Education and Counterinterpellation: A New Look at Louis Althusser

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This panel will examine the French Marxist Louis Althusser’s thinking about education, particularly in light of a slew of recent translations of his middle and later works: The Humanist Controversy and Other Texts (2003), Philosophy of the Encounter: Later writings, 1978-1987 (2006), and On the Reproduction of Capitalism (2014), and a concomitant renewal of interest in Althusser’s thinking. Specifically, the panel will provide theoretical elaborations on Althusser's significance in education through the lenses of race and gender; counter-interpellation and dis-interpellation; and the importance of Party membership; focusing on Althusser’s idea of the “scholastic apparatus” and the recently-theorized notion of counter-interpellation.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Marxian Analysis of Society, Schools, and Education

Chair

• David Backer, Cleveland State University

Papers

• Introduction to Counterinterpellation: Freedom, Discussion, and Relations of Production - David Backer, Cleveland State University

• Counterinterpellation and Student Narratives, Inclusion or Resistance? - Jessica Lussier, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Hip-Hop and Black English: The Ultimate Counterinterpellations - Awad Ibrahim, University of Ottawa

• Critical Pedagogy: It's Time to Join the Party - Derek Ford

• On the Educational Potentiality of Disinterpellation - Tyson E. Lewis, University of North Texas