MARX, CAPITAL, AND
EDUCATION: TOWARDS A CRITICAL PEDAGOGY OF BECOMING
A new book by Curry Stephenson
Malott and Derek R. Ford
Published by Peter
Lang: New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2015. XX, 165 pp.
Education and
Struggle: Narrative, Dialogue and the Political Production of Meaning. Vol. 5
General Editors: Michael
Peters and Peter McLaren
Print: ISBN
978-1-4331-3111-0 pb. (Softcover)
Print: ISBN
978-1-4331-3112-7 hb. (Hardcover)
eBook: ISBN
978-1-4539-1602-5
Outline
With the contradictions of capitalism heightening and
intensifying, and with new social movements spreading across the globe,
revolutionary transformation is once again on the agenda. For radicals, the
most pressing question is: How can we transform ourselves and our world into something
else, something just? In Marx, Capital,
and Education, Curry Stephenson Malott and Derek R. Ford develop a
«critical pedagogy of becoming» that is concerned with precisely this question.
The authors boldly investigate the movement toward communism and the essential role
that critical pedagogy can play in this transition. Performing a novel and
educational reading of Karl Marx and radical theorists and activists, Malott
and Ford present a critical understanding of the past and present, of the
underlying logics and (often opaque) forces that determine the world-historical
moment. Yet Malott and Ford are equally concerned with examining the specific
ways in which we can teach, learn, study, and struggle ourselves beyond capitalism;
how we can ultimately overthrow the existing order and institute a new mode of
production and set of social relations. This incisive and timely book, penned
by two militant teachers, organizers, and academics, reconfigures pedagogy and
politics.
Educators and organizers alike will find that it provides
new ammunition in the struggle for the world that we deserve.
Contents
Contents: Becoming through Negation: Revisiting Marx’s
Humanism – From Revolution to Counterrevolution and Back Again? The Global Class
War and Becoming Communist – Becoming Communist in the Global Class War:
Centering the Critique of the Gotha Programme – The «Cynical Recklessness» of
Capital: Machinery, Becoming, and Revolutionary Marxist Social Studies
Education – Teaching Ferguson, Teaching Capital: Slavery and the «Terrorist
Energy» of Capital – Connecting «Economic Bondage« to «Personified Capital»:
Another Step toward a Critical Pedagogy of Becoming.
About the Authors
Curry Stephenson
Malott (PhD in curriculum and instruction, New Mexico State University) is
Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations in the Department of
Professional and Secondary Education at West Chester University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Malott is a regular contributor to the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies.
Derek R. Ford’s
(PhD candidate in cultural foundations of education, Syracuse University)
professional writing has appeared in Educational
Philosophy and Theory; Critical
Studies in Education; Policy Futures
in Education; and Studies in
Philosophy and Education. He currently teaches in the Social Justice
Studies Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
Praise for Marx, Capital, and Education
“In Marx, Capital, and
Education, Malott and Ford advance one of the boldest and [most]
unmitigated analyses of education in the history of the field. Their
unflinching and scholarly critique of the relationship between capitalism and
compulsory education helps to reground the field of critical pedagogy, framing
a renewed ‘revolutionary Marxist pedagogy.’ Their careful undertaking of Marx
and contemporary scholars of Marx situate this text as a must-read across
multiple disciplines including philosophy, political science, government, and
education – a true classic in the making.” (Sandy Grande, Associate Professor and Chair, Education Department,
Connecticut College)
“This is an essential text for all of those interested in
the continuing potential of Marxism as an analytic tool and as a political
movement, with implications for critical pedagogy and a truly liberatory
education. It traces the history of the use of Marxist theory in education in
ways that are insightful, and it provides a key set of categories for reading
and using Marx in a ‘postmodern’ age. A rare achievement in educational
scholarship.” (Dennis Carlson, Full
Professor, Department of Educational Leadership, Miami University)
“This book boldly interrogates the internal contradictions
of capital with the aim of galvanizing a critical pedagogy of becoming, a
pedagogy capable of providing the conceptual and analytic resources necessary
to locate and pry open spaces in education from which to push those contradictions
to their breaking point so as to transform capitalism into communism. The
authors patiently explain the dialectical logic of capital’s internal
contradictions that incline capital towards self-negation, paying particular
attention to capital’s compulsive quest for surplus value; they deepen this
explanation with an exploration of Marx’s appropriation of dialectics from
Hegel. Setting these explanations in motion and keeping capital’s thirst for
surplus value firmly in view, Malott and Ford confront and intervene in some of
the main debates related to education under capital, including the relation
between educational labor and the reproduction of capitalist social relations,
and the relation between race and class. This book propels forward the
revolutionary struggle for liberation from class society.” (Deborah P. Kelsh, Professor of Teacher
Education, The College of Saint Rose)
“Malott and Ford point to the horizon of possibilities that
open up when Marx is put back into Marxism. Their bold advocacy of critical
pedagogy as a self-conscious movement towards communism is a welcome antidote
to the bourgeois fluff that has come to pass as ‘critical’ in education for too
long. Marx, Capital, and Education is
written by revolutionary educators for revolutionary educators.” (Grant Banfield, Lecturer, Faculty of
Education, Humanities and Law, Flinders University, South Australia)
“Malott and Ford present a rigorous theoretical framework
grounded in the actual practice of communist movement(s). Their approach to educational
pedagogy is a must-read for anyone with a radical consciousness seriously
concerned with not just interpreting, but changing the world.” (Eugene Puryear, author of Shackled and
Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America; Organizer with the ANSWER
Coalition)
“Malott and Ford in this exceptional work place capitalism
‘squarely within the crosshairs.’ Vague talk concerning issues of social
justice is replaced with concrete explorations of our present historical moment
within the horizon of communism and educators’ place in moving toward that
horizon within a process of a critical pedagogy of becoming. This book will
move critical thinkers toward the horizon. It is about time.” (William M. Reynolds, Associate
Professor of Curriculum, Foundations, andReading, Georgia Southern University)
“Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
world ‘leaders’ continue to directly and indirectly promote anticommunist disinformation
and propaganda. Today one is casually and smugly dismissed as passé or out of
touch if they are still ‘gullible’ enough to fight for communism. Opposing this
relentless capital-centered offensive which depoliticizes people and
intensifies anticonsciousness, Malott and Ford have boldly put communism on the
agenda. With courage, conviction, and serious analysis they show how and why
existing political-economic arrangements can and must be replaced by a
human-centered society and economic system, a world free of exploitation,
alienated relations, and the division between mental and manual labor. To this
end, the authors skillfully sketch the organic connections between critical
pedagogy, transformation, and Marxist and Hegelian dialectics in order to
advance ‘a pedagogy of becoming.’ Here the future lies within the present and negation
is affirmation. But Malott and Ford remind us at every turn that this does not
mean that phenomena unfold deterministically.” (Shawgi Tell, Associate Professor of Education, Department of Social
and Psychological Foundations of Education, Nazareth College)
“This book is a weapon to be used not merely against
capital, but in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism and realize
a communist future that enables the becoming of humanity. In an era in which
Marxist educational theorizing is making a comeback, Malott and Ford represent
the best of a new generation of revolutionary thinkers who do not settle for
merely interesting academic inquiry, but rather illustrate how deep
intellectual inquiry can inform answers to questions about how we can teach,
learn, and take action in the construction of a proletarian offensive in the
global class war. Malott and Ford unapologetically embrace the goal of creating
a new set of social relations that enable the absolute movement of becoming,
that is communism. They put capitalism in the crosshairs and refuse to take
cover under the empty shells that democracy, social justice, or domesticated critical
pedagogy have become. Instead they return to Marx, offering crystal clear
theoretical and practical responses to questions at the heart of conversations
about how we can create not only new pedagogies, but a new world, free from the
scourge of capitalism.” (E. Wayne Ross,
Professor, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia)
“This is a hugely important and impressive book by…two
increasingly influential revolutionary Marxist theorists/activists. They assert
and closely argue that ‘in order for education to contribute to the generation
of a counterpower it has to place capital squarely in its crosshairs.’ They open
up the field of possibilities for revolutionary education, enabling the
imagination of ‘a world without the exploitation and oppression that characterizes
capital.’ This book is hard-hitting and uncompromising. It is scholarly. It is
activist. It is a remarkable addition to contemporary critical education and
Marxist theory.” (Dave Hill,
Professor of Education Research, Anglia Ruskin University, England; Chief
Editor of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies; Co-founder and
Co-organizer of the annual International Conference on Critical Education).
Curry Malott
***END***
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Derek R. Ford
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