Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society (1971–) [EN, FR, DE, ES, BR-PT, GR, TR, PL]

“Critical discourse on education as practised in ‘modern’ economies. Full of detail on then-current programs and concerns, the book’s core assertions and propositions remain as radical today as they were at the time. Giving real-world examples of the ineffectual nature of institutionalized education, Illich posited self-directed education, supported by intentional social relations, in fluid, informal arrangements. The book is more than a critique — it contains positive suggestions for a reinvention of learning throughout society and throughout every individual lifetime. Particularly striking is his call for the use of advanced technology to support ‘learning webs’.”

Publisher Marion Boyars, London, 1971
ISBN 0714508799, 9780714508795
116 pages

Keywords and phrases
hidden curriculum, Cuernavaca, educational vouchers, profes, Latin America, regressive taxation, CIDOC, Epimetheus, Dennis Sullivan, Paulo Freire, Thomas Kuhn, propositional logic, Aristotle, Puerto Rico, Pandora, nomic, body count, underconsumption

Commentary: Bob Corbett.

Wikipedia
Wikiversity

Deschooling Society (English, 1971, updated on 2012-7-8; PDF (2), HTML)
Une société sans école (French, trans. Gérard Durand, 1971/2015, EPUB, added on 2019-10-1)
Die Entschulung der Gesellschaft. Entwurf eines demokratischen Bildungssystems (German, trans. Helmut Lindemann, 1973, added on 2019-10-1)
La sociedad desescolarizada (Spanish, trans. Gerardo Espinosa, 1973/1985, added on 2019-10-1)
Sociedade sem escolas (BR-Portuguese, 7th ed., trans. Lúcia Mathilde Endlich Orth, 1973/1985, added on 2019-10-1)
Κοινωνία χωρίς σχολεία (Greek, trans. Vasilis Antonopoulos, 1976, added on 2019-10-1)
Okulsuz Toplum (Turkish, trans. Celal Öner, 2006, added on 2019-10-1)
Odszkolnić społeczeństwo (Polish, trans. Łukasz Mojsak, 2010, 50 MB, added on 2019-10-1)

Karin Bijsterveld: Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (2008)

“Since the late nineteenth century, the sounds of technology have been the subject of complaints, regulation, and legislation. By the early 1900s, antinoise leagues in Western Europe and North America had formed to fight noise from factories, steam trains, automobiles, and gramophones, with campaigns featuring conferences, exhibitions, and “silence weeks.” And, as Karin Bijsterveld points out in Mechanical Sound, public discussion of noise has never died down and continues today. In this book, Bijsterveld examines the persistence of noise on the public agenda, looking at four episodes of noise and the public response to it in Europe and the United States between 1875 and 1975: industrial noise, traffic noise, noise from neighborhood radios and gramophones, and aircraft noise. She also looks at a twentieth-century counterpoint to complaints about noise: the celebration of mechanical sound in avant-garde music composed between the two world wars.

Bijsterveld argues that the rise of noise from new technology combined with overlapping noise regulations created what she calls a “paradox of control.” Experts and politicians promised to control some noise, but left other noise problems up to citizens. Aircraft noise, for example, measured in formulas understandable only by specialists, was subject to public regulation; the sounds of noisy neighborhoods were the responsibility of residents themselves. In addition, Bijsterveld notes, the spatial character of antinoise interventions that impose zones and draw maps, despite the ability of sound to cross borders and boundaries, has helped keep noise a public problem. We have tried to create islands of silence, she writes, yet we have left a sea of sounds to be fiercely discussed.”

Publisher MIT Press, 2008
ISBN 0262026392, 9780262026390
350 pages

Keywords and phrases
Anti-Noise, decibel, industrial noise, dB, National Physical Laboratory, noise abatement, Dutch, Netherlands, Art of Noises, earplugs, player piano, gramophone, World Soundscape Project, Trevor Pinch, Rotterdam, North Brabant, ICAO, Barry Truax, psychoacoustics, Breda

publisher

PDF (updated on 2021-4-11)

Paul Rabinow: Anthropos Today: Reflections on Modern Equipment (2003)

The discipline of anthropology is, at its best, characterized by turbulence, self-examination, and inventiveness. In recent decades, new thinking and practice within the field has certainly reflected this pattern, as shown for example by numerous fruitful ventures into the “politics and poetics” of anthropology. Surprisingly little attention, however, has been given to the simple insight that anthropology is composed of claims, whether tacit or explicit, about anthropos and about logos–and the myriad ways in which these two Greek nouns have been, might be, and should be, connected. Anthropos Today represents a pathbreaking effort to fill this gap.

Paul Rabinow brings together years of distinguished work in this magisterial volume that seeks to reinvigorate the human sciences. Specifically, he assembles a set of conceptual tools–“modern equipment”–to assess how intellectual work is currently conducted and how it might change.

Anthropos Today crystallizes Rabinow’s previous ethnographic inquiries into the production of truth about life in the world of biotechnology and genome mapping (and his invention of new ways of practicing this pursuit), and his findings on how new practices of life, labor, and language have emerged and been institutionalized. Here, Rabinow steps back from empirical research in order to reflect on the conceptual and ethical resources available today to conduct such inquiries.

Drawing richly on Foucault and many other thinkers including Weber and Dewey, Rabinow concludes that a “contingent practice” must be developed that focuses on “events of problematization.” Brilliantly synthesizing insights from American, French, and German traditions, he offers a lucid, deeply learned, original discussion of how one might best think about anthropos today.

Publisher Princeton University Press, 2003
ISBN 0691115664, 9780691115665
159 pages

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-10-29)