Mohammad Salemy

Back to the future school: anticipating tomorrow’s education in arts and humanities

29 July 2019 / 7–8 pm CEST

New educational platforms are often born of a commitment to the principle that for original ideas to be presented to a larger audience, they do not have to wait for the slow process of verification and approval built into educational and research institutions. Today’s educational platforms are conceived and built on high-speed Internet. Despite their shortcomings, the ever-growing reach of planetary computation can provide the basic infrastructure for the creation of new educational institutions. With humanities, art and social science departments around the world caught in a losing fight in the crossfire between the dominant poststructuralist ideologies and neoliberal/pragmatist administrations, it is clear that the foundations and aspirations of new institutions will need to be in line with the kind of new left which, while leaving the 20th century behind, is comfortable with confronting complexities. These new institutions ought to fearlessly accept that some components of the base capitalist structure, if combined with emancipatory superstructures, can provide practical ways for the eventual exit from capitalism.