The Actuality of Revolution: Marxist Education and the Commons

What is the role of education within radical and revolutionary movements? Is the classroom a political space? How do traditions of Marxian thought and pedagogy frame those questions?

In this episode, Derek R. Ford offers a crash orientation to the terrain of Marxist educational theory and practice, with a focus on its dynamic expressions in resistance movements, organizing campaigns, and more formal schooling contexts. Topics include Marxian traditions of education, dialogical pedagogy, practices of interpretation in a so-called "post-truth" era, and cultivating learning spaces where all people can experience the freedom and invitation to learn, question, explore, and build new ways of living and being.

Derek Ford is an organizer, author, and teacher with deep ties to Left movement spaces. Currently an Assistant Professor of Education Studies at DePauw University, their books include Teaching the Actuality of Revolution: Aesthetics, Pedagogy, and the Sensations of Struggle (2023), Communist Study: Education for the Commons (2022), Encountering Education: Elements for a Marxist Pedagogy (2022), Inhuman Educations: Jean-Francois Lyotard, Pedagogy, Thought (2021), and many edited books and articles on eco and urban pedagogies and politics. They are also an editor at Liberation School where they help to create the Reading Capital with Comrades podcast series.

Credits: Outro Music by Akrasis (Max Bowen, raps; Mark McKee, beats); audio editing by Aliyah Harris; production by Lucia Hulsether + Tina Pippin.

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