'Memento Mori' by Neil Whitehead
Below is some of the latest from me.
1. GLENN RIKOWSKI WRITING A FOREWORD FOR DAVE HILL’S SINGLE-AUTHORED BOOK ‘MARXIST ESSAYS ON NEOLIBERALISM, CLASS, ‘RACE’, CAPITALISM AND EDUCATION, BRIGHTON, THE INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES, 2013
Glenn Rikowski is writing a Foreword for his writing colleague and friend, Dave Hill, for his forthcoming single-authored book on ‘Marxist essays on neoliberalism, class, ‘race’, capitalism and education’. The book will comprise a selection of Dave’s essays and articles on these topics.
2. GLENN RIKOWSKI ENDORSING FAITH AGOSTINONE WILSON’S FORTHCOMING ‘DIALECTICAL RESEARCH METHODS IN THE CLASSICAL MARXIST TRADITION (Critical Qualitative Research)’, PETER LANG PUBLISHING INC., 2013
ISBN: 10 1433117134; 13 978 1433117138
Glenn has endorsed Faith Agostinone Wilson’s forthcoming book, ’Dialectical Research Methods in the Classical Marxist Tradition’. Faith is an Associate Professor of Education at Aurora University, USA.
Glenn thought the book was fantastic, and breaks through many barriers. This is how his endorsement reads:
“In the last several decades, Marxist educational theorists and researchers have pinpointed particular deficiencies and shortcomings in mainstream educational and social research and its postmodern pretenders. However, until now, there has never been a systematic and sustained critique of capitalist realism, pragmatism, and postmodernism as limiting and constraining forces for educational researchers. Faith Agostinone-Wilson has produced such a book, and furthermore offers an alternative vision for education research that challenges the legitimacy, efficacy, ethical validity, and sustainability of capitalist society and capitalist forms of education and education research.”
We wish Faith Wilson every success with her new book.
3. ‘CAPITORG: EDUCATION AND THE CONDITION OF THE HUMAN IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY’ – BY GLENN RIKOWSKI, REPUBLISHED WITH HEATHCOTE PRESS.
Robert C. Smith of Heathwood Press asked Glenn if he could republish his article on the ‘Capitorg: education and the condition of the human in contemporary society’ and he very happily agreed.
The republished article can be found at:
http://www.heathwoodpress.com/capitorg-education-and-the-constitution-of-the-human-in-contemporary-society/
4. HEATHWOOD PRESS’S NEW WEBSITE
http://www.heathwoodpress.com/
Heathwood Press (who originally contacted us, saying that they would like to re-publish one of Glenn’s articles) has just launched their new website. Heathwood Press is an ‘independent organisation for social progress’.
Its ambition is “… to break down the barriers separating critical theoretical discourse and ‘the everyday practise of social and individual life’ “
One of the new features on the new website includes the organisations GlobalVoice project. This acts as centralised hub or platform for the publication of non-profit research and reports. There is also a new on-site comments system, for the purpose of generating fruitful discussion.
In addition, they are developing a series of critical theory eGuides, ranging on subjects from alternative education and epistemology to alternative economics and ideology critique.
Furthermore, they are also working towards publishing a range of infographics, interactive media, videos and datablogs to further support their present research activity and public engagement campaigns. There are also several new publications in the pipeline.
We wish Heathwood Press every success with their new website, and with their enterprise, with its sound goals and principles in general.
5. ALLISON LITTLEJOHN AND CHRIS PEGLER’S BOOK ‘PREPARNG FOR BLENDED E-LEARNING: understanding blended and online learning (connecting with e-learning) NOW IN ARABIC:
We were delighted when our friend Chris Pegler made contact with us, informing us that one of her books, ‘Preparing for blended e-learning’ (that includes a page about Glenn Rikowski and social networking) had been translated into Arabic. She gave us a copy of the book. The book, as it is in Arabic, reads from back to front and from right to left of course.
The ISBN of the book in Arabic is ISBN – 978 9960 55 948 3 and the website for the publisher is www.ksu.edu.sa
Glenn’s page is about an advertisement that he put on his MySpace page. Glenn was chosen as he was an academic that was very much at the forefront, at the time, when it came to using social networking tools. The page in the book shows Glenn advertising one of the seminars that he organised on ‘Marxism and Education’ at the Institute of Education, University of London. It was ‘Marxism and Education: Renewing Dialogues: IX’ and was advertised on MySpace September 2006 for a One Day Seminar at the Institute of Education, held on 25th October 2006
We hope that Allison Littlejohn and Chris Pegler’s book sells well in the Arabic countries, and we wish them all the very best with it.
6. ISC NEW WEBSITE - http://libr.org/isc/
Information for Social Change has migrated its website to Word Press and now has a new Open Access Policy – see http://libr.org/isc/information-for-social-change-new-open-access-policy/
Hopefully, this will provide new and exciting opportunities for ISC.
7. BIENNIAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION (ISKO UK), 8th – 9th JULY 2013. TO BE HELD AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
http://www.iskouk.org/conf2013/index.htm
Bob Bater, who I have known for many years now (he was one of my book reviewers for ‘Managing Information’ and he contributed a chapter to my Knowledge Management book with Chandos Publishing) informed me about this very interesting conference that he is involved with organising.
This is the Biennial Conference of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO UK) that is to be held on 8th – 9th July 2013 at University College London.
This will be the 3rd biennial conference of ISKO UK.
As it says on the website:
“ISKO is a not-for-profit scientific/professional association with the objective of promoting research and communication in the domain of knowledge organization, within the broad field of information science and related disciplines. The emphasis in our UK Chapter is to build bridges between the research and practitioner communities….”
The following themes will be included in the conference:
1. The dividing line between research and practical implementation and how to achieve better synergy
2. Language boundaries in knowledge organization schemes
3. The power of metadata to bring networked resources together
The papers submitted will be peer-reviewed and published electronically.
Past and future events can be found at http://www.iskouk.org/events.htm
The conference is a packed 2-day programme with many interesting speakers on a variety of themes. Sessions include (amongst others): ‘Ontologies combine with other tools’, ‘Overcoming boundaries in Knowledge Organization Development’ and ‘Boundary Objects and Philosophies’
I was particularly delighted to see Danny Budzak on the programme talking on ‘The Knowledge Organization of Organizational Knowledge’. Danny is an ex-colleague of mine (when we both worked in Newham Libraries) and politically-speaking we are very like-minded.
8. THE SKINTS
Victor Rikowski discovered that some of his school mates from Woodbridge High School that formed a band a few years ago are now very successful and have recently been on tour. They are called ‘The Skints’. Victor saw them live in London and was very excited about it all.
Here are links to a couple of their songs on YouTube:
‘Rub-a-Dub’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtN0CKtX9-s
and
‘Rise Up’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NgOTFQHh8s
Here is some information about them on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skints
9. NEIL’S WHITEHEAD’S PHOTO EXHIBIT - 'MEMENTO MORI'
My second cousin, Neil Whitehead, who also designed our ‘Flow of Ideas’ website, is currently completing his degree in Photography at Southampton University. The work of the 3rd years was exhibited recently at PrintSpace, London, E2 and we went along to the exhibition and met up with Neil and his family.
Neil’s photograph was entitled ‘Memento Mori’ and it is, indeed, a highly original and creative piece of work.
It was a very eventful and memorable day. If you would like to know more about Neil’s work, then do get in touch.
10. 9 NEW ITEMS UP ON MY SERENDIPITOUS MOMENTS BLOG
There are 9 new items up on my Serendipitous Moments blog. These are: ‘Glenda Jackson’s speech on Margaret Thatcher’, ‘The Grieving Process, Thatcher and All That’, ‘The Never Ending Story’ (also now on our website), ‘Radical Book Fair, Conway Hall, London’, ’Memento Mori exhibit by Neil Whitehead at PrintSpace, London’, ‘’May Day Manifesto Relaunch Seminar at Marx Memorial Library’, ‘Thinking Through Spinoza’, ‘Art Tank’ and ‘Ayn Rand’.
Best wishes,
Ruth
N.B. Many thanks to Chris Pegler and Bob Bater for providing information for items for 5 and 7 respectively.
30th June 2013
