This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details!
C2C: Keynote Speaker Professor Raewyn Connell
Raewyn Connell is Professor Emerita at the University of Sydney and a Life Member of the National Tertiary Education Union. She has taught at Macquarie University, Flinders University, and several universities in other countries. Recent books are Southern Theory (2007), about social thought in the postcolonial world; Confronting Equality (2011), about social science and politics; Gender: In World Perspective (3rd edn, with Rebecca Pearse, 2015) and El género en serio [Gender for Real] (2015). Raewyn’s other books include Schools & Social Justice, Ruling Class Ruling Culture, Gender & Power, Masculinities, and Making the Difference. Her work has been translated into nineteen languages. She is the 2017 recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Jessie Bernard Award. Details can be found at her website www.raewynconnell.net and on Twitter @raewynconnell
As a keynote speaker for #GEAConf2018, Professor Raewyn Connell will be discussing the conference theme by highlighting the global dimension in gender relations, and current debates about knowledge. ‘Post-truth politics’ is not peculiar to the global North, and is not separate from contemporary imperialism. Power on a world scale is still concentrated among groups of privileged men, including corporate managers, the super-wealthy, and military power-holders. But their legitimacy is fragile, which is a reason for the revived appeal to violence in global politics and the turn, in media and domestic politics, to hostile fantasies of threat and protection.
Global feminism has disrupted patriarchal authority very widely, and mass education is one of the most important sites where this has happened. Feminist critique of the mainstream curriculum remains essential. Yet we need to look critically at the global politics of our knowledge about gender, which itself has an imperial history and is challenged by decolonization campaigns
Global feminism has disrupted patriarchal authority very widely, and mass education is one of the most important sites where this has happened. Feminist critique of the mainstream curriculum remains essential. Yet we need to look critically at the global politics of our knowledge about gender, which itself has an imperial history and is challenged by decolonization campaigns. Claims for the universality of knowledge, which provide some resistance to post-truth politics, are subject to familiar feminist critiques, yet cannot be replaced by claims of epistemic privilege. We need, in current conditions, a feminist model of truthful practice as a basis for knowledge and curriculum. Professor Connell hopes to illustrate what this means for teachers’ working lives as well as in theory.
If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2018
