Four Blog Posts

Blog post 1

Object Based Learning

Overview and reflection:

Kirsten Hardie’s (2015) paper outlines the potential of object based learning (OBL) as a pedagogical tool that can enliven and enrich student learning (4). The process can engender enquiry-based learning (EBL), that offers active learning through interpretation and participation (ibid 19). Hardie utilises idiosyncratic museum collections set up herself. Student tasks include a tactile exploration of objects and researching their provenance. This can lead to setting up more elaborate learning environments, such as setting up exhibitions, and ‘Design Crimes’, a role playing court trial, in which objects are judged as being a ‘flawed design’ and must be defended through research (ibid 17). It is notable that court trials have become popular stagings for climate justice (see the CICC). Hardie offers tips such as, using OBL as ice breaker to move focus onto objects; experimenting with unusual objects not specifically related to the learners’ discipline to open up their wider understanding, and engagement. Engage with and maximise opportunity for learners to touch items (usefully demonstrated by Jason, in the micro-teaching). Ensure a mix of objects representative of a range of cultures, contexts and issues.

Integration in teaching:

It is good to realise that I have inadvertently (like many others), previously used OBL methods in asking students to bring in images related to certain prompts, then exploring them in class. For example, one memorable class seminar was asking students to bring in an image of ‘something beautiful’ for the following week. This was in a unit exploring cultural aspects of aesthetics. The class was comprised of students from several different countries and cultural backgrounds. We began to consider cultural specificities of beauty and its local interpretations. We went on to discuss European distinctions between beauty, kitsch, sublime, and the ugly, and whether/ how these have equivalents in different cultural contexts. In a future seminar, and in keeping with Hardie’s suggestion, I will invite students to bring and explore objects less literally associated with the discipline of photography. For example, an object that you would like to photograph. This could also invite interesting questions about what a photograph is and why we might want to photograph it. The question of what a photograph is, is highly contentious given the evolving technologies of AI, 3D modelling, VR and AR. Today, a photograph, like a commodity, is not at all as obvious as it seems

(391 words).

References:

Hardie, Kirsten (2015) Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching. Higher Education Academy PDF

Blog post 4

Speculative writing as a defence against the disciplinary

 Barrow claims that, ‘In its disciplining guise, assessment is a technology of hierarchical judgement and supervision where the students’ disclosure is subject to the normalising gaze of the institution and its experts, in order that the student ‘may be subjected, used, transformed and improved’ (Foucault, 1991, p. 136). Such ongoing analysis is seen to develop a body that is ‘manipulable’ and docile (Foucault, 1991, p. 177). It is interesting to consider Foucault’s writing on ‘disciplinary technology’ in the context of learning objectives (LOs). My teaching syllabus of critical photography lectures regularly features a lecture on the ‘disciplinary technology’ of the photographic image. In Foucaudian terms, the Panopticon prison ushers in a regime of surveillance in which the gaze of authority is ‘internalised’ (358). This metaphor can be (and is) applied to contemporary photographic and surveillance techniques. The assessment regime is aligned with a tradition of Western ‘confessional’ practices, through which one is able to ‘reveal’ the truth of one’s character (364). The author cites Giddens claim that ‘the self is not a passive entity, a sentiment that Foucault’s works also evince on close reading.

However, it is suggested that studio practice in arts contexts may present a degree of agency and creativity through rejection that there are straightforwardly right and wrong ideas (ibid 369). On the one hand, such ideas can be contentious in an era defined by fake news and the relativism of truth. On the other, I don’t think speculative practice need to be limited to ‘studio’ or the arts. Indeed, I would advocate that some approaches characteristic of studio discipline can inform non-studio disciplines. The ‘essay form’ is a place that can be distinct from a purely ‘fact finding’ exercise in truth telling or confession. Neither should speculative forms of writing be distinct from explorations toward ‘truth’. These ideas can be characterised in forms of speculative writing as discussed by Ursula Le Guin (2024) and others. Le Guin was suggested to me by one of our ALs. In this work, the author considers that the first cultural devices were likely to be receptacles for carrying things (eg. bags or baskets) rather than (as often considered) weapons and tools. Narrative and storytelling might rather focus being such receptacles that on gather, carry and hold, rather than having a basis in qualities of success, fighting and disciplinary armaments (see LeGuin 2024).

(392 words)

Barrow, Mark (2006) ‘Assessment and student transformation: linking character and intellect’, Studies in Higher Education, 31: 3, pp. 357 — 372

DOI: 10.1080/03075070600680869

LeGuin, Ursula K. (2024) The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. Cosmogenesis

Blog post 2

Blog post 2: What’s the use? Methods Seminar

Overview and reflection:

In the book chapter, ‘Using Things’, Sara Ahmed refers to ‘use’ as not necessarily corresponding to an object’s intended function. Use can come after the existence of something, not necessarily being a precondition of a given things existence. Given the failure of ‘use’, Petroski considers how form does not necessarily follow function (a Modernist adage), but arguably that ‘form can follow failure,’ being subject to the ‘failure to function properly’ (Ahmed 25).

Ahmed refers to the way in which Historical Materialism places a strong emphasis on use discussing the Marxist idea of use-value. In Marxist terms, a thing’s ‘use value’ is not purely due to its usefulness, but to the material and human labour integral to its construction (ibid 26). ‘Commodities as values are nothing but crystallized labour… A use-value or good only has value because labour is objectified or materiali-zed in it.’ (Marx in Dragstedt)

For Ahmed, Use is also a limit on the possibilities that a given object can fulfil (ibid). Indeed, ‘queering’ the use (deviating from its ‘straight’ expected function), can draw attention to lively, material qualities that can otherwise ‘disappear through functionality (ibid 21).’ In queering a photograph’s use, we might consider the expected function of a photograph as well as the term ‘straight photography,’ used to imply that a photographic image is un-manipulated and corresponds with the camera’s own intended ‘use.’

Integration: Seminar, The Uses of Photography

I will use these ideas to devise a seminar, with the intention of considering ‘uses’ of a photograph: both ‘straight,’ ‘queer’ and Marxist (following the tenets of historical materialism).

Students will need:

A printed photograph

Access to a photograph uploaded to social media:

1. Through a short presentation, and working in small groups, we consider the meaning of ‘straight,’ ‘queer’ and Marxist ‘materialist’ qualities in relation to a printed photograph and a photograph circulating digitally.
2. For each example, consider some of the distinct implied ‘uses’ of the image in relation to a ‘straight’ functional notion of use’; ‘queering’ the use (deviating from expected function); and a Marxist, materialist interpretation (the sorts of labour that have been necessary to the images’ production).
3. Note down observations under the 3 categories and consider how these distinct ways of seeing reveal something about the image in question (429 words).

References:

Ahmed, Sara (2019) Chapter 1: ‘Using Things’ from On the Uses of Use, Duke University Press. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=5969504

Marx, Karl (1976 [1857]) in Dragstedt, Albert (1976) Value: Studies By Karl Marx, New Park Publications, London, 1976, pp. 7-40 Available: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm

Blog post 3

Blog post 3: What is Social Justice today?

Overview and reflection:

According to Gümüş Arar and Oplatkac (2020) social justice (SJ) has been defined by numerous academic disciplines, including: ethics, black studies, philosophy, economics, politics, sociology, anthropology, and public policy’ (1). We might add feminism, queer and trans theory to this list as some of its most common definitional contexts today.

The authors suggest that international researchers should generate new conceptualisations of SJ leadership in education to meet the need for models compatible with specific, cultural and social contexts, which may lead to a lack of coherence in definition (ibid 14). Despite this possibility of proliferating definitions, it is arguable that SJ has commonality in advocating redress for systemic forms of inequality (whatever/ wherever they are), whilst paying special attention to topical, theoretical, and methodological differences between case studies (for example) looking at distinctions between ‘SJ studies from Western and non-Western countries’ (Gümüş Arar and Oplatkac 2020, 14). In this manner, SJ definitions must be understood contextually and in terms of specific examples, while being bound by issues of redress for those most vulnerable to exploitation in those contexts.

It is interesting for us today, to consider the manner in which SJ has become synonymous with derisory notions of the ‘woke.’ In American and Western European contexts. ‘Wokeness’ is increasingly considered an unreasonable appeal for equality and implicitly, as a threat to the already strained resources of rich nations. Central to these ideas is the practice of ‘exnomination,’ whereby, the privileged majority fails to ‘name’ or implicate itself in systemic social inequality.

Alfano et al (2023) utilise a little known passage from Roland Barthes (1974) to help explain current trends in U.S. SJ politics. In a section of the book ‘Mythologies’ Roland Barthes uses the term ‘exnomination’ (Barthes 1974, 138) to refer to the way that dominant social groups can retain an anonymous (unnamed) position that is normalised as such and made invisible. For example, if white, heterosexual men occupy a position that can be deemed ‘normal,’ advocacy for any other group can be deemed ‘identity politics,’ and its advocates as woke ‘social justice warriors’, demeaning equality and protecting the status quo from visibility or question (Alfano et al 2023, 27). These kind of tactics are mobilised by the U.S. administration today and are particular to U.S. and Western European moves to far right politics.

Integration in teaching:

The narratives and definitional qualities of SJ (a few of which are presented here) are integral to teaching today, as they can help to inform us about the rise of the far right in U.S. and America today.

(415 words)

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Footnote:

[1]Symonds (2023) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65174096

References:

Alfano, Mark; Abedin, Ehsan;  Reimann, Ritsaart; Ferreira, Marinus; Cheong, Marc (2024) ‘Now you see me, now you don’t: An exploration of religious exnomination in DALL-E’ in Ethics and Information Technology 26:27. accessed 1 April 2025 Available: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-024-09760-y

Barthes, Roland (1974) Mythologies London: Jonathan Cape

Sedat Gümüş, Khalid Arar and Izhar Oplatkac (2021)

‘Review of International Research on School Leadership for Social Justice, Equity and Diversity’ in Journal of Educational Administration and History 53:1: Routledge Taylor and Francis. accessed 7 March 2025 Available:

https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2020.1862767

Symonds, Tom (2023) ‘Grooming gangs and ethnicity: What does the evidence say?’ BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65174096 (accessed 3 April 2025)