Keynotes I - IV

Keynote lecture I: 26.06.2025, 15:00, Interim-110

Krassimir Stojanov: Populism as Topic of a Critical Theory of Education

^{By ‘critical theory of education’, I understand the reconstruction of social pathologies in institutionalized education that contradict the very idea of education. I argue that one of the most important pathologies of that kind is what I call ‘educational populism’, that is, the ways, in which educational institutions directly and rather indirectly give rise to and support the development and the widespread of populist attitudes and ideologies. In the contemporary political theory seems to be a consensus that most distinguishes feature of populism is its anti-pluralism. The latter is closely connected to the antagonistic opposition between ‘the people’ and the ‘elite’, which the populists propagate. Within this opposition “the people” appears as a kind of organic unity, as a homogeneous entity with a collective will and consciousness. The construction of this unity proceed mainly through the cultivation of ressentiments. 
I claim that institutionalized educational practices such as selection and segregation based on the social and ethnic background of the students in homogeneous school tracks serve as origins of populist ressentiments.
Finally, I sketch out an alternative institutional model of anti-populist, democratic education which is very much inspired by Elisabeth Anderson’s concept of democratic equality in and through education.} 

Keynote lecture II: 27.06.2025, 9:15, Interim-109

Maeve Cooke: Combatting Epistemism: Epistemic Openings in Critical Theory and Education

^{Contemporary anthropology invites consideration of epistemism as racism’s hierarchy-making twin. Epistemism, as it is used in these discussions, refers to onto-epistemic denials and exclusions that establish societal hierarchies. This happens when individuals and groups make knowledge-related assertions that deny or invisibilize modes of knowing, and by extension, modes of being, that do not fit with their underlying worldview. This may be intentional or unintentional. One troubling result is a privileging of ways of knowing and being characteristic of the societally dominant groups, reinforcing existing hierarchies and contributing further to societal exclusions and inequalities. Another troubling consequence is impoverishment of the onto-epistemic resources available to critical theories, which traditionally are concerned to disclose possibilities for achieving better lives for everyone, and the better societies that would enable this.} 

^{By way of a critical engagement with Adorno’s 1959 critique of ‘Halbbildung’ (literally, ‘half-education’), my paper considers some implications of epistemism for critical theory and education today. It builds on contemporary discussions of miseducation as an institutionalised form of epistemism. Miseducation contributes to oppression and ignorance as well as to the society-wide repression of epistemic modes and sites of resistance. It suggests the need for educational theories and practices that foster epistemic openness along the lines of ‘world-travelling’ (Lugones)and ethnographic methods such as ‘co-labouring’ (de la Cadena).}

Keynote lecture III: 27.06.2025, 14:15, Interim-109

Christopher Martin: Losing the War to Win the Peace? The Civil Educational Condition as an Emancipatory Interest

^{Contemporary liberal-democracy is steeped in the analysis, imagery and emotions of “division”. Political polarization, elites vs. populists, culture wars and separationist sentiments are pervasive themes in modern interpretations of liberal society and its future prospects. In the spirit of the conference theme, I apply social critical analysis in order to understand the underlying “struggles and wishes” behind these interpretations. I propose that we should understand division as a civic struggle over the norms of justice and legitimacy that best apply to civic institutions and associations. This struggle is the product of a deep crisis of epistemic authority i.e., of how to know who the trustworthy knowers are. Educational institutions, which rely on and reproduce norms of epistemic authority, are a key conflict zone. If this is right, then one task for critical theory is to facilitate free and equal citizen’s escape from the ‘prisoner’s epistemic dilemma’ that a deep crisis brings about (e.g., where the knower has an incentive to recover a feeling of epistemic certainty by rejecting truth-claims that contradict what that knower believes to be true). What might this theoretical work look like? In a prisoner’s dilemma, engaging in a struggle (e.g., ‘us vs. them’, ‘oppressor vs. oppressed’) is an ineffective strategy because a good outcome necessitates social cooperation. In our context, escaping the prisoner’s epistemic dilemma requires no less than a willingness on the part of each knower to “lose the war to win the peace.” I characterize “winning the peace” as akin to a Kantian civil condition and argue that citizens have an equal interest in establishing this educational condition. This, I conclude, is where a critical theory of education should focus its efforts.}

Keynote lecture IV: 28.06.2025, 9:15, Interim-109

Douglas Yacek: One-Dimensional Education

^{In his classic study of American society and culture, One-Dimensional Man (1964), Herbert Marcuse argued that consumer culture exerts an immense flattening effect on our collective and individual aspirations. In the consumerist world, the difference between true and false needs vanishes—we become convinced that ultimate fulfillment can be found in our next luxury purchase or mass-market commodity, and when it inevitably fails to deliver, we seek out another. While Marcuse, like other Frankfurt School theorists, ultimately places blame for our state of affairs on the so-called culture industry, I explore in this talk how our educational paradigm cultivates the very forms of thought and action that make the influence of the culture industry so successful. I argue that an ideology of equipage dominates our educational imagination, preventing us from conceiving and constructing educational experiences that challenge the status-quo and make personal transformation (Bildung) possible.} 

Full program

_{The full conference program with information about rooms and timetable will be made available here two weeks before the conference.}