Call for Proposals: Rouge Forum 2009—Education, Empire, Economy & Ethics at a Crossroads

Rouge Forum Conference 2009

http://www.rougeforumconference.org/

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Education, Empire, Economy & Ethics at a Crossroads

Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI

May 14-17, 2009

The theme for the 2009 Rouge Forum Conference is: “Education, Empire, Economy & Ethics at a Crossroads: What Do We Need to Know and How Can We Come to Know It?”

Bringing together academic presentations and performances (from some of the most prominent voices for democratic, critical, and/or revolutionary pedagogy), panel discussions, community-building, and cultural events, this action-oriented conference will center on questions such as:


✴What is the nature of the crossroads, where do the different paths lead, what are our choices and how do we implement them?

✴What does education for liberation look like compared to education for empire? Class struggle?

✴Are we at a turning point in history? Has the rightward shift stopped or will the economic crisis push the ruling class towards fascism?

✴What are the implications of 2008 election ballot initiatives?

✴How do education, empire, economy, ethics, and democracy intersect in classrooms and schools?

✴How do we learn and teach to get from where we are to where we need to be?

✴How can we educate to liberate ourselves from the impact of empire? OR, How are we teaching to push back the imperializing of our classrooms?

✴How do we stand up for the correctness of our ideas?

✴How does change happen (individually, within a school, within a district)?

✴What support, what conditions facilitate teachers being willing to take the step towards correct action?

To learn more about the conference, please contact any of our conference organizers:

Joe Bishop (joe.bishop@emich.edu)
Greg Queen (rumbagarden@ameritech.net)
Adam Renner (arenner@bellarmine.edu)
Wayne Ross (wayne.ross@ubc.ca)
Rich Gibson (rgibson@pipeline.com)

Submissions:

Review of Paper Proposals treating any of the above questions will begin 1 February 2009. Please send a 250-500 word proposal to Joe Bishop (joe.bishop@emich.edu), describing your work/project/manuscript, how it connects to one of the conference questions, and what participants might take away from attending your session. Classroom teachers and students are strongly encouraged to send their proposals.

Performance Proposals should also be forwarded to Joe Bishop (joe.bishop@emich.edu) by December 15, 2008. Please describe your art/performance and how it may relate to the conference topic/questions.

New Issue Announcement: Workplace #15 (Mental Labor Issue)

The editors of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor are proud to announce our latest issue, which is now available online at http://www.cust.educ.ubc.ca/workplace/. The issue begins with a special “Mental Labor” section, which was generously compiled and guest edited by Steven Wexler. We express our heartiest gratitude to him, as well as to web designers Stephen Petrina and Franc Feng.

The lead section includes:

(I’m)Material Labor in the Digital Age
by Steven Wexler

Autonomy vs. Insecurity: The (Mis)Fortunes of Mental Labor in a Global Network
by David B. Downing

Extreme Work-Study, or, The Real “Kid Nation”
by Marc Bousquet

From the *Grundrisse* to *Capital* and Beyond: Then and Now
by George Caffentzis

Ideology and the Crisis of Capitalism
by Thomas A. Hirschl, Daniel B. Ahlquist and Leland L. Glenna

Gender, Contingent Labor, and Our Virtual Bodies
by Desi Bradley


Our regular segment of “Feature Articles” contains the following:

Capitalism, Audit, and the Demise of the Humanistic Academy
by Charles Thorpe

Troubling Data: A Foucauldian Perspective of “a Multiple Data Source Approach” to Professional Learning and Evaluation
by Mark C. Baildon


And our “Book Reviews” section, edited for the final time by William Vaughn, features four new entries:

*Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire: Towards a New Humanism*
Reviewed by Dana Carluccio

*Taking Back the Workers’ Law: How to Fight the Assault on Labor Rights*
Reviewed by William Vaughn

*Three Strikes: Labor’s Heartland Losses and What They Mean for Working Americans*
Reviewed by Philip Eubanks

*Teachers as Owners: A Key to Revitalizing Public Education*
Reviewed by William Vaughn


The editors are extremely thankful to William Vaughn for years of fine work with the Book Reviews, and we are sorry to see him go. We are pleased to report, however, that Steven Wexler will take on the role of reviews editor in the coming issues.

Thank you for your continuing support of the journal, and please keep *Workplace* in mind as a venue for your future scholarship. Send submissions to cscarter@ou.edu or wayne.ross@ubc.ca.


Solidarity,

Chris Carter
Wayne Ross
Stephen Petrina
Co-editors, Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor