is a second-order form of knowledge seeking abstractions and generalizations based on reasoning and evidence. It has four major components:

  • transparency: the source can be traced and verified
  • codification: the knowledge can be consistently represented in some form that enables interpretation by someone other than the originator
  • reproduction: knowledge can be reproduced or have multiple copies
  • communicability: knowledge must be in a form that can be communicated and challenged by others

applied knowledge is knowing how to do things, and hence by definition tends to be multi-disciplinary while academic knowledge is knowledge that goes beyond the here and now knowledge of everyday experience to a higher plane of
understanding (Gilbert)

It is equally important also to enable students to develop the ability to know how to find, analyze, organize and apply information/content within their professional and personal activities, to take responsibility for their own learning, and to be flexible and adaptable in developing new knowledge and skills. All this is needed because of the explosion in the quantity of knowledge in any professional field that makes it impossible to memorize or even be aware of all the developments that are happening in the field, and the need to keep up-to-date within the field after graduating.

 

References

Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for Designing Teaching and Learning Vancouver BC: Tony Bates Associates Ltd. ISBN: 978-0-9952692-0-0., pp. 59-64

Image: Eden Morfaux, ‘Etude d’après Saint Jérôme dans son étude, Antonello da Messina, 1475’, 2008, available here