Fugitive Study, Autonomous Media

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Okay. Hello and welcome to Minor Compositions.
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For today, we have an interesting conversation planned with two
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friends I've known a long time who I didn't realize
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until now hadn't actually met each other until now. So
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thanks for coming along, Giovanni.
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Hello. Hi, good to be here. Thanks for being here, Eli.
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Thanks for bringing us together.
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And so the idea for this week is to have
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a bit of a conversation about... that thing which we're
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not apparently able to do in universities anymore, which, of course,
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is study. And what we're going to do is have
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a conversation about what if we thought about study not
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organized around education or around accreditation or individual improvement or achievement?
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What if study was, you know, and this is very
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much in the ongoing sort of, you know, sense of
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our friends Stefano and Fred talk about it. as a
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form of friendship, as doing things together, of reading groups,
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of experimenting, of doing all those things where we take
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part in making worlds together, but we're not necessarily concerned about, like,
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what it gets us, what it earns, what it achieves.
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It's more about it's an end in itself. And this
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strikes me as something that I think is a big
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theme across both of your books, with Giovanni's book a
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bit more recent and Eli's book called What did.
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It come out, Eli, was it 2008, 2018?
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2019.
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2019, okay.
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Actually, I'm pretty sure in university terms, you're allowed to
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say recent for about 15 or 20 years, which is
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pretty silly, but you know, that's life. So that's the
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idea in prefab form. And also part of the idea
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of today's session is part of something I want to
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work on with minor compositions which is slightly reframing it
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as just being thought of as being a publisher, as
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a publisher who makes books, but rather it being a
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project which is involved in creating spaces and tools for
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collective study. So there's obviously still books, there's still podcasts,
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but it's as part of a broader process rather than just.
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Being objects in themselves. So that's the idea.
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So to start with, let's start with the first question
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I sent you, which is what happens when we detach
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study from education or from the idea of improvement or
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accreditation because it's something that sort of comes up in
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both your works for instance Eli you talk about education
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as a historically specific mode of study rather than just
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being all forms of study and then Giovanni talks about
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it as what happens when sort of studies separate it
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from the figure of the student and this sort of
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drive to improve it let's start there does that work?
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Yeah, I could say a little about this mode of
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study concept that I use in my book. So I
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think maybe on like a meta level, we could talk
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about how we use concepts. So I think about the
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use of concepts in a really materialist kind of way.
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I think I was really influenced early on in my
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studies by the Frankfurt School critical theory people's approach to
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concepts where they call for paying really close attention to
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the historical material contexts, contexts in which concepts emerge, and
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also the material contexts in which we're applying those concepts Um,
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I also think of these concepts with actor network theory,
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like thinking about how theories are, are part of, um,
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actor networks. They, they circulate, um, as actors themselves within
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associations with other entities in the world. Um, so yeah,
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very materialist kind of approach to the use of concepts. Um,
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and also, um, I really take inspiration from this book,
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Joyful Militancy by Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery. And I
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know Giovanni, you draw on their book a lot too.
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They talk about.
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This idea of an affirmative mode of theory as opposed
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to a kind of critique focused mode of theory. So
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like a kind of fetishizing of critique where you're like
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setting up your own theory as superior to other people's
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theories and trying to shut them down, critiquing everybody else.
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So in contrast, an affirmative mode of.
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Theory seeks to explore interesting complicities across different concepts, looking
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for ways to improvise and play with connections and affinities
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between different theories and concepts. And so my approach to
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this idea of mode of study comes out of those
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ways of using concepts. And so I see a mode
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of study as a way to get out of a
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kind of stipulative strategy to theoretical work, where a stipulative
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strategy is stipulating what the good way of doing things
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is against the bad way of doing things. And so,
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so I think you see this a lot in education
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studies where like liberate, some kind of liberatory education as
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opposed to some form of oppressive education or education itself,
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as opposed to schooling or learning as opposed to education
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or study as opposed to learning. Um, and I, I
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think that's kind of like stipulative approach tends to, um,
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shut down our thinking.
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About the complexity of what's going on in the world.
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It's kind of a short circuiting of the complexity of
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what happens in studying or education or learning or whatever.
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So I see modes of study as a concept for
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kind of getting out of that like stipulative strategy because
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there are like a lot of different modes of study
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you can talk about basically. I think of modes of
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study as connected with broader ways of making the world
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or world-making projects. I see it as a way of
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opening up questions or unfolding questions rather than providing answers
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to questions. Some of the questions I see this concept
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helping us open up are, how did we get the
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dominant mode of study today, the mode of study that
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we tend to call education and the institutions that we
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call education institutions. Why do we take for granted that
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mode of study? What are the different elements of it,
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like schools and colleges and levels of schools from kindergarten
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up through the grades up to grade 12 and rising
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up to higher education? Where did that vertical imaginary come from?
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In grades and exams, where do these elements come from?
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What sort of political projects have pushed these elements that
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we take for granted onto us? And in the course
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of the rise of these modes of study, the dominant ones,
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what sorts of alternatives, alternative modes of study have been
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suppressed and ignored? And what sorts of alternative ways of
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making the world are bound up? with those alternative modes
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of study. And also when I say modes of study,
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I think it runs the danger of sort of fetishizing
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study in a way.
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I think we could also say.
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Modes of learning or modes of education or genres of learning.
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I think there are various phrases we could use. And
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I'm not against those words themselves. There are lots of
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liberatory movements that use the word education, like the Zapatistas use,
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talk about rebel education and their practices. And there's Freire
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and popular education. And I'm the co-host of a podcast
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now called Another Education is Possible, just kind of playing
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with the Zapatista phrase, another world is possible. So I'm
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not like anti-education or something. But the reason I choose
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this term modes of study is that in the dominant
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kinds of discourses and the dominant sorts of institutions in
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our capitalist world, those discourses center the ideas of education
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and learning. Study is a kind of marginal term generally.
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And in the public's kind of general common sense, We
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tend to romanticize those terms, those ideas of education and learning.
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So I think that talking about modes of study is
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like a way to shake up that common sense, to
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destabilize it, and to open up our imaginative horizons to
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thinking about alternative possible modes of study.
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And so in my book, I give this history.
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Of the education, kind of the dominant education based mode
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of study it's different elements like the vertical imaginary and
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these like binary figures of educational value and waste like
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the graduate and the dropout and like um the sort
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of mode of accounting behind grades um like i yeah
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i give sort of critical genealogies of where those those
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um elements of education based mode of study that we
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tend to take it for granted where they come from
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because the way to denaturalize them open up our imaginations.
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I think in this sort of, let's say, common everyday
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sense of the way people tend to use the word study,
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it's a bit like talking about eating your vegetables, as
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in like the thing that everyone thinks you should do,
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but also that like you probably don't actually want to do,
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but you should do it anyways.
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And what I find interesting about that.
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Is that is how that specific modality of studying ignores
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all the other forms. So for instance, like I think
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you hear after we have this chat, I'm going to
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go upstairs and watch some football with my son who's 14.
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And when he's obsessing about details around teams or players
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or moves, he is engaging in a form of study
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with that material. This comes out in the intro to
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your book, Giovanni, where you're talking about a certain kind
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of modality of studying happens on the field with friends.
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And it's interesting that because of the reduction of those
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different ways of studying or thinking or engaging with the
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world to just one form, we're missing out all these
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other things. It also reminds me of this really wonderful
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piece Fred has called, I think, The Assessment, where he
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talks about, like, we're constantly used to critiquing things we
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study or learn about, but we never ask, like, why
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do you love this? Why is this important? And that
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sort of... actually starting with why you're looking at something
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in the first place and taking that love of a
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thing you want to be with is in fact actually
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an important step that we oftentimes just gloss over. And
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it's kind of weird. Yeah. What do you think, Giovanni?
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Yeah, well, first of all, if I may, maybe a
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bit of a repeat of what we were saying before
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we started. but I wanted to be on record with
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saying that. Although, of course, the kind of examination of
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study that I tried to sketch out in my book
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is building very explicitly on Stefano Harney and Fred Morton's take,
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and we can get into that if it's helpful at
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some point. But it was just as heavily influenced by
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Eli's book beyond education so so it's a real first
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of all it's a real honor to to finally be
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more properly in conversation with you Eli and and and
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and but but also that perhaps unsurprisingly there might be
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a degree of overlap between what I say and what
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Eli says and a bit of repetition but I like that.
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I like rephrasing things and restating things. And I think
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that is one of the key elements of studying, staying
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with certain formulations and seeing what you see when you
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turn them around and looking at the same thing in
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various ways, as you were saying, Stephen, as well. That said,
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and one of those things where I think I.
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I'm on the same page, so to speak, with Eli,
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is that, like I always want to clarify when I
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talk about use, which is the other field of practice
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that I address in my book. One is use and
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one is study. And I try to bring them together.
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I try not to concern myself with, should I say,
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ontologizing these terms in the sense that I'm not committed
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to unearthing or establishing what study is. or use, really
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is or ought to be in a normative sense. And
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I very much follow Eli's lead in thinking about specific
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modes of study as well as specific modes of use. And,
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you know, I'm also, like Eli, I'm not saying that
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any studious practice that leads to learning something is inherently
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bad or ought to be dismantled. But maybe for me,
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to put it simply, the way I understand it, the
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important thing for me here is that studies the practice,
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whereas education is one possible result or effect of that practice,
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or maybe, let's say, one context in which that practice
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can happen and the way it is organized. So for me,
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to begin from study rather than from education is first
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and foremost to, very much as Eli was saying, to
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contest the hegemonic logic of education, which Eli describes, or
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a particular understanding of education, which Eli describes very well,
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is that this logic of ascent, of rising above like
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a cloud of ignorance, or of extricating oneself from the
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messiness of social life in order to see more clearly,
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And so that we can gain a better understanding. And
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in turn, such contestation for me is necessary to open
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up spaces both materially and figuratively for imagining and for
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practicing alternative and orthodox experimental processes, sites and relations of study.
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which can be found well beyond the ones that normally
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are associated with education, curricula, schools, teachers, pupils, etc., in
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all kinds of everyday pursuits. I also think that education
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seems to demand a mechanism to establish that one has
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indeed successfully elevated their understanding and is therefore educated, so
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to speak. And that an ascent, vertical ascent, has indeed
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taken place. And that mechanism is accreditation. Elias Ryan pointing
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out that not all education is born equal, as the
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saying goes, but by and large, the approach to education
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that I think we tend to see in our imaginary
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and colloquially speaking is one where there's need to establish
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that one has indeed become educated and that mechanism is
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accreditation which as I try to argue in my book
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accreditation or credit more generally is in every sense of
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the word the end of study as far as I'm
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concerned And it is the end of study in that
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the credit received is the purpose of study. So end
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is the purpose. In education and learning-oriented context, it is
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the end of study also because it announces the successful
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conclusion of study, of the practice of studying. So it's
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the outcome, in other words. So when something has been learned, accomplished, discovered,
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and when the studier has harvested the fruit of its
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educational self-cultivation. And in my book, I work a bit
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with this idea of cultivation as well. I can get
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to it maybe later. But it is also the end
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because credit is an asocial force. And that's something that
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I take from Harney and Morton when they talk about
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when they tried to distinguish between credit and debt, is
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the end, and it's a social force because it privatizes
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the process of engagement or entanglement with the world, which
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I understand to be at the very heart of the
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kind of study that I'm interested in, at least, and
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therefore cuts the studier off from it. So maybe just
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to summarize, I guess, what I was trying to do
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with Studying from Studying, as well as with Studying from Use,
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was to strip these two concepts from a baggage that
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they're very often, they often come burdened by. So the
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case of views is function and all the rest of it.
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The case of study is all this idea of improvement
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and self-improvement and credit, accreditation, et cetera. And I think
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Eli's book gave me a way of doing it.
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What do you think about the formulation of, okay, the
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way you talked there about accreditation is the end of study.
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mapping that onto the difference between intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. So,
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for instance, when you're intrinsically motivated, you're playing music because
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you love doing it or you love playing football or
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you love making things with your friends. There is no
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need for an external validation because it is its own reward.
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But once you start doing it, I don't know, for money,
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for credit, it almost like, serves to undercut the love
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of the thing that brought you there in the first
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place because then you start to do it for that
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and that comes to replace the initial motivation or in
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certain circumstances that can work the way I'm not saying
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that always works that way but that often seems like
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you know when you have something you love that becomes
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a side hustle and that becomes your job and then
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you're doing it because it's a job and not because
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you have any passion for it.
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Anymore Yeah, this is something I thought a lot about,
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particularly in relation to a kind of alternative study project
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that I used to be involved in.
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Organizing.
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Yeah, this kind of tension between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations
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for study.
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This is kind of.
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A core theme in this project that was called the
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Experimental College Project. of the twin cities, um, for, uh, yeah,
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folks not from the upper Midwest of the United States,
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the twin cities refers to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, um,
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which is kind of one, one city really. Um, but, uh,
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it's called the twin cities, um, uh, because, um, uh,
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sort of split, they're split by a river. Um, but I,
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I was, I was part of this, uh, um, project, uh,
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which we called EXCO for short, Experimental College EXCO, um,
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which came out of a long line of, of experimental
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colleges that originated in the, um, the long 1960s radical
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social movements. Um, the original experimental college was at, uh,
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San Francisco State College.
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Um, and it's basically, uh.
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Kind of radical counter-cultural, um, and, um, in black radical students, uh, used,
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used student groups and the student government to, in a
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kind of under commons way, uh, steal, um, resources from, uh, the,
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the college from the normal institution, um, money, stealing money
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and space and, um, professors themselves or the time, labor
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time of the professors who, who worked with the students, um,
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and the, the classes were self-organized by the students. Some
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of those classes in that original experimental college were some
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of the first black studies classes. And the students who
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organized those based on their good experiences with those classes
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then demanded a black studies department.
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From the university. So, yeah, but then.
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These experimental colleges continued through the 70s, but with the
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dying out of the counterculture movement, only a few of
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them survived.
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Into the 2000s.
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And one of those at Oberlin College inspired some of
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us who were living in the Twin Cities in the
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mid-2000s to start a new experimental college in the Twin Cities.
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And so we used student groups at Macalester College and
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the University of Minnesota to expropriate funds and spaces from
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the normal universities to use for classes that people who,
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some of whom were students and some of whom were
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community members more broadly to organize. And yeah, in those classes,
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those classes were um, run on very, uh, a very
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different kind of motive study from the dominant kind of
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motive study in, um, the universities and in schools more generally, um,
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very different in the sense that there were no grades
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and no credits offered. Um, and also the participants broke
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down the hierarchies between teacher and students or professor and students, um,
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Partly through a terminological move of calling everybody co-participants and
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calling the people who organized the classes facilitators. Getting back
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to this point you raised, Stephen, about the tension between
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intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Without offering grades and without offering credits,
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participants in those classes lost that extrinsic motivation that they
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would have, that they normally have, um, and that, that
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they're kind of habituated into having for, um, classes in
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the normal universities. And, and so, yeah, the, the only
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thing bringing participants to those classes was, was their more
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intrinsic motivations, um, of, um, enjoying the classes or, or
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having some kind of need or desire in their lives, like, Um,
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like with classes on bike maintenance, they desired or needed to, uh,
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learn how to fix their bikes for riding around the
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city or in a class on, uh, like as a
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reading group on Marx's capital.
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Um, we, uh, had, um, a need to.
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Uh, get organized, um, and to think about the kind
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of capitalist structures of the, um, university that we were
357
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studying and working in. And so through those classes, I
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think there is this constant challenge of having to create
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the conditions for people's intrinsic motivations, their desires and needs
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to be there, to be met or for them to
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find resonance with the classes. I think one of the
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ways that we, um, that classes that were successful or
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successful in the sense of like getting people to keep
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coming back to the class. Um, one, one of the
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ways that they were able to do that was by, um,
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creating spaces where relationships among the participants could be, um,
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built and tended and maintained and in convivial ways.
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And fun, joyful kinds of ways.
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Um and yeah and so like like with the bike
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maintenance class i um one that i took i remember
371
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seeing people from the class around biking around the city
372
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and we'd uh wave at each other and um sparked
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some friendships through those classes and in the marks reading
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group uh we would talk about some organizing that was
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going on a grad student union was organizing around then
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and kind of interweaved our discussions of organizing with the
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studying happening. And those, you know, I think like compared
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to a grad school class with a professor teaching it,
379
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like we weren't worrying about like performing for the professor.
380
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There's a more horizontal kind of playing field for study.
381
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So maybe one way to think about it, and tell
382
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me if you think of this off base here, is
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that to have a space where you have non-extrinsically motivated
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forms of study, it's because it's part of a larger
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form of sociality or collectivity, whether that was originally 60s counterculture,
386
00:29:03.180 --> 00:29:06.299
or I'm not sure what to call the movements that
387
00:29:06.339 --> 00:29:09.740
emerge in the early... I'm not going to say the
388
00:29:09.759 --> 00:29:14.690
aughts because that sounds horrible. the early 2000s. You have
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00:29:14.730 --> 00:29:17.380
forms of collectivity and sociality emerging where people are doing
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things together and that can be part of that. Or
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00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:22.900
you could look back even further to, let's say, the
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00:29:22.940 --> 00:29:26.420
history of the workers' education movement where you have people
393
00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:29.920
doing things together, whether it's reading poetry or doing things
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00:29:30.269 --> 00:29:35.970
after their jobs. So it's almost like those forms of
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00:29:36.049 --> 00:29:41.980
sociality make possible non-extrinsic motivation or maybe the sociality is
396
00:29:42.059 --> 00:29:45.240
the extrinsic motivation where it's the desire to be together
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00:29:45.259 --> 00:29:48.940
with other people doing something that just happens to be
398
00:29:48.960 --> 00:29:50.119
a form of study.
399
00:29:52.730 --> 00:29:55.009
I was going to say something if that's alright is
400
00:29:55.069 --> 00:29:58.450
it alright if I jump in? I just wanted to
401
00:29:58.509 --> 00:30:04.809
say Well, first of all, that I am, although I
402
00:30:04.849 --> 00:30:08.589
completely understand, I'm not going to, I don't want to
403
00:30:08.630 --> 00:30:12.049
be disingenuous here. I completely understand what you, Stephen, and
404
00:30:12.490 --> 00:30:15.569
Eli are talking about when you talk about intrinsic and
405
00:30:15.630 --> 00:30:21.970
extrinsic motivation. I think I do. However, one thing, first
406
00:30:22.009 --> 00:30:24.150
of all, that I'm wary about is the fact that
407
00:30:24.210 --> 00:30:32.269
universities thrive on intrinsic motivation. That's how they can get
408
00:30:32.309 --> 00:30:35.990
away with so much. It's in a way, if there's
409
00:30:36.029 --> 00:30:39.869
something special about universities, I'm not convinced that there is,
410
00:30:39.930 --> 00:30:43.970
but if there is something special about universities as workplaces
411
00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:46.490
is that they have a particular way of working with
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00:30:46.599 --> 00:30:53.099
our intrinsic motivations and our intrinsic drives and to make
413
00:30:53.480 --> 00:30:57.259
the extrinsic and intrinsic overlap in ways that we then
414
00:30:57.799 --> 00:31:00.319
we're completely confused and we don't understand anymore. And we're like,
415
00:31:00.359 --> 00:31:02.740
but no, but I thought I loved it. And now I,
416
00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:06.640
I actually, this is the, you know, the backdoor to
417
00:31:06.660 --> 00:31:10.829
my oppression. And so, so it's, I think it's something
418
00:31:10.869 --> 00:31:17.910
a bit tricky there. I have so many colleagues, maybe
419
00:31:17.950 --> 00:31:20.450
me too, you know, in many ways that they find
420
00:31:20.470 --> 00:31:26.890
that very hard that they identify in, in some ways with,
421
00:31:28.269 --> 00:31:34.410
the source of their own expectation right and the other
422
00:31:34.450 --> 00:31:38.490
thing conversely the extrinsic motivation this is what I think
423
00:31:38.509 --> 00:31:42.460
you were hinting at Stephen just now is that I
424
00:31:42.500 --> 00:31:46.180
think part of what I certainly what I tried to
425
00:31:46.220 --> 00:31:49.160
do in my book is to really lean into that
426
00:31:50.140 --> 00:31:55.039
kind of beyond oneself aspect of study where you open
427
00:31:55.160 --> 00:31:59.549
up to that which is that doesn't come from within
428
00:32:01.450 --> 00:32:05.529
that kind of re-immersing yourself into something that makes you
429
00:32:05.569 --> 00:32:11.109
forget that even there is a self. And so kind of,
430
00:32:12.809 --> 00:32:16.170
although I understand, again, like I do understand what you
431
00:32:16.210 --> 00:32:19.269
mean by the self-motivation and the kind of the drive
432
00:32:19.289 --> 00:32:21.829
that the things that we are passionate about, but also,
433
00:32:23.250 --> 00:32:27.059
you know, what I want to, I want to remain
434
00:32:27.099 --> 00:32:30.839
attentive to the ways in which the extrinsic motivation can
435
00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:35.019
be a way out of a particular predicament that we're
436
00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:40.549
trying to get out of. Depends what's the extrinsic in
437
00:32:40.589 --> 00:32:41.710
a way. Does that make sense?
438
00:32:43.490 --> 00:32:44.529
Yeah, yeah.
439
00:32:44.549 --> 00:32:45.130
I think.
440
00:32:46.930 --> 00:32:52.259
Maybe Stephen was using that distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic
441
00:32:52.519 --> 00:32:57.430
as a segue to talk about sociality.
442
00:32:58.470 --> 00:32:59.269
More generally.
443
00:32:59.690 --> 00:33:03.730
Yeah, I agree with what you're saying, Giovanni, about how
444
00:33:03.769 --> 00:33:11.990
that distinction seems to reify a bounded self, maybe get
445
00:33:12.049 --> 00:33:17.309
us stuck in that kind of logic of self-possessed and
446
00:33:17.970 --> 00:33:26.329
self-possessing individuals with a boundary between inside and outside. So, yeah,
447
00:33:26.369 --> 00:33:34.049
I think like maybe the sort of critical thrust of
448
00:33:34.130 --> 00:33:36.990
making that distinction provisionally.
449
00:33:38.029 --> 00:33:43.250
Is to point to the kind of.
450
00:33:44.839 --> 00:33:50.319
Alternative modes of sociality that can happen in these spaces
451
00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:57.809
particularly where the motivations that we normally take as extrinsic,
452
00:33:58.670 --> 00:34:03.990
like motivations for getting credits are put on hold and
453
00:34:04.329 --> 00:34:05.950
alternatives can be opened up.
454
00:34:06.630 --> 00:34:09.530
But yeah, I think in using that language.
455
00:34:09.269 --> 00:34:14.429
Of intrinsic versus extrinsic, we can like recode those spaces
456
00:34:14.469 --> 00:34:19.360
with that problematic kind of individualizing frame. So yeah, what
457
00:34:19.380 --> 00:34:24.159
Stephen was getting us to is maybe thinking about alternative
458
00:34:24.179 --> 00:34:29.019
modes of sociality, like fugitive studying, under common modes of studying.
459
00:34:29.039 --> 00:34:30.880
Is that where you're going, Steven?
460
00:34:32.539 --> 00:34:35.139
Yeah, I think that's where I'm going. Also part of
461
00:34:35.159 --> 00:34:38.610
it was, and this is definitely a me problem. I
462
00:34:38.630 --> 00:34:41.070
always write out notes and questions and then I have
463
00:34:41.110 --> 00:34:43.050
a thought and I decide that I'd rather follow the
464
00:34:43.110 --> 00:34:45.510
thought than ask the question I wrote in advance. And
465
00:34:45.530 --> 00:34:47.989
that's not always the best route to take, but it's
466
00:34:48.030 --> 00:34:49.300
the more fun route to take.
467
00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:50.900
It's a little, you know.
468
00:34:51.380 --> 00:34:52.420
Hepticality.
469
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:55.400
And I didn't mean to be contrarian, by the way.
470
00:34:55.480 --> 00:34:58.360
I'm really sorry if I was like, well, actually, if
471
00:34:58.380 --> 00:35:00.800
you think about it longer, that was not the, I'm
472
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:03.900
sorry if that came across that way. No, no, it's fine.
473
00:35:04.260 --> 00:35:05.639
And I wouldn't want to fall into a thing where
474
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I'm saying that all extrinsic motivation is bad. Like, you're
475
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:09.980
doing this job.
476
00:35:09.889 --> 00:35:10.590
Because it pays you.
477
00:35:10.610 --> 00:35:12.409
Well, of course that's why you're doing the job, because
478
00:35:12.429 --> 00:35:18.110
it pays you. Like, that's how jobs work. It was
479
00:35:18.150 --> 00:35:20.750
more just, I had a thought and I ran with it.
480
00:35:21.699 --> 00:35:24.420
But yeah, but I wanted to get to that sort
481
00:35:24.460 --> 00:35:30.539
of thinking about the sociality and how that works. But also,
482
00:35:30.579 --> 00:35:32.860
I think I asked you about this, Eli, maybe about
483
00:35:32.900 --> 00:35:36.519
like 12 or 13 years ago. One of the things
484
00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:42.440
I'm also curious about for sort of free universities or
485
00:35:42.460 --> 00:35:48.849
trauma education programs is this curious thing. where we leave
486
00:35:48.989 --> 00:35:53.019
the university, we leave the formal institution, but yet we
487
00:35:53.099 --> 00:35:59.559
bring the sort of like framework of describing it outside
488
00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:01.840
of it in a way that frames it as if
489
00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:05.949
we're still there. And there's something funny about leaving, bringing
490
00:36:05.989 --> 00:36:08.570
that thing with you, knowing the problems that thing you
491
00:36:08.630 --> 00:36:12.610
had in the first place. I'm not saying that to critique,
492
00:36:12.809 --> 00:36:17.800
you know, these practices. I think oftentimes they're quite, quite interesting.
493
00:36:18.159 --> 00:36:22.269
But there's something interesting about like what you're bringing with
494
00:36:22.289 --> 00:36:25.230
you by calling it a free university or a popular
495
00:36:25.289 --> 00:36:29.610
university or what sort of baggage are you bringing outside
496
00:36:29.630 --> 00:36:33.719
by that framing? I think it kind of connects to
497
00:36:33.739 --> 00:36:35.179
some of the things you talk about in terms of
498
00:36:35.239 --> 00:36:39.820
those deeper histories in terms of like the ideas about verticality, progression.
499
00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:46.090
It's sort of not consciously, but almost like semi-consciously or unconsciously,
500
00:36:46.119 --> 00:36:49.050
just sort of just sort of drags those things with you.
501
00:36:49.070 --> 00:36:54.190
And I wonder what complications that has, not in order
502
00:36:54.210 --> 00:36:56.110
to say, like, how dare you start a, you know,
503
00:36:56.789 --> 00:36:58.699
but just, you know, what that does.
504
00:36:58.800 --> 00:36:59.639
Does that make sense?
505
00:37:01.619 --> 00:37:05.860
Yeah, isn't this the question of the minor, minor politics,
506
00:37:07.639 --> 00:37:16.329
minor modes of study? How can an alternative project work
507
00:37:17.090 --> 00:37:20.570
build itself expand in, in, in a world where the
508
00:37:20.969 --> 00:37:26.869
major modes of study, the major, the dominant institutions have
509
00:37:26.909 --> 00:37:31.769
so much power where they, they're seen as, as the
510
00:37:32.050 --> 00:37:38.869
legitimate places where people study and they, they, they being universities, colleges, schools,
511
00:37:39.190 --> 00:37:43.380
they have kind of monopoly over the resources for studying
512
00:37:44.409 --> 00:37:47.780
like how, yeah, there's this, this question I think we're
513
00:37:47.800 --> 00:37:53.780
getting into of how can alternatives grapple with this sort
514
00:37:53.800 --> 00:37:59.510
of tension, multiple tensions of trying to access those resources,
515
00:38:01.489 --> 00:38:06.969
pull people away, pull resources away, especially people away from.
516
00:38:06.489 --> 00:38:11.219
Those dominant institutions while still.
517
00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:18.320
Helping people survive in some way or recognizing that people
518
00:38:18.360 --> 00:38:25.659
need to survive within the dominant institutions of education. For example,
519
00:38:25.679 --> 00:38:29.389
where people need to get degrees in order to get jobs,
520
00:38:29.469 --> 00:38:36.369
in order to survive within a capitalist world where if
521
00:38:36.409 --> 00:38:39.170
you don't have a job, you can't get wages, you
522
00:38:39.369 --> 00:38:45.480
can't buy food and housing. Like how do we grapple
523
00:38:45.500 --> 00:38:51.260
with these tensions of creating something alternative while avoiding having
524
00:38:51.300 --> 00:38:59.110
that alternative be recuperated, co-opted into the major institutions and
525
00:38:59.130 --> 00:39:03.889
also trying to resist it, trying to transform it. Yeah,
526
00:39:04.550 --> 00:39:09.590
a lot of tensions to grapple with there. And maybe
527
00:39:09.969 --> 00:39:15.219
this is where the idea of fugitivity or like a
528
00:39:15.260 --> 00:39:21.449
fugitive mode of study, this might also be helpful for
529
00:39:21.469 --> 00:39:26.190
thinking about this question.
530
00:39:26.210 --> 00:39:29.590
Well, I think it's an interesting question also for me
531
00:39:29.610 --> 00:39:31.860
to think about in terms of how should I.
532
00:39:31.820 --> 00:39:32.280
Put this.
533
00:39:33.860 --> 00:39:38.659
In terms of publishing and media production the forms of
534
00:39:38.760 --> 00:39:44.800
para-academic knowledge production and media production outside institutional frameworks which
535
00:39:44.860 --> 00:39:47.219
are wonderful and I've learned so much from them and
536
00:39:47.400 --> 00:39:53.070
love them oftentimes end up being quite similar to being
537
00:39:53.150 --> 00:39:58.010
just like the same forms of journals, books, publications, conferences, events.
538
00:39:58.769 --> 00:40:04.969
And that's not necessarily an end or a deal breaker,
539
00:40:05.489 --> 00:40:07.920
but it is a kind of like a certain sort of,
540
00:40:08.300 --> 00:40:12.800
let's say, this is the kind of thing where I
541
00:40:12.840 --> 00:40:16.400
suspect there's some sort of like guitarian formulation about like
542
00:40:16.440 --> 00:40:19.789
the sort of like unconscious organizational form that you're bringing
543
00:40:19.829 --> 00:40:24.190
along with you without realizing it. The sort of like
544
00:40:24.269 --> 00:40:27.619
factory in your head that you brought that you never left.
545
00:40:29.400 --> 00:40:32.300
And I think this is what's really interesting about Giovanni's
546
00:40:32.360 --> 00:40:37.760
work is thinking about how modes of individuation are formed
547
00:40:37.780 --> 00:40:42.210
in that kind of unconscious factorization of certain modes of
548
00:40:42.449 --> 00:40:46.269
how sociology should work and going, yeah, what if, what if,
549
00:40:46.969 --> 00:40:54.590
What if you didn't timestamp your individuation? What's that thing
550
00:40:54.610 --> 00:40:57.699
where you clock in at work? What if we didn't
551
00:40:57.780 --> 00:41:02.059
clock into this sort of self? Maybe that metaphor didn't work.
552
00:41:02.599 --> 00:41:05.539
Giovanni's going, the metaphor is not working, mate. Sorry.
553
00:41:07.340 --> 00:41:13.360
I could be very sassy and be like, no, I
554
00:41:13.380 --> 00:41:19.239
don't own the metaphor. So, you know. no but so
555
00:41:19.739 --> 00:41:24.940
I mean there's a lot that has been mentioned and
556
00:41:24.980 --> 00:41:31.110
also thinking about the prehistory of this conversation where I
557
00:41:31.210 --> 00:41:36.550
asked you Stephen to send some notes and you shared
558
00:41:36.590 --> 00:41:40.070
some notes and I tried to prepare a little bit
559
00:41:40.809 --> 00:41:49.239
I think that's where we see the same the institutionalization
560
00:41:49.300 --> 00:41:53.730
at work and the mechanism that we're talking about in
561
00:41:53.750 --> 00:41:59.949
a way seeping in because I think we are used
562
00:42:00.010 --> 00:42:03.829
to and we're comfortable and I think it's understandable that
563
00:42:03.909 --> 00:42:07.829
that's the case with certain mechanisms where we come together
564
00:42:07.929 --> 00:42:11.780
and we do to share perspectives that are pre-existing and
565
00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:15.699
then yeah you know can debate and all the rest
566
00:42:15.739 --> 00:42:18.309
of it But I think, and I'm seeing that with
567
00:42:18.329 --> 00:42:21.469
other people that I'm doing some work now with outside
568
00:42:21.530 --> 00:42:24.369
or at the kind of the margins of the university,
569
00:42:25.710 --> 00:42:32.469
that there is really difficult in the attempt that Ila
570
00:42:32.489 --> 00:42:39.139
was describing, finding a good balance between doing what we need,
571
00:42:39.619 --> 00:42:41.500
what we want to do and doing what we need
572
00:42:41.559 --> 00:42:46.610
to do. to keep, you know, not to muddle the
573
00:42:46.650 --> 00:42:51.269
water and to keep certain dynamics at bay. And so
574
00:42:51.809 --> 00:42:55.320
instead of saying, okay, we're bringing in questions and we're
575
00:42:55.579 --> 00:42:59.360
going to study there and then, what we tend to
576
00:42:59.400 --> 00:43:01.659
do is that we come in, we try and prepare
577
00:43:01.699 --> 00:43:05.000
a little bit our own... No, I think there is
578
00:43:05.059 --> 00:43:07.739
a tendency a bit to do that. I know that, Stephen,
579
00:43:08.199 --> 00:43:12.849
you're trying to resist that. And I'm the one who asks...
580
00:43:13.849 --> 00:43:16.190
to have some notes to read through because I'm a
581
00:43:16.210 --> 00:43:18.590
slow thinker and all the rest of it but I
582
00:43:18.650 --> 00:43:24.190
think I think yeah that's something that is on my
583
00:43:24.230 --> 00:43:28.929
mind and the tensions that Ila was describing and that
584
00:43:29.969 --> 00:43:33.909
with the question of alternative power institutions however we want
585
00:43:33.929 --> 00:43:37.210
to call them I've been thinking a lot about that
586
00:43:37.349 --> 00:43:42.300
and I'm not quite sure I'm not quite sure what
587
00:43:42.590 --> 00:43:48.679
to think Because one of my concerns, the more I
588
00:43:48.719 --> 00:43:52.840
think about it, the less I'm concerned about how little
589
00:43:52.860 --> 00:43:55.679
we can study in the university. And the more I'm
590
00:43:55.739 --> 00:44:00.650
concerned about how little we can study outside of the university. Whatever.
591
00:44:00.989 --> 00:44:03.750
We can't study in the university. We are there for
592
00:44:03.769 --> 00:44:09.389
a wage, first and foremost. Okay. The problem really is
593
00:44:09.570 --> 00:44:12.510
when we can't really study outside of it, I think.
594
00:44:13.639 --> 00:44:18.269
And so, why can't we study outside of it? Because
595
00:44:18.869 --> 00:44:22.590
of the wage relation and how that complicates everything else
596
00:44:22.690 --> 00:44:27.730
and everything that revolves around it, you know, reproductive labor,
597
00:44:27.789 --> 00:44:34.380
et cetera, et cetera. And so, and that kind of
598
00:44:34.400 --> 00:44:36.920
speaks to fugitivity as well. I'm not quite sure, I'm
599
00:44:39.400 --> 00:44:42.099
not quite sure how exactly this relates to it, but
600
00:44:44.130 --> 00:44:47.230
And I think Harney and Morton as well have tried
601
00:44:47.269 --> 00:44:53.300
to clarify that. The fugitive is not a reformist plan
602
00:44:53.380 --> 00:44:55.960
to say, how can we save the university from itself?
603
00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:00.900
It's a way of saying, how can we do the
604
00:45:00.940 --> 00:45:05.519
things we need to do despite the university? And Eli,
605
00:45:05.539 --> 00:45:06.920
I know that you were involved in.
606
00:45:09.010 --> 00:45:13.969
Was it Abolitionist University? I can't remember. I'm sorry. I
607
00:45:13.989 --> 00:45:17.820
can't remember the exact name they had, but that kind
608
00:45:17.860 --> 00:45:20.599
of project that you had going, I don't know if
609
00:45:20.679 --> 00:45:21.320
it's still going.
610
00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:21.739
Yeah.
611
00:45:22.440 --> 00:45:22.980
Yeah.
612
00:45:23.360 --> 00:45:25.559
Yeah. Yeah.
613
00:45:25.780 --> 00:45:31.440
And that project, Abolitionist University Studies, emerged in some ways
614
00:45:31.539 --> 00:45:37.889
out of another project called Abolition, a Journal of Insurgent Politics.
615
00:45:38.980 --> 00:45:42.889
which was and is an attempt at creating a kind
616
00:45:42.949 --> 00:45:45.590
of autonomous.
617
00:45:45.070 --> 00:45:46.469
Radical media project.
618
00:45:47.269 --> 00:45:50.329
And I want to say a little about how I
619
00:45:51.409 --> 00:45:52.769
saw this sort of problem.
620
00:45:52.789 --> 00:45:54.670
Stephen was talking about this sort.
621
00:45:54.489 --> 00:45:55.210
Of like.
622
00:45:57.030 --> 00:46:02.659
How in alternative study projects, we often reproduce some of
623
00:46:02.679 --> 00:46:07.500
the problems from academia or from the higher education industry.
624
00:46:08.809 --> 00:46:13.980
keeping the factory in your head. And like, yeah, I
625
00:46:14.019 --> 00:46:18.599
really like your question, Stephen, of how do we refuse to.
626
00:46:18.760 --> 00:46:21.280
Clock into the self? And I think that.
627
00:46:23.159 --> 00:46:29.340
Brings up questions of temporality and what you're saying, Giovanni,
628
00:46:29.400 --> 00:46:32.679
about how you're a slow thinker.
629
00:46:32.719 --> 00:46:34.750
And I think in a way, like the.
630
00:46:34.690 --> 00:46:40.090
Way Stephen brought us together here at least allowed for
631
00:46:40.730 --> 00:46:49.429
getting away from the kind of overly hyper fast mode
632
00:46:49.449 --> 00:46:52.750
of academic engagement and allowing us to slow down a
633
00:46:54.050 --> 00:47:02.190
bit for this conversation. But I think also like in
634
00:47:02.210 --> 00:47:07.489
this alternative project, the Abolition Journal, I think I saw
635
00:47:08.530 --> 00:47:13.260
the kind of academic factory and its temporal, normal kind
636
00:47:13.300 --> 00:47:18.639
of mode of temporality, um, reproduced, or we, we, the,
637
00:47:19.019 --> 00:47:22.420
the collective members of it reproduced that, that normative temporality
638
00:47:23.539 --> 00:47:26.889
in some ways. And that, that kind of, uh, led
639
00:47:26.909 --> 00:47:32.929
to problems, um, in the project, um, And basically, I'd
640
00:47:32.949 --> 00:47:38.480
say the normal temporality is this kind of unequal temporal architecture,
641
00:47:38.500 --> 00:47:43.420
which is a phrase I'm getting from Sarah Sharma, her book,
642
00:47:43.599 --> 00:47:49.000
In the Meantime. A while ago, I co-wrote an article
643
00:47:49.019 --> 00:47:54.389
about this idea in relation to academia. My friend Elsa
644
00:47:54.409 --> 00:48:00.150
Natterman wrote this article. It's called Revolutionary Scholarship by Any
645
00:48:00.250 --> 00:48:04.110
Speed Necessary. Kind of like pushing back on a sort
646
00:48:04.119 --> 00:48:11.610
of fetishizing of slow scholarship. Like not saying slow scholarship
647
00:48:11.650 --> 00:48:13.570
is bad, but rather saying we need to look at
648
00:48:14.030 --> 00:48:18.949
the conditions in universities for who gets to do slow
649
00:48:18.989 --> 00:48:23.659
scholarship and what sort of inequalities is that based on?
650
00:48:23.679 --> 00:48:28.079
So like people with faculty with tenure get to do
651
00:48:28.099 --> 00:48:33.650
slow scholarship, but that's based on the kind of exploitation
652
00:48:33.750 --> 00:48:38.869
of staff and students and adjunct faculty who have to
653
00:48:39.250 --> 00:48:43.519
engage in study in much more sped up and degraded ways.
654
00:48:45.059 --> 00:48:49.800
But in this alternative project, Abolition Journal, I think we
655
00:48:50.219 --> 00:48:56.889
kind of like unconsciously brought in those sort of hierarchical
656
00:48:57.550 --> 00:49:04.280
temporal relations where people who were in more secure tenure
657
00:49:04.719 --> 00:49:08.090
or tenure track kind of position sort of assumed that
658
00:49:08.150 --> 00:49:14.070
other people would do more of the time consuming, harder
659
00:49:14.849 --> 00:49:18.929
editorial and like behind the scenes administrative kind of work.
660
00:49:20.550 --> 00:49:28.269
But then I'd say that that project has been rebuilt
661
00:49:28.949 --> 00:49:32.170
and totally transformed with a new collective and a new
662
00:49:32.210 --> 00:49:34.949
kind of mode of operating that I think gets away
663
00:49:35.030 --> 00:49:39.960
from that sort of academic unequal temporal architecture now, It's
664
00:49:40.019 --> 00:49:47.380
now based in Philadelphia, and it's run by people who
665
00:49:47.679 --> 00:49:54.469
do this alternative school called the Abolition School or the W.E.B.
666
00:49:54.510 --> 00:49:57.650
Du Bois School for Abolition and Reconstruction.
667
00:49:57.769 --> 00:49:58.530
It's a long name.
668
00:49:59.190 --> 00:50:03.550
But they've taken over the journal now, and it's run
669
00:50:03.570 --> 00:50:07.909
in a very– place-based local way in Philly. And so
670
00:50:08.090 --> 00:50:13.679
people who write for it are writing about struggles and
671
00:50:14.099 --> 00:50:17.179
movements in Philly, and it's intertwined with the kind of
672
00:50:17.539 --> 00:50:21.159
studying that they're engaged in in the classes and the
673
00:50:21.199 --> 00:50:26.090
abolition school. So yeah, I think that's an interesting example
674
00:50:26.110 --> 00:50:32.610
of a kind of alternative infrastructure for autonomous media beyond
675
00:50:32.630 --> 00:50:33.269
the university.
676
00:50:34.230 --> 00:50:34.769
Could think about.
677
00:50:34.789 --> 00:50:39.920
I think part of.
678
00:50:39.889 --> 00:50:43.219
What I was thinking about that is I'm almost thinking
679
00:50:43.320 --> 00:50:48.820
that in addition to have different modes of study, it's
680
00:50:48.840 --> 00:50:51.360
almost like you could have different modes of media production
681
00:50:51.380 --> 00:50:54.340
that correspond to different modes of study. So the way
682
00:50:54.360 --> 00:50:56.440
that you'd be studying, for instance, in Philadelphia as a
683
00:50:56.460 --> 00:51:01.349
part of this project might express itself Differently. It might
684
00:51:01.530 --> 00:51:05.130
not be a podcast. It could be any number of things.
685
00:51:06.010 --> 00:51:10.250
And so. The sort of media form. That comes out of.
686
00:51:10.590 --> 00:51:16.519
Different kinds of collectivity. Will be ideally somehow. Resident with.
687
00:51:17.119 --> 00:51:21.539
That form of sociality. Rather than being something. It has
688
00:51:21.980 --> 00:51:23.880
to end in a book. Or it has to end
689
00:51:23.920 --> 00:51:26.659
in a zine. Or it has to end in a podcast.
690
00:51:27.239 --> 00:51:31.250
It might end in. I don't know, like a party
691
00:51:31.309 --> 00:51:34.590
or a barbecue or it might end, you know, you
692
00:51:34.630 --> 00:51:35.929
don't know where it's going to end up. And that's
693
00:51:35.949 --> 00:51:42.429
kind of the fun part. And maybe that's the problem
694
00:51:42.469 --> 00:51:46.260
is always thinking that it has to produce something regardless
695
00:51:46.300 --> 00:51:49.219
of what that production is. Even if that production is,
696
00:51:49.900 --> 00:51:54.059
you know, somehow politically radical or questioning, it's still wanting
697
00:51:54.079 --> 00:51:55.400
to end up in a certain set form.
698
00:51:58.590 --> 00:52:02.599
I guess, so just one very quick thought on that.
699
00:52:05.199 --> 00:52:08.500
I completely sympathise with that. On the other hand, there's
700
00:52:08.559 --> 00:52:15.090
also the product, if you like, the book, the podcast,
701
00:52:15.130 --> 00:52:19.269
is also, in a way, could be, and you do that,
702
00:52:19.469 --> 00:52:23.739
I think, remarkably well, Stephen, with minor compositions, is a
703
00:52:23.780 --> 00:52:29.579
gateway to being to be gathered in study, like we're
704
00:52:29.599 --> 00:52:36.659
doing now. One thing that I've really appreciated that was
705
00:52:36.719 --> 00:52:41.019
part of publishing a book with you, Stephen, in minor composition,
706
00:52:41.559 --> 00:52:45.860
was that I got to, you know, to get put
707
00:52:45.920 --> 00:52:48.579
in conversation with a bunch of people that I wanted
708
00:52:48.619 --> 00:52:53.059
to be in conversation with. Eli Bean One, Erin, we
709
00:52:53.139 --> 00:52:59.230
spoke recently. You know, so... I guess maybe not being
710
00:53:00.010 --> 00:53:06.369
too precious about that product and using it as a
711
00:53:06.409 --> 00:53:13.239
stepping stone to then build on these things and do
712
00:53:13.860 --> 00:53:17.159
the really fun part, which is talking to people and
713
00:53:17.199 --> 00:53:20.269
doing things together like you are doing.
714
00:53:20.289 --> 00:53:24.469
I think we have to take a moment to acknowledge
715
00:53:25.510 --> 00:53:28.130
and maybe this is a bit of self-critique here, the
716
00:53:28.210 --> 00:53:31.469
barbaric cruelty I subjected you to and put it on
717
00:53:31.510 --> 00:53:35.389
the record, which I mean that you came into my
718
00:53:35.429 --> 00:53:39.909
house and I was making lunch and you said, nothing spicy.
719
00:53:40.530 --> 00:53:46.320
And I went and ate green chili curry because I
720
00:53:46.530 --> 00:53:50.199
was so excited about making it. I forgot that you
721
00:53:50.239 --> 00:53:51.840
said nothing spicy.
722
00:53:52.400 --> 00:53:52.960
It's okay.
723
00:53:53.079 --> 00:53:54.159
Poor Giovanni here.
724
00:53:54.710 --> 00:53:58.769
I sweated profusely for about an hour.
725
00:53:58.869 --> 00:54:02.750
Is that like an experiment in perceptual micro-shocks?
726
00:54:05.300 --> 00:54:07.280
Micro-dosing chili.
727
00:54:08.579 --> 00:54:12.559
He gamely sat down and ate it and pretended to... No,
728
00:54:12.599 --> 00:54:15.420
maybe he even liked it, but I would like to
729
00:54:15.500 --> 00:54:19.280
formally apologize for brutalizing you with spiciness.
730
00:54:19.519 --> 00:54:22.690
All good. I mean, I don't dislike it. I don't...
731
00:54:23.309 --> 00:54:26.010
it's nothing to do with taste is that is the
732
00:54:26.110 --> 00:54:28.949
aftermath that I'm concerned about. And I'm going to leave
733
00:54:28.989 --> 00:54:31.940
it at that. It's, uh, but it was, it was fine. Generally.
734
00:54:32.039 --> 00:54:36.480
I mean, I'm not being overly polite. Uh, it was fine.
735
00:54:36.539 --> 00:54:38.760
And I, and I, and I like what you cooked. So,
736
00:54:38.860 --> 00:54:41.880
and more importantly, I like that you cooked for me.
737
00:54:41.920 --> 00:54:45.119
Thanks so much. So it's, it's all good.
738
00:54:47.730 --> 00:54:51.429
Cool. Cool. And also, um, It's funny you were saying,
739
00:54:51.630 --> 00:54:53.730
I was sort of complaining about asking for notes. I
740
00:54:53.769 --> 00:54:57.670
kind of actually understand, no, I do understand that when
741
00:54:57.730 --> 00:55:01.659
you're engaged in a long-term process of writing and thinking
742
00:55:01.679 --> 00:55:04.639
and trying to be, let's say, at least semi-precise with
743
00:55:04.659 --> 00:55:09.340
your conceptual formulations, it's a little bit harder to do
744
00:55:09.400 --> 00:55:13.400
that off the top of your head unless you happen
745
00:55:13.440 --> 00:55:15.139
to be Fred who just does it with, you know,
746
00:55:15.159 --> 00:55:18.340
apparently with no effort at all because he's just, no,
747
00:55:18.460 --> 00:55:22.920
another side note, another for the record thing at the
748
00:55:22.960 --> 00:55:25.440
beginning point we were doing the interview for the under
749
00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:29.800
commons it's like 11 a.m in london and it's like
750
00:55:29.800 --> 00:55:33.920
6 a.m in like in in in north carolina so
751
00:55:33.940 --> 00:55:36.460
you have to think that how can you imagine trying
752
00:55:36.480 --> 00:55:40.380
to be clever at 6 a.m on a skype call
753
00:55:41.059 --> 00:55:46.590
that's just that's just cruel um anyways side note but
754
00:55:46.610 --> 00:55:50.869
yeah um Where was I going to go with that?
755
00:55:50.889 --> 00:55:51.590
I forget here.
756
00:55:52.230 --> 00:55:52.989
I've already forgotten.
757
00:55:54.949 --> 00:55:57.570
If I may, one thing that I think it was
758
00:55:57.650 --> 00:56:01.420
mentioned and then I think I got sidetracked a little bit,
759
00:56:01.639 --> 00:56:04.659
but you asked about, Stephen, was the question of individuation
760
00:56:04.679 --> 00:56:06.900
and all the rest of it and how that relates
761
00:56:06.960 --> 00:56:13.650
to study. Would it be okay if I add a
762
00:56:13.690 --> 00:56:18.130
little bit to it? Yeah, okay. So I was just
763
00:56:18.150 --> 00:56:23.809
going to say that in the notes that you shared
764
00:56:24.389 --> 00:56:27.340
ahead of this conversation, we're rightly speaking about noticing. You
765
00:56:27.380 --> 00:56:32.199
said something like, what starting from study can help us notice?
766
00:56:33.880 --> 00:56:36.739
And again, I really love how Eli characters his study
767
00:56:37.320 --> 00:56:40.760
in his book, hopefully I'm not misquoting you here, but
768
00:56:41.679 --> 00:56:45.199
as essentially a practice of devoting close attention. And for me,
769
00:56:46.210 --> 00:56:50.869
devoting and noticing are rather appropriate ways to describe what
770
00:56:50.949 --> 00:56:53.869
is going on in the mode of study that I've
771
00:56:53.929 --> 00:56:59.489
been interested in. Because they hint at something that we
772
00:56:59.530 --> 00:57:02.590
give or that we owe rather than something that we
773
00:57:02.659 --> 00:57:06.219
take or own. And they hint at something other than
774
00:57:06.579 --> 00:57:11.780
myself and my supposed interiority, which demands my attention and
775
00:57:11.860 --> 00:57:19.000
drags me back into something of a messy tangle rather
776
00:57:19.059 --> 00:57:22.880
than attention being something emerging from and directed through a
777
00:57:24.039 --> 00:57:33.510
simple act of individual what's the term volition which is
778
00:57:35.610 --> 00:57:39.750
which is again only possible that individual volition is only
779
00:57:39.809 --> 00:57:47.280
possible by extricating oneself from a situation and And attending is,
780
00:57:47.530 --> 00:57:55.289
of course, kind of corporeal practice. But it doesn't need
781
00:57:55.309 --> 00:57:58.949
to be, I think, an exaltation of the individual body
782
00:57:59.010 --> 00:58:05.610
and its private kind of somatic or haptic experience. And
783
00:58:05.989 --> 00:58:08.269
for me, I guess what I was getting at is
784
00:58:08.309 --> 00:58:12.690
that for me, attentional studies precisely the process of collectively
785
00:58:15.900 --> 00:58:20.780
tuning in to the way that we're constantly affecting each
786
00:58:20.860 --> 00:58:26.079
other's field of action. Um, even, you know, when sometimes
787
00:58:26.139 --> 00:58:30.789
in profoundly uneven ways and, and therefore we become, we
788
00:58:30.849 --> 00:58:34.610
recognize our indebtedness to one another and we act on
789
00:58:34.630 --> 00:58:37.269
that indebtedness by not trying to get rid of it, but,
790
00:58:37.449 --> 00:58:40.610
but by trying to deepen it and to explore and to,
791
00:58:40.710 --> 00:58:45.489
to study that indebtedness. Um, And one of the examples
792
00:58:45.550 --> 00:58:47.550
I give in my book at the very beginning that
793
00:58:47.570 --> 00:58:52.780
you mentioned is playing football. But there's all sorts of
794
00:58:52.840 --> 00:58:57.119
ways in which we can recognize that indebtedness that in
795
00:58:57.139 --> 00:59:04.269
the practice that we do every day. And there's very little,
796
00:59:04.329 --> 00:59:08.469
I think, in the way we can manage to study
797
00:59:08.489 --> 00:59:14.860
in universities that the itself to that openness to indebtedness
798
00:59:15.389 --> 00:59:18.230
it sounds a bit awkward to put it that way but.
799
00:59:20.889 --> 00:59:26.289
Yeah there's something I really like about that because what
800
00:59:26.309 --> 00:59:28.739
you're saying I think is important is it's not that
801
00:59:28.780 --> 00:59:32.539
like now let's go and start a radical study project.
802
00:59:32.579 --> 00:59:35.559
It's almost like we're always already enmeshed in forms of
803
00:59:35.599 --> 00:59:39.519
study together and things we're already doing. It's almost like, yeah,
804
00:59:39.539 --> 00:59:43.380
as you're saying, being attentive to and devoting attention to
805
00:59:43.460 --> 00:59:46.639
the thing that you're doing in a way that deepens
806
00:59:46.659 --> 00:59:49.550
your relationship with that rather than having to say, now
807
00:59:49.610 --> 00:59:53.130
we start something. It's like you're already doing something, but
808
00:59:53.210 --> 00:59:55.989
do you know what you're doing and how it's affecting
809
00:59:56.030 --> 01:00:01.840
you and how... that can be intensified deepened by concerted
810
01:00:01.880 --> 01:00:05.639
attention to that definitely and that's that's that connects back
811
01:00:05.679 --> 01:00:07.739
to what i was saying earlier about my concern with
812
01:00:08.280 --> 01:00:10.519
not being able to study outside of the university more
813
01:00:10.559 --> 01:00:14.019
so that then inside the universities because i think i
814
01:00:14.059 --> 01:00:15.659
think very often there's this like.
815
01:00:17.159 --> 01:00:18.699
Or at least i see around me i'm going to
816
01:00:18.739 --> 01:00:21.670
talk about the context where i operate A lot of
817
01:00:21.909 --> 01:00:25.869
very aggrieved colleagues who, you know, who are aggrieved by
818
01:00:25.909 --> 01:00:29.170
the fact that they can't study in the university. And
819
01:00:30.030 --> 01:00:35.750
so they either try to remedy the situation or to
820
01:00:35.789 --> 01:00:39.150
find an alternative. Don't get me wrong, it's not like
821
01:00:39.210 --> 01:00:43.340
I want to, you know, say, what are they thinking?
822
01:00:44.079 --> 01:00:47.900
But what I'm interested in is the defence of something
823
01:00:47.920 --> 01:00:51.210
that is there. And then we're not able to do
824
01:00:51.389 --> 01:00:57.210
rather than something that isn't there anymore. And so I'll
825
01:00:57.269 --> 01:01:00.250
much rather pour in my energy in saying, okay, so
826
01:01:00.269 --> 01:01:04.079
what are these various things that are modes of study
827
01:01:04.099 --> 01:01:09.239
in the way that Eli talks about that we need
828
01:01:09.260 --> 01:01:11.599
to pay attention to, that we need to put in work?
829
01:01:11.659 --> 01:01:14.780
And how do we go about putting the work that
830
01:01:14.840 --> 01:01:18.400
we need to put in to do those things rather
831
01:01:18.420 --> 01:01:20.920
than be like, oh, no, I can't, you know, do
832
01:01:20.940 --> 01:01:22.099
my scholarship anymore.
833
01:01:24.079 --> 01:01:24.659
Cool, cool.
834
01:01:25.059 --> 01:01:27.940
Well, I think that's a very good point. I say
835
01:01:27.980 --> 01:01:30.860
let's maybe use that as a sort of pausing point.
836
01:01:30.940 --> 01:01:33.719
And I want to thank you both for coming along.
837
01:01:34.590 --> 01:01:39.269
And I look forward to continuing to discuss and study
838
01:01:39.289 --> 01:01:40.389
together at some other point.
839
01:01:42.010 --> 01:01:44.590
Yeah, it's been awesome talking with you both. I think
840
01:01:44.630 --> 01:01:48.309
in our next session, discussion we should bring our kids on.
841
01:01:50.949 --> 01:01:53.769
Before we started recording, we were talking about how our
842
01:01:53.829 --> 01:02:00.679
kids might come in and interrupt us before we called
843
01:02:00.699 --> 01:02:05.579
the conversation to order. But if our kids had come in.
844
01:02:07.039 --> 01:02:09.420
That would have been a moment of study. I think
845
01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:10.699
our kind of.
846
01:02:14.699 --> 01:02:22.130
Academic university world tends to devalue young people's um studying
847
01:02:22.510 --> 01:02:26.690
and uh yeah our everyday playing and um.
848
01:02:27.449 --> 01:02:30.170
They go a way of scrambling the script and they.
849
01:02:32.239 --> 01:02:34.539
Throwing the terms of order into question.
850
01:02:36.800 --> 01:02:39.760
Excellent well but I would just want to say thank
851
01:02:39.780 --> 01:02:44.199
you again um like Eli said thanks so much Stephen,
852
01:02:44.219 --> 01:02:46.980
for organizing this and thanks so much, Eli, for agreeing,
853
01:02:47.380 --> 01:02:50.239
being in conversation. Hopefully we can have a part two
854
01:02:50.699 --> 01:02:54.960
in some capacity. I'd be very happy to, without holding
855
01:02:55.219 --> 01:02:58.219
Stephen now.
856
01:02:59.010 --> 01:03:00.429
Yeah, let's do a part two.
857
01:03:00.489 --> 01:03:02.630
I'd love to bring both of you on to this
858
01:03:02.829 --> 01:03:06.710
Another Education is Possible podcast too. Maybe we could have
859
01:03:06.769 --> 01:03:10.590
a part two in that venue and cross posts on
860
01:03:11.010 --> 01:03:11.949
both our podcasts.
861
01:03:13.329 --> 01:03:14.289
Cool. That'd be great.
862
01:03:36.340 --> 01:03:37.000
Thank you.