University for Strategic Optimism
= A university based on the principle of free and open education, a return of politics to the public, and the politicisation of public space.
URL = http://universityforstrategicoptimism.wordpress.com/
Description
" The University for Strategic Optimism was founded in the wake of the recent protests to reclaim spaces that belong to the public, making an argument for free and open education in general and the humanties, social-sciences and arts in particular. It does so by conducting guerilla lectures and guerilla research placing an emphasis on the relationship between space, form and content." (http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/blogs/146-infinite-thought/8115-university-for-strategic-optimism-or-what-to-do-with-publicly-owned-banks)
Discussion
Inaugural Lecture
"Welcome, welcome to the University For Strategic Optimism. Below is the script for our first lecture which was communally discussed and collectively written. The lecture will be performed in a bank on Wednesday the 24 of Nov (location to be announced). If you want to take part in taking our university to a bank please do come to Laurie Grove Baths, Laurie Grove, New Cross at 10:30am this Wednesday for the briefing.
“Welcome to the University for Strategic Optimism, a university based on the principal of free and open education, a return of politics to the public, and the politicisation of public space. As our university buildings are being boarded up we inhabit the bank as public space. Not just a public space but the proper and poignant place for the introductory lecture to our course entitled ‘Higher Education, Neo-Liberalism and the State’. We will take up only five minutes of your time for our inaugural lecture but will reconvene in different locations on the dates to be found on the syllabus that should be circulating. Please do check the website for further information and for details about assessment.
How much was spent on the bank bailout? - £850 billion
Who’s paying for this?
- students - workers - pensioners - the unemployed
We at the University for Strategic Optimism reject the false antagonisms set up by the media between these groups and declare our solidarity with them. We are told that we must tighten our belts and sharpen our elbows so that the markets might be appeased, the collapse of society staved off. Along with Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel-prize-winning economist, we puzzle over a world in which the poor subsidise the rich.
Who owns Britain? As our universities are being sacrificed in a futile attempt to maintain the banks, we find our resources depleting. We are forced to be increasingly inventive – exploring new spaces in which to teach, study and research.
A senior treasury official recently said the following:
“Anyone who thinks the spending review is just about saving money is missing the point. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way that government works.”
We at the University of Strategic Optimism share the Conservative Party’s excitement at the possibilities of a transformation!
But this course wants to move beyond this rhetoric and to interrogate how the cuts make sense, to whom, according to which logic. It urges a rampant questioning of the ideological basis for the relentless privitisation and privation of our lives. Are labour, education, healthcare, and the environment, mere commodities, to be consumed by those who will redeem them as more capital? We believe in alternatives.
The University of Strategic Optimism invites everyone to take part in this exciting endeavor. We don’t believe that the people are apathetic and apolitical. There are many good reasons for strategic optimism. There are alternatives. Join us in looking for them.” (http://universityforstrategicoptimism.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/university-for-strategic-optimism-inaugural-lecture/)
Course Outline
"Our basic public services, we are told, are simply too expensive. They must be thrown under the wheels of the megalithic debt that bears down upon us. They must be privatised, corporatised and commodified. All this so we can ensure the continuation of a system that funnels wealth into the hands of a privileged few. This failed and flailing market system, we are told, is the only one that is possible, drastic cuts the only alternative, the fairest thing to do. Any deviation from the path laid out for us will unleash the worst imaginable, a media-imagined Worst that threatens from our darkened skies.
This course offers an emphatic No! to this description of our current situation, and sees instead a magnificent opportunity, a multiplication of possibilities, the opening of a space in which we might think about, and bring about, a fairer and wealthier society for all. In short: Many good reasons for strategic optimism!
High profile economists from all sides tell us that the cuts make no fiscal sense. This course seeks to move beyond this point, to interrogate how the cuts make sense, to whom, according to which logic. It urges a rampant questioning of the ideological basis for the relentless privitisation and privation of our lives: Are these cuts incoherent, as some have said? Or is this a specific move/set of moves on the part of neo-liberal capital? Are labour, education, healthcare, and the environment, mere commodities, to be consumed by those who will redeem them as more capital? Can the opposition to cuts begin moving towards a society ‘fit for purpose’? Is it still easier to imagine The End-of-the-World than The End-of-Capitalism?" (http://universityforstrategicoptimism.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/syllabus-for-winter-of-discontent-term/)
More Information
- Interview: In conversation with Prof. Grave Riddle (University for Strategic Optimism), http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11464360/MENT01-web-ufso.pdf