aut-op-sy message, Re: [AUT] ephemera Special Issue Call for Papers: Discussing t

Well - I liked and was very amused with your application for participating the announced conference. That was really funny. I understand your spontaneous reservation against this branch of higher education. So don't be ashamed.

But as others have pointed out all other branches of higher education could be viewed and suspected for exactly the same kind of trendy leftism when they engage with 'critical attitudes'. Philosophy, political and social sciences, economy, history, psychology or whatever - these are all fields of specialised 'academism' in witch it is often hard to sort out the honesty and interests of 'radical thought' between temporary opportunism and real dedication.

Fundamentally all of these higher educational institutions are founded by, governed and kept alive as parts of the bourgeios State apparatus with clear porpuses and contents of producing intellectural workforces for the administration of Capitalism - in one field or another.

It can be then with shifting epochs and developments that in some branches of 'academism' some kind of 'radical thought' gets popular and allowed. Within limits of course - the students have to finish and enter 'real life'. And such periods of 'radicalization' can be uneven and shifting between the various diciplines of higher education. In general it will follow the cycles of capitalist crisis and class struggle as to impetus and strength. But it can also shift between the diciplines and

By the way and as an excurse:

The 'traditional marxists' would say that 'radical thought' within the professional academic millieus are just a more or less controlled 'leftism' in order ideologically to meet and solve problems arising from the social and political problems of the crisis of capitalism and the development of class struggle. The up-side-down-'autonomists marxist's would have the same phenomenons to be expressions or spin-offs of growing 'working class' strenght against Capital or may be even manifestations of the 'Multitude'. - And may be that is like throwing a coin. - Although I am more for the 'traditional' view than the 'autonomist'.

But for the funny part here : I live in Copenhagen and in the mid-80'ies I actually worked for a period at the Library of the Copenhagen Bussiness School - the target of your letter.

It was at that time still a really conservative institution producing real capitalist managers. Or rather: The Bussiness School-instituion was not producing top managers, but middle managers. To be a top manager you would have to go to the Economical Faculties of the real universities. Anyeway it was still conservative.

But at the same time the aftermath of the 68/70's 'leftturn' of the Universities was about to enter the Bussiness School. With some delay actually the Copenhagen Bussiness School in the mid 80'ies somehow softened from its traditional ultra-conservative lines and began some mild 'leftist' experiments. Leftist teachers who were pressed out of jobs during the 'right turn' within the Universities in this same period got themselves a new carrier at the Bussiness School. Not that this changed the overall conservative character of the BS. But it opened fields of 'critical thought' within this institution.

I witnessed this in the late 80's but haven't followed it closely since then.

But as a curiosity I can add the following: Up through the 90's and early 2000's there were no signs whatever of any 'radical marxist' interests among the students anywhere in this part of the world. History and everything was just dead and filled instead with stupid academic post-modernist nonsense. Until suddenly a couple of years ago I discoved some selforganized reading-courses on Marx's Grundrisse going on. And of all places within some studentmilleus connected to the BS !

So you never know where the cracks of capitalism turns up next time !

I must add that I do not know anything about this Bent Meier Sørensen or the discussed announcement. And the above is not meant as support for this initiative. Actually I support your reservations about it.

From: "Thomas Seay"

After having spoken to a friend about this, I have
come to the conclusion that I was dead wrong on this
issue.
My intentions were good. And, no doubt, there is the
possibility that radicals could get "recuperated" in
this way. However, I can see now that taking a job in
such a Management Studies program is not a "sell out"
and certainly much good research can be done in this
area.

Sorry to anyone who may have felt directly or
indirectly insulted by my comments.

Thomas Seay

--- Tahir Wood wrote:

> I agree
> Tahir
>
> >>> "Andy" 09/05/07 9:51 PM >>>
> Umm... not quite sure what the problem is here (but
> kinda suspect it's
> anti-intellectualism). They aren't managers,
> they're management studies
> lecturers. I'd never associated these departments
> with radicalism
> because they attract a lot of rightist types, but
> why are they
> inherently any worse than, say, anthropology
> departments which were
> originally set up to help control indigenous
> peoples, sociology
> departments set up to aid social policy making, or
> literature
> departments set up to celebrate the great minds of
> the bourgeoisie?
>
> I've known people who work, worked, or were offered
> jobs in management
> departments who are definitely political radicals. Management studies
> is about the study (not necessarily encouragement)
> of management and can
> include such areas of academic study as industrial
> relations/worker
> resistance, the effects of globalisation on
> workplaces, and the
> relationship between corporations and society. Twenty years ago these
> kinds of topics would have fallen mainly within
> sociology, but this has
> been cut back a lot, so we start to see them moving
> sideways into
> management studies, organisation studies, and policy
> studies. Almost
> every university discipline (except the really
> well-purged ones) has its
> "critical" wing, who are doing stuff which goes
> against what's
> mainstream in the discipline. Being a critical
> academic is not exactly
> easy - the education system is structured around
> serving the system's
> needs, and there's a constant tension between the
> need for critical
> input and the desire to drive out dissident
> perspectives. But there's
> resources put into research and university posts,
> which are to be had by
> critical academics who are able to pass their stuff
> off as more
> mainstream than it really is, or as a necessary part
> of a broad
> non-partisan field. It's hybridity/syncretism, but
> is it necessarily
> recuperation? I don't see how it's any worse than
> getting any other
> kind of job within the system - as a car factory
> worker, call centre
> worker, docker, etc - where you're basically doing
> what the system tells
> you so as to get paid. As a critical academic one
> gets a good deal more
> autonomy to actually do useful stuff with one's
> time; this is surely
> less compromised than just doing as you're told for
> a wage.
>
> I've seen Ephemera before and it's basically an
> autonomist journal so I
> don't see why CFP's for it are a controversial issue
> on an autonomist
> list. It's easy to see from their contents that
> they're an autonomist
> journal. They've published a lot of
> unproblematically radical stuff by
> people like Collectivo Situaciones, George
> Caffentzis and Steve Wright,
> who are politics specialists with no management
> links, and articles on
> topics like indigenous social movements in Ecuador,
> class consciousness
> in the MST, art and resistance, activist research,
> and the World Social
> Forum. They also make their stuff freely available
> online, which in
> political terms, has to put them a few steps up on
> most Marxist and left
> journals. If you've any doubts then check their
> website before you
> mouth off:
> http://www.ephemeraweb.org/ Andy
> > All Email originating from UWC is covered by
> disclaimer
>
http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/uwc2006/content/mail_disclaimer/index.htm
>
> > _______________________________________________
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>
https://lists.resist.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aut-op-sy
> aut-op-sy

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Re: [AUT] ephemera Special Issue Call for Papers: Discussing the Roleof the Modern University