Lessons from The Leather Archives and Museum: On The Promises of BDSM

In this essay, the author explores the experience of taking a class of educators in a Master’s course to visit the Leather Archives and Museum (LA&M). Situated within a course on Social Theory, the author explores the possibility of doing justice to the sexual subject – in particular the queer sexual subjects represented in the museum’s exhibits and archives. Can occupying the space of a museum committed to preserving, archiving, and exhibiting sexual subcultures illuminate new ideas and concepts that might preoccupy queer educational thought in its third decade? Utilizing contemporary queer theory, the author ponders the promises of BDSM that are engaged with the lessons of Leather and BDSM objects. Can such a preoccupation do justice to queer subjects and practices allowing not only for queer survival but queer thrival

Ingesting power

This paper starts with Foucault’s ideas about social control and how they were further developed in Preciado’s Testo Junkie exploring the ingesting power through various pharmaceutical technologies. The shift from disciplinary control to the much subtler pharmaceutical control will be analyzed within the context of the university. In particular, we will focus on this emerging form of biopower thinking through its implications teaching within the fields of art therapy and teacher education. Taking into account the steady increase of (mental) health diagnoses on college campuses, professor’s responses, the possibilities of actions, and the pedagogical implications will be debated. Within blurring borders of health and education, how do professors and students encounter education in different ways? An institutional critique of health and education seems necessary in this context. Issues of unease, disease, social class and entitlement will refer us back to Foucault and his work about avowal, truth, and power

A Cross-Cultural View of Adults’ Perceptions of Children’s Rights

This study examined how the need for autonomy may be coexisting with current cultural norms. A total of 264 U.S., 76 Swiss, and 51 British adults completed two perceptions of children\u27s rights surveys. The results showed that Swiss and British participants were significantly more likely to advocate for autonomy or self-determination rights than same-aged U.S. adults. British participants were also more likely to advocate for children\u27s self-determination rights than U.S. and Swiss participants, whereas Swiss adults were more likely to grant children nurturance rights than British and US adults. Generally, parents were less likely to advocate for autonomy than non-parents. The results are discussed in terms of individualism--collectivism, self-determination theories, and parentalism