On 'Critiquing the Vocabularies of the Marketized University' by Natalie Fenton et al

'Critiquing the Vocabularies of the Marketized University', by Natalie Fenton, Des Freedman, Gholam Khiabany and Milly Williamson, which has been published in a special issue of the journal Media Theory on Critique, Postcritque and the Present Conjuncture, is well worth a read.

https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/887/575

For all its concern with the hollowing out of critique in the marketized university, though, could this essay itself have been more critical?

1) Critical University Studies is cited approvingly by Fenton et al. Yet CUS has been heavily criticised by those in favour of an Abolitionist University Studies, for being ‘haunted’ by nostalgia for an expansionist postwar public university system that ignores how that system was ‘underwritten by militarized funding priorities, nationalist agendas, and an incorporative project of counterinsurgency’.

2)  The conclusion of Fention et al. is we that need to remain in the university (rather than plan to leave it as many are now doing) and fight for education as a public good. But if we stay, what are we actually going to do differently by way of resisting the marketized university and freeing ourselves from it (which for them is the purpose of critique)? Fenton et al. recommend continuing to value ‘solidarity forms’ - building ‘friendships and alliances’ etc. – where we can keep the flame of critique alive. But we’ve been doing that for years and its not stopped us getting into this mess. So how is it going to get us out of it?

30-Second Book Review No.2: K Allado-McDowell’s Amor Cringe and Pharmako-AI

30-Second Book Review.

No.2

K Allado-McDowell’s Amor Cringe (Los Angelese: Deluge Books 2022) and Pharmako-AI (London: Ignota Books 2020).

K Allado-McDowell’s pioneering experimental novel Amor Cringe is ‘half traditionally-written and half AI-generated’ (2022), and is published on an all rights reserved basis by Deluge Books.

The same applies to Allado-McDowell’s collection Pharmako-AI, which bills itself as the ‘first book to be co-written with the language AI GPT-3. It is published all rights reserved by Ignota Books, with serif being used to identify those parts written by Allado-McDowell, and serif font the inputs Allado-McDowell gave the model, the rest being written by GPT-3. This ensures the two co-authors – human and machine – remain ontologically distinct. In not being authored primarily by nonhumans, it also ensures both books are copyrightable.

But what if, as Allado-McDowell suggested recently at the Cybernetic Serendipty: Towards AI event in London, art in the 21st century will weave together human and machine intelligences? How will this impact those humanist notions of authorship, attribution and copyright Allado-McDowell seems so anxious to maintain?

Thousands of Readers, But Who Cares?

YouTube video on why lots of YouTube content creators are suffering burnout and quitting.

Because the idea that the internet allows you to do without gatekeepers is a myth. Today, there are more gatekeepers with more power than ever before. It’s just now they’re the recommendation algorithms of TikTok, YouTube et al. rather than the humans that content creators needed to appeal to in the past: the record label execs, movie industry producers and so forth.

And because you can have 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube. But unless you are capable of making someone money, or winning them some awards, nobody in the creative industries cares.

Are there any lessons here for academics? Especially given so many are burning out and quitting too. 

Should we be so surprised if operating in alternative ways to the legacy industries and institutions does not lead to thriving within them over the longer term? Doing so is only a ‘dead end’, surely, if what we really want is to be taken up and accepted by them on their (money-making, awarding winning) terms.

Which leads to the next question provoked by this video: is the point ultimately to be happy within the current western academic industrial complex as it has been generated by the traditional institutions plus the ‘shiny new creator economy’, or is it to change it?

Both would be nice, of course. But is that realistic? Is it even possible?

Authenticity by Bookshelf

Possessing physical copies of books for display on shelves as ‘trophies’ is apparently a thing. It's one of the explanations that's given as to why sales of print books have increased 10-14% in most English-speaking markets over the last few years.

But so, too, it seems is 'bookshelf wealth' - yes, it's big on TikTok. '"Bookshelf wealth" refers to displaying books you've really read', and doing so in a 'loveably messy' way, rather than as color-coordinated props arranged to convey a certain look.

It's yet another way of showing you are 'authentic', to be placed alongside all the others at a time when so much art and culture is not just technologically reproduced (cf. Walter Benjamin), but technologically produced.

Surveillance Fashionism

I see we are now being encouraged to digitise our wardrobes in order to track what we wear. Perhaps reducing consumption could be added to the 5 reasons for doing so that are provided here.

Or we could always do what Open Humanities Press decided to do long ago, of course, and decide to just not track at all. (As a small act of opposition to surveillance capitalism, Open Humanities Press refuses to track who, or what, is reading its books and journals.)

I, of course, will this year be mainly wearing Marina Abramovic and Mark Fisher.