Thanks to you all!
I had no idea my email would spark such an intense debate. I take it as a
good sign, but can't help also being slightly amused by it.
I am certainly sympathetic to the critical voices here — I am of a
generation who has been very reluctant to start using online or digital
learning infrastructure (as an undergraduate I was infuriated by some
professors who were early adopters of the now ubiquitous e-learning
platforms, fighting for the opportunity to copy the articles myself from
the reader at the copy shop around the corner). And as a student of
face-to-face interaction I do see the transfer of much of human
intersubjectivity to the digital sphere more than critical ...
Nonetheless, in this email exchange we're also making very creative use of
that sphere, and I don't think that face-to-face education is by itself any
less capitalist, less exploitative, or more emancipatory that it's online
counterpart. It all depends on the use that is made of it and the broader
infrastructure in which either system is embedded. I for my part have
greatly profited from listening to podcasts and lectures of famous scholars
from other universities on iTunes, youtube, etc., that I did not have the
good fortune to be able to attend in person.
In any case, Jamie is right in that I was asking for recommendations for
someone who doesn't have the privilege to be in academia. I have posted
this on behalf of an old friend from highschool who wants to study
anthropology but cannot afford to move to a place with a university. He
lives with his family in Malawi, and wouldn't want to leave his family to
start a program, so he asked me for suggestions. He is not interested in a
degree but would like to educate himself in a serious way ... something I
can only applaud him for.
I will compile suggestions that I'm getting here and offline and post them
back to the list in a few days on a separate thread, so we can keep this
one for the discussion.
On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 6:16 AM, Brian McKenna <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> We're all, increasingly, in the same class brother.
>
> See my Piece on Adjuncts and the Hierarchical anthros:
>
> Class Struggle is the Name of the Game at Universities. It’s the Ethical
> Elephant in the Room
> <http://ethics.americananthro.org/class-struggle-is-the-
> name-of-the-game-at-universities-its-the-ethical-elephant-in-the-room/>
> Posted on June 28th, 2016 by Blog Administrator
> http://ethics.americananthro.org/class-struggle-is-the-
> name-of-the-game-at-universities-its-the-ethical-elephant-in-the-room/
>
> In Solidarity against neoliberalism,
> Brian
>
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 1:55 AM, Anderson, Mark S <
> [log in to unmask]
> > wrote:
>
> > Interesting discussion! Michael Stewart's points resonate with me.
> >
> > While I understand and accept the reality that technologies won't offer a
> > full substitute for the incredible experience of intimate contact with a
> > teacher or mentor, they do offer access to our discipline to learners who
> > may otherwise have little chance of getting to university - let alone
> > sitting at the feet of a master in a 21 century HE reality.
> >
> > Online learning, in all of its many forms and uses, offers some level of
> > access for such people, and may just provide the spark of a lifelong and
> > productive passion. As an educational developer (and learning
> technologist)
> > who teaches anthropology, I'm more excited by the possibilities of
> widening
> > participation and making anthropology more inclusive than the idea of
> > stamping out much-needed avenues of access just because they don't live
> up
> > to the incredible learning experiences that we were privileged enough to
> > benefit from in decades past.
> >
> > Ultimately, formal education boils down to communication, inquiry,
> > dialogue, collaboration and a reflective exchange of ideas leading
> > (ideally) to a shift or expansion in identity (for both learner and
> > teacher). Learning technologies, when used well, have the potential to
> > facilitate all of these processes.
> >
> > I would suggest, however, that the 'typical' MOOC formats we see on
> > Coursera and such like tend to be pedagogically quite shallow, and should
> > not be seen as exemplars for what online learning can achieve. There are
> > some excellent online introductory courses available that emphasise small
> > group learning, peer dialogue and conversations with tutors. The
> > introductory course in Social Anthropology offered by the Oxford
> University
> > Department for Continuing Education is one example of this approach to
> > online distance learning.
> >
> > https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/social-anthropology-
> > an-introduction-online?code=O17P311AHV
> >
> > Don't get me wrong - I'd love the opportunity to spend hours in deep
> > one-to-one conversation with the late Hammond-Tooke. But in the absence
> of
> > that possibility, many of our learners can still benefit from Skype chats
> > with active researchers in the field, asynchronous forum debates with
> each
> > other from different time zones (isn't this thread a nice example of a
> rich
> > global online conversation?), discussing digital ethnographic videos
> > online, and so on.
> >
> >
> >
> > ===
> > Mark Anderson
> > Imperial College London
> >
> >
> >
> > On 19 Jun 2017, at 23:18, Stewart, Michael <[log in to unmask]<mailto:m
> .
> > [log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> >
> > Well.. one might take a different view of these things….
> >
> > I have no doubt that those who studied Anthropology in the 1960s, when in
> > the UK there were 4-6 students a year in any one department’s Ug
> education
> > programme and who each had access to hours of direct contact with Mr
> Leach,
> > Ms Douglas. Mr Fortes etc much lamented the huge reduction in
> intellectual
> > value of courses in the late 1970 when - horror on horror - an
> institution
> > like the LSE or UCL would dare to take on 18 or even 20 students in a
> > single year. And no doubt these Cassndras of the old order noted that
> these
> > popularising and commercialising departments did not even care if all of
> > their intake were capable of becoming professional anthropologists at the
> > end of their studies.
> >
> > If we go back a little further we will remember that even the 1960s
> > laissez-faire regrind Ug education represented a huge moral decline from
> > the time when, as EE-P famously argued, anthropology should only be
> studies
> > at PGT or PGR level — since it was not a subject that could be taught to
> > those without a rigorous autonomous intellectual dicsicpine - it really
> was
> > only for the elite of the elite.
> >
> > As for now - when UCL has 70+ students in its first year Ug intake, well
> > the democratic floodgates have been opened and what cretin would argue to
> > debase the great science further by the use of mass dissemination tools
> > like the internet?
> >
> > Well - it is not so simple… You can combine the brilliance of online with
> > the intensity of in-person in all kinds of ways to raise the standard of
> > University provision. This is not rocket science. We use books in much
> the
> > same way!
> >
> > Personally I am saddened and surprised that there in all this is a deep
> > affinity of the old who had it ‘so good’ (if you believe them, sitting at
> > the feet of the masters of l’ancien regime - and just look up the data on
> > what it was like if you are working class and had to try to sip sherry
> with
> > Sir - once a night is quite enough - Edmund Leach - and I rather doubt
> that
> > le grand maitre was much different in this respect) and a small section
> of
> > 'the young' who - in order to represent all change as part of some
> > nefarious “neoliberal” (sic!) regime - are willing to represent one of
> the
> > great democratising opportunities of tour time (online tutorials) as if
> it
> > is an assault on the status of knowledge.
> >
> > When BBC Radio started broadcasting in the 1920s there were many voices
> > that denounced the way the massifiaction of culture would destroy the
> very
> > substance of artistic culture itself. The great cultural pessimist of the
> > right, TS Eliot, comes to mind -
> >
> > The weird thing is that in the 1930s and 1940s those voices came mostly
> > from the far right.. Today they come from people who think of themselves
> on
> > the left or far left….
> >
> > How very strange and sad that is.
> >
> > It is banally true that any one service provider on the internet may be
> > less than adequate, but it is not the medium but their abilities and
> > delivery that makes them so.
> >
> > At Ucl the most interesting and innovative degrees - my own included -
> use
> > the provision of online tutorials and lectures as an additional means to
> > get students access to great inspiration and education.
> >
> > Academia used to be full of people who were full of excitement for the
> > present and the potential it contained - what happened to that?
> >
> >
> > Michael Stewart
> >
> >
> >
> > On 19 Jun 2017, at 19:22, Mariya Ivancheva <[log in to unmask]<
> > mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> > wrote:
> >
> > dear all,
> >
> > as an anthropologist studying this process i can't help but notice that
> it
> > goes far beyond debilitating anthropology and hits the core of what the
> > university degree means these days. under the mild and obscure term
> > 'unbundling' universities are increasingly disaggregating traditional
> > degrees and outsourcing even bits of their teaching and learning
> provision
> > to private partners. a good short text on the subject (again, not
> focusing
> > on anthropology) can be found here
> > <https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/
> > higher-education-is-not-a-mixtape/384845/>
> > ...
> >
> > best,
> > mariya
> >
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>
> --
> Brian McKenna, Ph.D.
> Anthropologist
> Department of Behavioral Sciences
> CASL 4025
> University of Michigan-Dearborn
> Dearborn, Michigan
>
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