Education and the Economy of Attention in Times of (Post-) Pandemic

With the Coronavirus crisis, online teaching seems to have become a norm in Higher Education. The essay argues that, although this new pedagogical practice is totally acceptable in times of social distancing, it can lead to something more radical, especially with the strong will of HE institutions to continue this mode of teaching beyond the period of crisis. The normalisation of dematerialised teaching comes as a challenge to academics: it is imbedded in a new form of economy, where attention is a key source of value and labour. The omnipresence of virtual interfaces questions the very fabric of their practice as teachers, especially in humanities, where it can lead to an intensification of the pauperization of teaching staffs, due to forced redundancy. To understand how the normalisation of online teaching after the crisis can be potentially noxious, the essay proceeds by looking at the change of agency of digital tools in teaching contexts, through the concept of pharmakon, developed by Bernard Stiegler, that offers the chance for a critique of this new pedagogical strategy which can be positive during the crisis, but potentially destructive after. This concept leads to a new criteria of judgment of the digital (mode of teaching), which has to be understood as a third way between the optimism of managerial perspectives, always keen to consider information technologies as the perfect catalyst for neo-liberal reforms in education; and the traditional technophobia, proper to a philosophical tradition that, from the Frankfurt School to Giorgio Agamben, apprehends the mediation of technology essentially as a critical regression and a modern form of rationalisation that engenders an immense social and psychic alienation

Concerning the Apparition of a Mobile Phone in a 17th Century Painting and Its Issuefication

Through focusing on a specific case study of a viewer going to a museum and seeing for a short moment a mobile phone in a 17th century painting, this article aims to address the concerns of some modern thinkers who are extremely worried about the proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their substitution of more traditional domestic artefacts. In response to the need to address the causes and consequence of this latent technophobia in critical theory, thinkers like Bruno Latour are looking for theoretical allies to build up a more accurate “Thing Theory.” This article argues that Latourian approaches, by offering sociologists and philosophers an enriched conceptual toolbox, open up more space in theory for non-human entities and recognise their affordance in the composition of what is usually called society

Black Skin, Red Masks: Racism, Communism and the Quest of Subjectivity in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

This essay aims at proposing a study of Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man (1952), where the author focuses on the difficult journey of black intellectuals in quest for a strong black identity in postwar America. The theoretical reflection in this paper is based, in a first phase, on the philosophical and political perspectives of thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Frantz Fanon, whose works and debates have articulated an important source to understand the quest of subjectivity and intellectual consciousness in the 1950s, a period marked not only by the emergence of civil rights movement and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also the progressive replacement of Communism by alternative emancipatory currents such as existentialism, postcolonialism and (post-) structuralism. From this discussion, the essay indicates, how (post-) Marxist thinkers, like Etienne Balibar, investigate the limits of the a priori paradigms promoted by the traditional humanistic (natural law-positive law) and communist narratives (alienation-emancipation), which lack conceptual and historical efficacy when it comes to understand and respond to new (bio-capitalist) forms of discrimination, which constantly evolve according to the epoch and the place

The Emancipated Student: Rethinking Knowledge, Equality and Democracy

This paper’s ambition is to act as a short memento for novice language teachers. It is based on a reflexive practice that stems from my personal work experience as secondary school language teacher. Drawing upon Jacques Rancière’s portrayal of the paradoxical relation between explanation and emancipation, and Gaston Bachelard’s notion of epistemological obstacle, the article aims at giving way to a reflexion on the challenges of teaching a foreign language to a group of students coming from a particular cultural linguistic background in a secondary school. According to this perspective, which breaks away from common sense, the difficulties to learn of new language should not be understood in terms of lack or impairment, but rather as the presence of an a priori significant knowledge. From this alternative way to engage with education research emerges a political argument that does not envision equality between teachers and learners, and their emancipation, as a postponed goal, but instead as a presupposition to any democratic teaching practice

Intercultural Skills: A Reflexive Approach to the Training of Sociocultural Workers

The paper aims at (re)introducing the reader to intercultural skills: a concept that has been at the heart of the work of the researchers at IRFAM in their study of the challenges that come with the process of integration for collectives and individuals. Using the figures of the socio-cultural workers and educators who have invaluable experience helping migrant descendants, this essay is a project report on challenges and frictions that emerge in situations marked by asymmetric cultural and social relations. Based on theoretical and empirical sources, the paper also offers a list of intercultural skills that provide those acting as mediators with some conceptual tools that would help them to decipher a specific situation and navigate between the institutional and their personal a priori religious, cultural, or ideological values (metacognition), and those of the individuals with a migrant background - but not only - they work with

Sensitivity of Acehnese Varieties of Rice (Oryza Sativa L.) to High Temperature Stress During Flowering Stage

. Rice is very sensitive to high temperature stress at the flowering stage. The rice plants were exposed to high temperature condition under green house. Some varieties show tolerance to heat stress, and the others are sensitive. Nine local Acehness varieties: Si Puteh, Itam Tangke Lango, Ramos Tihion Tamping, Sireundeun Semantok, Bo Santeut Seumantok, Pade Cut Krusek, Sipirok, Sigeudop and Cantek Lembayung were observed for high temperature stress during flowering stage. The objective of this research are: to identify the effect of heat stress on reproductive stage of local Acehnese, Indonesian rice; and to find the varieties that sensitive and hopefully have the gene of “temperature genic male sterility” (TGMS) that can be used as restorer varieties for production of hybrid rice. Heat stress significantly decreased pollen viability, plant architecture, and yield components. The pollen viability was observed by stainability and germination rate of the pollen. Based on pollen germination ability showed that one variety of rice, Sigeudop, showed tolerance to high temperature stress. Whereas the sensitive variety was Bo Santeut Seumantok, the local Indonesian rice that is potential to have TGMS gene. Pollen stainability showed that all varieties of pollen involved stainability from plants cultivation at high temperature, and all the varieties had the high rate of pollen stainability. We also found that pollen germination rate showed three varieties of rice cultivated in high temperature involved high resistance of the pollens

Rejuvenation and Characterization of Local Rice Germplasm (Orya Sativa L.) Under Organic Cultivation Syste

The research was carried out to rejuvenate and evaluate the performances of plant characters of rice genotyps to produce a pure lines that are suitable for organic cultivation method. Thirty genotypes of the selected local rice were conducted to evaluate the phenotype performances under the organic cultivation method. The rice genotypes were utilized in this experiment to evaluate their morpho-agronomic characters under organic cultivation system. Characterization of seed performances of each accession was described and catalogued to identify their accession traits. In addition, genotypic differences and similarities were also characterized and catalogued. Duplicate accessions were eliminated from the same variety or nearly identical variants of a variety. The morpho-agronomic performances of plant height, number of tillers, lifespan, number of panicles, filled grains per spike, 1000 grains weight, grain yield potential, and harvest index were clearly affected by the genotype. The results showed that the genotypes were greatly varied the morphoagronomic performances. , if organic system was applied, it was found that the responses of rice growth and yield of local varieties of Aceh is better than rice varieties cultivated by the national and introduction genotype

Assessing the Motivation of Civil Servant in Providing Public Services in Higher Education

Abstract. This study aims to examine how the motivation of academic services for educators and education personnel in higher education. The findings of this study are expected to become recommendations in developing programs or forms of evaluation aimed at improving the performance and motivation of academic services for teaching staff and teaching staff in tertiary institutions. This research is a survey research which aims to determine the general description of the motivation for academic services for teaching staff and teaching staff at state universities. Based on the research findings obtained, it can be concluded that from the 4 dimensions of motivation for public services, the first dimension, namely the interest in making public policy, is the dimension least owned or implemented by the research respondents. While the other three dimensions can be said to be in the high category in the sense that the respondents already have and have implemented these three dimensions in the delivery of public services. Based on these data, it can be concluded that the lack of motivation for academic services by the state civil servants tends to be due to their lack of interest in public policy making. Keywords: Public Service, Public Service Motivation, Civil Servant, Academic Affairs Public Servic