Panel Proposal

Para-Academic Practices: Becoming Ungovernable?

Abstract
As higher education continues to undergo dramatic changes to the character of its affairs,
moments of resistance, critique, and optimism have sprung up under the banner of para-
academia. !he phrase carries multiple valences "#asciandaro and $o%, &'(&), from activities
against universities "*aldrop and *ithers, forthcoming) to the absorption of radical thin+ing into
the purvie, of neoliberal universities "-ousselle, &'(.), to a description of the unbundling and
de-s+illing of professors into +no,ledge ,or+ers "#acfarlane, &'((). !his is a practitioners/
panel discussion of para-academic practices, motivations, thorn% problems, and affordances
possible. Panelists include Paul Boshears "Ph0 candidate at the 1uropean 2raduate 3chool,
continent.), -obert $ac+son "Ph0 candidate at 4ancaster Universit%, Speculations), and 5intan
6e%lan of the 0ublin Unit for 3peculative !hought "0.U.3.!.)
7itations
Bruce #acfarlane "&'(() !he #orphing of Academic Practice: Unbundling and the -ise of the
Para-academic Higher Education Quarterly 89.(: 9:;<.
6icola #asciandaro and 1ileen $o% "&'(&) Panel 0iscussion on Para-Academic Publishing =
Boo+ Part% !he Public 3chool 6e, >or+ http:??thepublicschool.org?node?&@:8(
0uane -ousselle "&'(.) Para-Academia: 5rom 7onceptual Point to Antuitionistic 7oncept
0A62PB4A!AC http:??dingpoliti+.,ordpress.com?&'(.?'<?&D?para-academia-from-conceptual-
point-to-intuitionistic-concept?
AleE *ardrop and 0eborah *ithers "forthcoming, &'(D) The Para-Academic Handbook: A
Toolkit for making-learning-creating-acting, FammerBn Press.
http:??,,,.hammeronpress.net?page&(.htm
Panelist Abstracts
Paul Boshears
Ph0 candidate, the 1uropean 2raduate 3chool
7o-founder, continent.
9&9 2len Aris 0rive 61
Unit &8(@
Atlanta, 2eorgia .'.'@
U3A
G(.D'D.9&'.D998
paul.boshearsHegs.edu
-udderless Piloting, Un,avering Pivoting, 2overning ,ithout 7oercion
1ducation is fraught ,ith treacher%. !he student in search of a teacher is tas+ed ,ith finding the
right teacher, but b% definition cannot be trusted to +no, ,hat the right teacher ,ould be.
Universities continue to manifest their transformation into factories ,ell-stoc+ed ,ith +no,ledge
,or+ers bundled together ,ithin disciplines mar+eted b% the degree of open access to social,
political, and financial capital the% ,ill provide their clients. Against "alongside, perhaps because
of) this manifest transformation, sites of learning and ,a%s of sharing +no,ledge ,ithout
concern for economic gain are blossoming again, some under the banner of para-academic
practices. 1lse,here A/ve put for,ard para-academic publishing as acts of public-ma+ing,
publicating socialit%. Bf course, this public good so created can be consumed and as such subIect
to the coercion capital eEchanges encourage. 0uane -ousselle has recentl% raised concerns about
compromising the revolutionar% potential of para-academic practices, characteriJed as ta+ing the
eas% road, that ,e pic+ up a fe, dollars outside of the universit% so that ,e can remain inside
the universit%. #% response, in friendship, ,ill consider the perspectives on education ,e find
in the classical 7hinese teEts Zhuangi and ZhongyongKteaching the usefullness of becoming
useless in the former, and the co-creative potential ,ithin a focus upon the familiar affairs of our
da%s in the latter. A ,ill argue that this focusing on familiar, a translation of the title Zhongyong
"), is a technique of profanation not unli+e ,hat 2iogio Agamben suggests in his essa%
concerning dispositif. *ith these perspectives in mind, can ,e thin+ of para-academic practices
as a +ind of becoming ungovernable?
Fintan Neylan
7o-founder, 0ublin Unit for 3peculative !hought
7olbert Fouse,
&@ -anelagh road,
0ublin 8,
Areland
G.9. "') @< :&(D(@<
fintan.ne%lanHgmail.com
!he 4ogic of Para-Brganisation
An this paper A shall argue that ,hile para-academia in its current form must situate itself as
alongside the universit%, ultimatel% its true success ,ill lie in ho, it follo,s other avenues of
development that are either not contained ,ith the logic of the universit% or completel% alien to
it. As para-academia ta+es up the practice and completion of intellectual "and increasingl%
artistic) life and proIects, this tas+ seems all the more urgentL doubl% so given the recent decade/s
attac+ on the universit%, the institution most readil% associated ,ith being the nest of intellectual
endeavours.
*hile initiall% para-academic entities find themselves on the outside, this ma% turn out to be
their great strength in surviving. 0ue to its ambiguous status "neither pure-academic nor non-
academic) it can present itself in a metamorphic manner, e.g. in corporate or civil terms, enabling
it to eEploit the resources from niches ,hich are unavailable to certain official academic proIects
Kcit% councils, businesses, etcM
Bver the course of m% paper A shall sho, that the issue of the para-academic entit% blends the
philosophical possibilit% of that ,hich can move across our current segmented realit% ,ith the
far more concrete necessit% of brea+ing out of the t%rann% of stifling funding frame,or+s ,hich
intellectual and artistic proIects have come to rel% upon. !hus para-academia must eEplore ,hat
else it is alongside, in order to discover for intellectual proIects other possible lines of
development indeed perhaps be%ond the universit% itself.
Robert Jackson
Ph0 7andidate
4A7A
4ancaster Universit%
4ancaster
4A( D>*
United Cingdom
#obile '<9(8 8(:(8D
robertIac+son.:''Hgmail.com
Para-academia and the 1ducation of 2ro,nups
Filar% Putnam once remar+ed that 3tanle% 7avell is one of the fe, t,entieth centur%
philosophers, anal%tic or other,ise, to eEplore philosoph% as education. An part, this reflects
7avell/s practice, defined b% o,n vie, of philosoph% as the education of gro,nups: a famous
tag-line in 7avellian literature, %et never full% ac+no,ledged in either mainstream philosoph% or
pedagog%.
As an associate editor of 3peculations, a para-academic philosoph% Iournal, A might subIect
7avell/s quip ,ith contempt, as an outdated description of contemporar% academic practice: that
academic philosoph% is the only subIect ,hich educates gro,nups. *ho is 7avell to state such
things, as a distinguished Professor 1meritus at Farvard? #oreover, ,hat is a gro,nup an%,a%?
An one pith% sense, it might resemble ever%thing academic life once upheld, %et no, onl% eEists
in mar+etable chains ,hich condemns its members into a gro,nup neoliberal life.
>et, the paper ,ill argue an alternative point. As an%one ,ho has half-read 7avell +no,s, the
education of gro,nups isn/t a remar+ ,hich defines academic life unambiguousl% as some sort
of professionalised educational theor%. 7avell, much li+e his prose, defines the education of
gro,nups ,ith an impervious un-go!ernance, ,hich esche,s profession, offering little in the
,a% of formulaic results. 5urthermore, such an education might be reclaimed and rene,ed
to,ards the proliferating intentions of para-academic practice: namel%, the rebirth of ones
conditions for change outside of the academ%. An the face of controlled education ,hich
continues to be uncontested, ,e should all be educated as unprofessional children.