4/5/2023 0 Comments Voice translator![]() Quite a lot of blame for what Masschelein calls ‘the destruction or devastation or weakening of the pedagogical forms of life’ in this ‘home delivery of education,’ as he puts it, is put on digital technologies. The university and its ‘functions’ can be engaged almost anywhere almost any time. This placelessness, it could be argued, was fast-tracked with the outbreak of the pandemic but even today (and perhaps because of it) neither staff nor students need always to be physically present on campus. In this sense, the modern university can be seen as producing ‘anywheres’ instead of ‘somewheres,’ to borrow a distinction from the well-known British writer David Goodhart ( Citation2017), suggesting that the specific place of the university – with its campuses, lecture halls, and seminar rooms – seems to have lost its importance. The ethos of this place (or placeless place, because it does not seem to matter anymore if we are there or not) is about ‘gains and profits’ and its outcome, he argues, is the production of individual learners focused on their own life projects. ![]() In the beginning of the talk, the ‘hyper-modern learning factory’ is the image against which Masschelein envelops his argument. Thus, it is in the spirit of saying ‘yes!’ to what is already being said and a willingness to add something – a question, perhaps, or (hopefully) a ‘distinction that matters’ (Masschelein) – that I am responding. Inspired by Felski and, as mentioned, by the keynote itself, my response takes shape and form in what I would like to call a mood of affirmation. Here, she elaborates on what practicing criticality might imply after the masters of suspicion and if critique is to have a role to play in academia in a time that seems disenchanted with disenchantment it needs to be offered in a form that strives, she argues, ‘for a greater receptivity to the multifarious and many-shaded moods of texts’ (12). I find support for such affirmative critique also in literary theorist Rita Felski’s ( Citation2015) book The Limits of Critique. In the section ‘reclaiming critical pedagogy,’ Masschelein suggests that it could be ‘called critical’ to be ‘making ever more precise distinctions that matter.’ This suggests to me that criticality does not need to emanate from lack or dissatisfaction but could, by contrast, begin in affirmation of what is already being said. ![]() In seeking out a form for my response to Jan Masschelein’s keynote speech, with which I feel much befriended, I found encouragement in the paper itself. ![]()
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