A Place To Call Home

A PLACE TO CALL HOME

Recorded at the London Coliseum, 30^th October 2019

English National Opera (ENO) is pleased to announce that the single “A Place to Call Home” is released today (6^th December 2019).

This astonishing new song by former BBC Young Composer of the Year Alex Woolf will help to raise money in aid of Shelter’s Christmas appeal. Recorded live at the London Coliseum, nearly 2000 Community Singers joined ENO’s brilliant Chorus and Orchestra, as well as opera stars Sir Bryn Terfel, Alice Coote and Lesley Garrett. It was conducted by the ENO’s Martin Fitzpatrick.

Ruth Rikowski was one of the Community Singers.

You can share these links to friends and family to ask them to buy the single, helping it to become the Christmas No.1:

Youtube Music: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k4UJhToa5xk3gPOlodPPXWv0Sad2wu3D4

Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/album/1ACV8jAS9MfrldTVp59CJT?highlight=spotify:track:5meFJRCIK7FGE1yo9ExAK0

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/music/album?id=Bj7r6u7i4sah224aid3lqkpmhym&tid=song-T2iiwcftnytvyvqnyop2kyhoigy&hl=en

Amazon Music: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B082DJ1D76/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=a+place+to+call+home+sir+bryn+terfel&qid=1575593985&s=dmusic&sr=1-1

A quick method to get it on Youtube is to go to http://www.youtube.co.uk and then search for: A Place to Call Home ENO – and then it comes up!

Please share, please donate to Shelter....please make a difference for the homeless: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/singforshelter

A PLACE TO CALL HOME

Music and Lyrics by Alex Woolf

Lyrics

I stumbled across

A figure unknown,

Alive but alone, lost in his dreaming.

I stumbled because

That figure alone

He must have known what I was thinking:

That’s no place to call home.

I’ve stumbled before,

And I’ll stumble again.

I wish I’d known then how to give shelter.

I’ll stumble some more,

But I’ll seize the day, then

We’ll see the day when it’s not much to ask for:

A place to call home.

Sure as home is where the heart is

Homelessness is heartless and cruel.

Home…

If the heart is where the home is,

Aren’t we all homeless too?

I stumbled again

On that figure now known,

No longer alone, secure and with shelter.

I stumbled and then

I saw how he’d grown

In a place of his own.

So if home’s where the heart is

Then surely it’s smartest to start helping figures unknown.

Then we’ll all have a place…

A place to call home.

A place to call home.

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Notes on Commodity Forms and the Business Takeover of Schools

Glenn Rikowski

NOTES ON COMMODITY FORMS AND THE BUSINESS TAKEOVER OF SCHOOLS

These notes are for a seminar with second year Education Studies students at the University of East London, Stratford Campus, on 20^th November 2019.

Introduction

Commodification, marketisation, monetisation (the increasing scourge of money), and competition, commercialisation (advertising and selling-centred image manipulation) in education: how do we challenge and terminate these developments, if we wish to? Do we rely on the state to protect us from these insurgencies by capitalist interests and motivations in contemporary education? Will pressure from below, from us, urge the state to curb and end the role of business in education? Do we hope for a victory of Corbyn’s Labour Party in the forthcoming General Election to end the business takeover of education?

These notes indicate a way forward regarding posting answers to these questions. It is argued that we need to attack the business takeover of education at the micro level: at the level of the commodity, first and foremost.

The first Part of these notes focuses on this micro-level: commodity forms, the basic, elemental phenomena of capitalist society. Part Two explores one of these commodity forms, the general class of commodities, in terms of its development in contemporary schools. The focus is on how the general class of commodities, through the business takeover of schools, grows and spreads. The examples explored in Part Two come from schools in England, though, as Verger, Fontdevilla and Zancajo (2016) demonstrate, what they call the ‘global education industry’ (which is roughly equivalent to what I take as the business takeover of education) is a world-wide phenomenon, not confined to the UK, the US or Europe.

The perspective of these notes rests on Marxism; the ideas of Karl Marx and those who embrace his critique of capitalist society and its social scientific armoury. There are many forms of Marxism, and I stand within what has been called ‘Open Marxism’ – based on the work of people such as John Holloway and Werner Bonefeld. For 40 years, I have studied and organised around what has become known as Marxist educational theory.

The rest of these Notes can be found at Academia, in my ‘Teaching Documents’ section: https://www.academia.edu/40918435/Notes_on_Commodity_Forms_and_the_Business_Takeover_of_Schools

Glenn Rikowski

14 November 2019

More of Glenn Rikowski’s publication and papers can be found at:

Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Privatisation: Education and Commodity Forms

PRIVATISATION: EDUCATION AND COMMODITY FORMS

An article by Glenn Rikowski

My article has recently been published in:

Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education: Common Concepts for Contemporary Movements

Edited by Derek R. Ford

Brill | Sense

Leiden | Boston

2019

This article, Chapter 25, is now available at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/39344962/Privatisation_Education_and_Commodity_Forms

ABOUT THE BOOK

While education is an inherently political field and practice, and while the political struggles that radical philosophy takes up necessarily involve education, there remains much to be done at the intersection of education and radical philosophy. That so many intense political struggles today actually center educational processes and institutions makes this gap all the more pressing. Yet in order for this work to be done, we need to begin to establish common frameworks and languages in and with which to move.

Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education takes up this crucial and urgent task. Dozens of emerging and leading activists, organizers, and scholars assemble a collective body of concepts to interrogate, provoke, and mobilize contemporary political, economic, and social struggles. This wide-ranging edited collection covers key and innovative philosophical and educational themes--from animals, sex, wind, and praxis, to studying, podcasting, debt, and students.

This field-defining work is a necessary resource for all activists and academics interested in exploring the latest conceptual contributions growing out of the intersection of social struggles and the university.

Contributors are: Rebecca Alexander, Barbara Applebaum, David Backer, Jesse Bazzul, Brian Becker, Jesse Benjamin, Matt Bernico, Elijah Blanton, Polina-Theopoula Chrysochou, Clayton Cooprider, Katie Crabtree, Noah De Lissovoy, Sandra Delgado, Dean Dettloff, Zeyad El Nabolsy, Derek R. Ford, Raúl Olmo Fregoso Bailón, Michelle Gautreaux, Salina Gray, Aashish Hemrajani, Caitlin Howlett, Khuram Hussain, Petar Jandric, Colin Jenkins, Kelsey Dayle John, Lenore Kenny, Tyson E. Lewis, Curry Malott, Peter McLaren, Glenn Rikowski, Marelis Rivera, Alexa Schindel, Steven Singer, Ajit Singh, Nicole Snook, Devyn Springer, Sara Tolbert, Katherine Vroman, Anneliese Waalkes, Chris Widimaier, Savannah Jo Wilcek, David Wolken, Jason Wozniak, and Weili Zhao.

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education

KEYWORDS IN RADICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EDUCATION: COMMON CONCEPTS FOR CONTEMPORARY MOVEMENTS

Edited by Derek R. Ford

Brill | Sense

Leiden | Boston

2019

While education is an inherently political field and practice, and while the political struggles that radical philosophy takes up necessarily involve education, there remains much to be done at the intersection of education and radical philosophy. That so many intense political struggles today actually center educational processes and institutions makes this gap all the more pressing. Yet in order for this work to be done, we need to begin to establish common frameworks and languages in and with which to move.

Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education takes up this crucial and urgent task. Dozens of emerging and leading activists, organizers, and scholars assemble a collective body of concepts to interrogate, provoke, and mobilize contemporary political, economic, and social struggles. This wide-ranging edited collection covers key and innovative philosophical and educational themes--from animals, sex, wind, and praxis, to studying, podcasting, debt, and students.

This field-defining work is a necessary resource for all activists and academics interested in exploring the latest conceptual contributions growing out of the intersection of social struggles and the university.

Contributors are: Rebecca Alexander, Barbara Applebaum, David Backer, Jesse Bazzul, Brian Becker, Jesse Benjamin, Matt Bernico, Elijah Blanton, Polina-Theopoula Chrysochou, Clayton Cooprider, Katie Crabtree, Noah De Lissovoy, Sandra Delgado, Dean Dettloff, Zeyad El Nabolsy, Derek R. Ford, Raúl Olmo Fregoso Bailón, Michelle Gautreaux, Salina Gray, Aashish Hemrajani, Caitlin Howlett, Khuram Hussain, Petar Jandric, Colin Jenkins, Kelsey Dayle John, Lenore Kenny, Tyson E. Lewis, Curry Malott, Peter McLaren, Glenn Rikowski, Marelis Rivera, Alexa Schindel, Steven Singer, Ajit Singh, Nicole Snook, Devyn Springer, Sara Tolbert, Katherine Vroman, Anneliese Waalkes, Chris Widimaier, Savannah Jo Wilcek, David Wolken, Jason Wozniak, and Weili Zhao.

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Marxist Education Across the Generations: A Dialogue on Educaiton, Time, and Transhumanism

MARXIST EDUCATION ACROSS THE GENERATIONS: A DIALOGUE ON EDUCATION, TIME, AND TRANSHUMANISM

A Dialogue by Derek R. Ford and Glenn Rikowski

A pre-print of this Dialogue was published in Postdigital Science and Education on 9^th January 2019

In this dialogue, two educational theorists discuss a range of topics at the nexus of Marxism and education, exploring the rich and diverse paths traversed within and around Marxist educational theory. The first part consists of a synthesis of their own trajectories and how they fit into broader social movements and political and academic conversations. In particular, they focus on the social production of labor-power and pedagogical logics. The second part concentrates on postdigital debates, including conceptions of time and transhumanism.

In June of 2018, Derek Ford contacted Glenn Rikowski proposing a collaboration, and Glenn suggested a dialogue. After a few months of preparation, they began the dialogue over e-mail in early October. A few weeks later, Derek visited Glenn in England for 5 days. They finished the conversation over e-mail, completing it in December 2018.

This dialogue is now available in pre-print format at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/38235324/Marxist_Education_Across_the_Generations_a_Dialogue_on_Education_Time_and_Transhumanism

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski