It has been helpful to see what literature is recommended as part of the course, as well as to reconsider what references are already part of my practice that can be deemed relevant to educational contexts. In this case, I have chosen to re-read extracts from The Undercommons Fugitive Planning & Black Study by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney.
Even if I have read this book before, I find that every time I read it I discover something different. I appreciate the writer’s approach to theory as poetics and vice versa. Apart from such, I appreciate the writer’s vulnerability. They mention that language will change throughout the book (ex. Study might become black study, or black studies) as they are reflecting while writing. I believe such methods demystify the author as source of knowledge, and the writing becomes more dialogical.
But apart from the way language is handled, I feel strongly about some of the questions the publication poses with regards to the financialisation of education (in the US and the UK) and how has this affected how, when and for who learning happens. But where does learning happen in the first place? And how does it occur outside of the institution? Since 2009, the UK has seen an exponential increase of alternative education programmes, especially in the Arts: see School of the Damned, AltMFA, TOMA, Open School East, Crit Club to name a few. Such have also been recognised by organisations such as Bloomberg New Contemporaries. Another question that F.M. and S.H. pose is who critiques educational structures and how does that critique take form. Is the creation of of alternative structures a critique-in-practice?
****Choosing to work with The Undercommons Fugitive Planning & Black Study, I feel I should also reflect on my positionality. I am a white person, and there is a lot to learn from black studies, yet there will be elements of it that I do not understand / read / appreciate in the way someone else would.