Activist Public Pedagogies for the Post-Truth Moment

We are very excited to share the abstract for Jake Burdick’s Keynote presentation for the 2018 Public Pedagogies Institute conference:

Beneath Reason:
Activist Public Pedagogies for the Post-Truth Moment

The contemporary cultural and political landscape across the globe has been characterized as post-truth, a term that signifies both the ascendance of ideology-as-knowledge and the outright dismissal of any claims stemming from intellectualism, inquiry, or empirical evidence that does not align with the dominant position. As such, spaces of formal education, which trade heavily in these currencies of knowledge, have lost much of their effectiveness as sites of questioning and resistance. In this talk, I provide a brief overview of the post-truth moment and its seduction of educational spaces, and to respond, I discuss approaches to activist public pedagogies and historical knowledge traditions that have operated beyond reason-based forms of critique and protest. Bringing these concepts into dialogue, I discuss how we might reconceptualize activism via its affective, embodied, imaginative, and aesthetic approaches to ethical living and cultural difference.

Jake Burdick will be the Keynote speaker on Day One of the Public Pedagogies Institute Conference on November 22, 2018.

Transmissions—knowledges and public spaces
Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018 
November 22-23, Footscray, Melbourne

Learn more

Call For Papers: Walking in/as Publics

Call For Papers
Journal of Public Pedagogies
Special Issue: Walking in/as Publics
Guest Edited by WalkingLab
(Stephanie Springgay & Sarah E. Truman)
https://walkinglab.org/journal-of-public-pedagogies-special-issue

As a research methodology, walking has a diverse and extensive history in the social sciences, arts, and humanities underscoring its value for conducting research that is situated, relational, and material. However, the history and genealogy of walking is encumbered by the figure of the flâneur that is predicated on autonomy, ability, Whiteness, masculinity, and as such a capacity to walk anywhere detached from the immediate surroundings. As a result, it is imperative that current activations of walking methods take into consideration race, gender, sexuality, disability, and settler colonization.

Public pedagogy is used to describe processes as diverse as dominant discourses such as neo-liberalism (Giroux, 2004), informal/anomalous sites of learning, (Ellsworth, 2004), corporate branding (Kincheloe, 2002), Disney (Garlen & Sandlin, 2016), civic engagement (Hickey-Moody, 2013), public realms (Biesta, 2010), and movement in public spaces such as streets (Truman, 2017). While public pedagogy can be said to refer to the educational, cultural and social affects and effects of prevailing culture, Sandlin, Burdick and O’Malley (2011) use the term critical public pedagogy to describe the ways popular and everyday culture(s) can be used to “decode and interrupt dominant ideologies of race, class, gender, sexuality, militarism, and neo-liberalism” (p. 347). Critical public pedagogy is an apt term to describe critical walking methods and methodologies.

This special issue is guest edited/curated by WalkingLab (www.walkinglab.org). WalkingLab is co-directed by Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman. WalkingLab is committed to queer, feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial walking practices. See their recent publication Walking Methodologies in a More-than-Human-World: WalkingLab (Routledge, 2018).

The expected publication date will accompany the annual Public Pedagogies Institute Conference in Melbourne, Australia (November 2019). At this point WalkingLab invites proposals for submissions that activate walking methods and methodologies and specifically attend to race, gender, sexuality, disability and settler colonization in/as public. Each 250-word proposal should provide a title for the submission, explain a theoretical orientation, and a brief explanation of content, arguments, and walking practice that will be examined. Proposals should indicate if the final submission will be a full-length article or a shorter explication text (see below). If you include images in your proposal please embed these into your word document and then send the submission as a pdf. Include no more than 3 images at this time. Please include a permission statement that indicates that you have the copyright permission to include images in your publication. Please include a 50-word bio.

Final submissions can be:
• full length articles (5,000 to 6,000 exclusive of references) that theoretically and/or empirically attend to walking methodologies (these will be double blind peer reviewed)
• short texts (1000 to 1500 words) that explicate a particular walking practice(s) or events
• photo essays with short descriptions/theorizations

The journal is an open source online journal that currently publishes the papers as pdf files. Images and URL links can be included in submissions. All proposals will be submitted electronically as word documents (or pdf if including images), using APA citation format, and images. Submit proposals and queries to: walkingpublicpedagogy@gmail.com

Deadlines:
October 15, 2018: Proposal/expression of interest (250 words plus 50-word bio)
November 1, 2018 authors will be notified of acceptance of their proposal
February 1, 2019 final submissions due for blind peer review

Journal of Public Pedagogies Special Issue

Learning on the Edge

Discover the wonders of learning in unconventional ways through a series of mind-expanding interactive events in Footscray from 16 – 17 November.

Learning on the Edge is an inaugural two-day program developed by Victoria University in collaboration with Victoria University Polytechnic, Maribyrnong City Council and community partners that offers unique learning and knowledge exchange opportunities for everyone.

Featuring six unique events at locations across Footscray, Learning on the Edge puts a twist on everyday experiences by encouraging participants to get out of their comfort zones.

Have a one-on-one conversation with renowned international street artist, Heesco, authors Anna Krien (Night Games) and Enza Gandolfo (The Bridge), the owner of the Sun Theatre and 2016 Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year, Michael Smith, or Sudanese-Australian former refugee Akuol Garang.

Watch a debate unfold between ABC radio broadcaster Sami Shah and local secondary school students, or see life in Footscray through scientists’ eyes with Triple R’s Einstein A Go Go host Dr Shane Huntington and a panel of VU academics.

What happens when you meet someone new without seeing them? Have a guided conversation with a stranger in the dark to find out.

Explore the traditions behind Footscray’s famously diverse food scene in a special two-course meal at an Ethiopian, Sudanese or Vietnamese restaurant.

On Saturday 17 November, VU’s Nicholson Street Campus will be transformed into a Skills Street, where participants can learn something new in 60 minutes – from 4D printing and spinning records, to reupholstering furniture and repurposing left over kitchen products.

Visit footscraylearningontheedge.com to book tickets and find out more.

Point Cook Pop Up School

Coming up on September 1, 2018 our next Pop Up School will take place in Point Cook!

Our Pop Up Schools are created in the communities in which they take place to present and share the unique learning and teaching that exists in each location.

This event will showcase many exhibitions of learning and teaching, from the past, present and future from Point Cooks’ community members. The days activities will include music, dancing, story telling, games and much more.

No bookings required. All welcome!

From 12.00 onwards there will be stalls and workshops to visit and performances to watch.

Follow Facebook @wynlearnfestival for more details.

DATE
TIME
LOCATION
Basketball Court opposite Target Car Park, Point Cook Town Centre, Off Murnong St, Point Cook
Visit Website
COST
FREE

Public Pedagogies Conference 2018

Transmissions—knowledges and public spaces
2018 Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 
November 22-23, Footscray, Melbourne

View and Download the Call for Papers

We are pleased to announce our two keynote speakers for the 2018 Public Pedagogies Conference, to be held November 22-23, in Footscray, Melbourne.

Keynote speakers:
Jake Burdick,
Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies, Purdue University
Charlotte Courtois, Artist,
Founder of French association Konstelacio

Jake Burdick is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies at Purdue University. Jake is the co-editor of the Handbook of Public Pedagogy (Routledge), Complicated Conversations and Confirmed Commitments: Revitalizing Education for Democracy (Educators International Press), and Problematizing Public Pedagogy (Routledge). He has published work in Qualitative Inquiry, Curriculum Inquiry, Review of Research in Education, and Review of Educational Research. His research interests include public and popular sites of education, activist studies, and community knowledge and perceptions of education.

Charlotte Courtois, founder of French association Konstelacio, is fascinated with cultural diversity, a passion that has been guiding her path for numerous years. She has lived in Australia, Spain and Tunisia. The creation of Konstelacio, a non-profit organization, was based on her observing of a strong need of intercultural dialogue education for children. This is the reason why Charlotte went on a 15-month round-the-world trip in 2011-2012, asking more than 200 children from 7 different countries to write stories which would show their culture and traditions (a day at school, a wedding, a birthday…) to other children all around the world. These stories were then illustrated by the children and put together as short storybooks and exchanged between participating children.

Since 2015, Charlotte has been spearheading a project on traditional music, Lyra, gathering 6 musicians from Brittany (France), Tunisia and India, as well as an illustrator, a video director and a sound engineer (see video link).

Call for Submissions

The conference welcomes submissions from artists, people working in the field of community education, academics, and anyone who feels their work fits the realm of learning and teaching outside of formal institutions! We are interested in examples of best practice, as well as theoretical engagement with the term Public Pedagogy. If you would like to run a workshop and we can accommodate you we will.  If you would like to present at the conference please send an abstract and short bio about yourself to Karen.Charman@vu.edu.au by September 30.

Transmissions—knowledges and public spaces

We are interested in how ideas and practices are transmitted in the public sphere. What ideas currently have currency and what sort of public dialogue/practices/frustrations are occurring? How can we make interventions into the application of transmission itself that dominates learning discourses and is reductive and ultimately destructive to publicness—specifically the spaces where we share knowledge, build relationships and create change. This is also a conference that is about engaging what we know, practices that work and ideas that need greater uptake!

We look forward to seeing you at our 2018 conference!

Learning and Teaching Through Communities

The Public Pedagogies Institute has released the program for the Learning and Teaching Through Communities symposium to be held on July 25 at the Deakin University Waterfront Campus, Geelong.

The full day schedule includes a program of speakers who are currently working in the field of community-based learning and arts projects. The event will feature a keynote speaker, as well as a range of presentations exploring projects taking place in the Geelong area.

This event is supported by Deakin University and the City of Greater Geelong.

Click here to download the program schedule.

Click here to register for this event.

Helen Rodd to present at Geelong Symposium

Helen Rodd will be one of the speakers to present at the one day symposium Learning and Teaching Through Communities.

Organised by the Public Pedagogies Institute in partnership with the City of Greater Geelong and Deakin University, the event will be held at Deakin University Waterfront Campus on July 25, 2018. 

The event will explore learning and teaching in community-based settings and environments.

Helen has 30 years of experience in a broad range of roles across the youth, education and community sectors. Her passions include working with diverse communities across ‘The West’ of Melbourne, working across the intersections of diversity, and practising (and teaching) community development. Her principal pursuit in this field is understanding and facilitating the complex dynamics of generational change. Her current focus is the Neighbourhood House sector, and transforming communities through grass roots community participation, community leadership and community-based research.

Helen will be presenting on an innovative and highly successful Community Leadership program she developed and delivers with Wyndham, Maribyrnong, Brimbank, Hobsons Bay, Moonee Valley and Greater Shepparton City Councils 2014-2018

Helen’s highlights/exemplary projects include:

  • Recipient of the Vice Chancellors Award for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (VET) 2017
  • Co-Recipient of the 2015 John Jago Good Governance Award with Wyndham Council for development of their community governance model from the Victorian Local Governance Association (VLGA)
  • Two significant community-wide social inclusion projects with the City of Maribyrnong, Neighbourhood Harmony Project (DIAC) & Building Bridges- Cultural Games Project (Vic Health)
  • Developing the Soul House project – involving rooming house residents, sole occupant households and other socially isolated people in neighbourhood houses
  • Lead researcher with Williamstown Community Learning Centre on ACFE funded project, Yarraville to Williamstown Learn Local Corridor Partnership Study and Hobsons Bay Community Centres Research Project Report
  • ‘The glue that holds our work together’, research investigating the central role of relationships in professional practice with young people published in the quintessential national youth work texts

The event will also feature Keynote speaker Liss Gabb, a creative producer, director, and curator in the field of participatory arts and social justice. Over the past 20 years Liss has developed a socially engaged practice that is based on working in partnership with communities that experience structural disadvantage. Liss provides the artistic leadership for cohealth Arts Generator, an award winning, participatory arts space that is a division of cohealth, one of Australia’s largest community health providers. Under Liss’s leadership the program has become an award winning, multi-arts program that serves communities in eight LGAs in the West and Inner North of Melbourne. Arts Generator’s unique model of engagement and cutting-edge artistic outputs are presented regularly at national and international forums and conferences.

The program will include presentations from guest speakers currently working on projects in the Geelong region.

This event is supported by Deakin University and the City of Greater Geelong.

Register Here for this event.

Exhibition: Drawing the Thesis

The walls of VU at MetroWest will be covered with a PhD thesis, totaling 100,000 words and over 600 original drawings, for an exhibition by PPI member and VU student Debbie Qadri.

Her exhibition is motivated by the idea of sharing research with fellow students at Victoria University and the local community, making it accessible, and subsequently demystifying the thesis

Exhibition opening: Thursday 5 July, 6 – 8pm

Exhibition: 5 – 25 July, 2018

Presentation and workshop: Saturday 21 July, 11am – 1pm

Location: VU at Metrowest, 138 Nicholson Street Footscray

Find out more here

Register Here for the Opening

Register Here for the Workshop

Learning and Teaching Through Communities: Geelong

The Public Pedagogies Institute in partnership with the City of Greater Geelong and Deakin University are pleased to announce a one day symposium Learning and Teaching Through Communities. This event will be held at Deakin University Waterfront Campus on July 25th.

The symposium will explore learning and teaching in community-based settings and environments and will feature a keynote speaker as well as presentations from guest speakers currently working on projects in the Geelong region.

The Symposium’s keynote speaker—Liss Gabb is a creative producer, director, and curator in the field of participatory arts and social justice. Over the past 20 years Liss has developed a socially engaged practice that is based on working in partnership with communities that experience structural disadvantage. Liss provides the artistic leadership for cohealth Arts Generator, an award winning, participatory arts space that is a division of cohealth, one of Australia’s largest community health providers.

The Public Pedagogies Institute (PPI) is committed to Interconnecting public, learning and research. PPI aims to provide a platform for engagement and exchange between practitioners, researchers and organisations working in the areas of learning and teaching in the community or outside formal education institutions.

We aim to increase the profile of work being done in the area of Public Pedagogies, as well as provide an opportunity for connections to be made between community members and researchers who are interested in collaborating on projects.

If you have a project that you would like to present as a part of this day please send a paragraph describing your work to Karen.Charman@vu.edu.au by Friday the 13th of July.

If you are interested in attending please visit our Eventbrite page to register. Places are limited and the cost is $10.00.

Dr Karen Charman

President,
Public Pedagogies Institute

Projects 2018

In 2018 the work of the Public Pedagogies Institute will once again be multi-faceted.

We are continuing working on our Knowledge Project, which will this year take place in Point Cook and once again culminate in a Pop Up School event, following on from our previous events held in Footscray and Werribee.

Planning is also underway in 2018 for three other major projects/events:

The Public and Memorialisation—A Public Discussion

This event will interrogate the presence of public representations of memorial spaces such as statues and events. What is our lived experience of what is represented? Is memorialisation affective, is it doing the emotional work for us? Is memorialisation public art/action?  

The Public and Touch—A Walkshop in the City

This will be a participatory immersive event/project. The aim is to deepen the tactile-kinesthetic connection with the body in the space of the city and with the city in the space of the body. What is the built/natural environment doing to me? What is the presence of other people doing to me? How do I relate to the environment and the other people? How do I listen deeply/inwardly in the complex and diverse relational field of the city so that I can perceive more clearly what is being offered to me at the sensory level from the outside and engage an “improvised dance” between the inputs I get from the outside and my internal impulses?

The Public and Geelong

A one day symposium in the City of Geelong that will look at public pedagogy. The City of Geelong has recently produced Greater Geelong: A Clever and Creative Future. In part this symposium might address the role of education outside of formal institutes of learning in thinking about what is clever and what is creative?

If any of the above projects are of interest to you or you would like to chat about running a PPI event in your area please contact us.

We have also created a brief survey for anyone interested in participating in the Institute’s projects. The survey can be filled out online and will help us to connect people working on projects with those interested in collaborating. Everyone is welcome to get involved!

I hope 2018 is shaping up to be great year for you. 2018 is also the Year of Life Long Learning, making the work of the Institute all the more important this year!

Dr Karen Charman,

President,
Public Pedagogies Institute

 

Interconnecting public, learning and research