Moderated groups

[David McInerney]

Some of you may have noticed a new group has appeared on Jacques Rancière's book on education. Like the other groups I've set up it is moderated. This is not to keep anyone out - although I can easily remove anyone who is being an absolute nuisance if need be - but it does have the advantage that you don't see a post in the RSS feed every time someone joins or makes a post, so you won't be distracted by that group unless you want to be in it. Also it means that people have to request membership ... but just send a simple request from the group site and I'll approve it, no problems. I'm hoping that we will see some sustained discussion in our discussion groups (moderated or not) sometime soon! Otherwise this site might degenerate into some academic version of facebook.

Those of you interested in the new group might also be interested in this link to the relevant book (taken from the Wikipedia entry).

[Richard Stamp]

HI David

Googling "Rancière" and "ignorant schoolmaster" brought me to your 'Rancière on education' group, so I joined the network. Then Clare gave me prod, so I'd better get round to asking you: I'd like to join, if that's OK.

A brief intro: I teach cultural studies at Bath Spa University (UK), and have been working on Rancière for the last year or two. There's an issue of parallax due in September, which I co-edited with Paul Bowman, and we're also working on a volume of essays for Continuum (for 2010). At a workshop with Rancière last year, I presented a paper on The Ignorant Schoolmaster and pedagogy in cultural studies - so it's this book, in particular, that grabbed my attention (and which I'd place alongside Nights of Labour and The Philosopher and his Poor). Also, reading that book has led me into aspects of practical pedagogical research, using 'social software' to promote 'independent learning'...

Richard