Author Archives: Lindsay Jordan

A Political Theory of the University – some thoughts on a paper by Morgan White

Tonight’s PESGB seminar at the IoE is going to feature Morgan White talking about a political theory of the university. I read his paper (which I’m not sure is publicly available yet) and had some thoughts… White argues that democracy … Continue reading

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Supervision #1

I had my first formal supervision meeting a couple of weeks ago, and then got sucked into a maelstrom of new students. I just about found the time to print flyers and posters and send some feelers out for participants, … Continue reading

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The myth of the autonomous teenager

White, J. 1997. Philosophy and the aims of higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 22 (1), pp7-17. I got a bit low constructing a response to this paper, because it was published in the same year I went to university … Continue reading

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Gadamer and solidarity

After Truth and Method, Gadamer shifted from writing about tradition to solidarity. Both concepts relate to deep-seated agreements about the way things are or should be, but solidarity bears an element of forward-thinking, of future aspirations with a basis of … Continue reading

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Gadamer, Kafka and interpretation

Lawn, C. 2006. Gadamer: A Guide for the Perplexed. Continuum, New York. Gadamer was a traditionalist. He didn’t like the way the dominant scientific method focuses on the future and forgets about the past. He believed that knowledge is interpretation, … Continue reading

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On pure experience

In an assignment I wrote recently on psychedelic experience and education, I cited Huxley’s (1954, p47) call for us to learn ‘to look at the world directly’ rather than through the ‘half-opaque medium of concepts’, and also Watts’ (1971) warning … Continue reading

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On economics

Lurking behind my thesis topic of the purpose of universities in society are questions about how society is organised; i.e. how we put our various resources to use and to what ends. My interest in these questions has directed me … Continue reading

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Some notes on knowledge disciplines and God

Back in March I wrote about Isaiah Berlin’s essay The Fox and the Hedgehog, where he proposes two different categories of thinker/writer; those who view the world through the lens of one defining idea (hedgehog), or those who draw on a … Continue reading

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Some notes about Ludwig Wittgenstein

I’ve resolved to brush up on my knowledge of a few key philosophers. Today I’ve been reading more about Wittgenstein’s life and philosophy, inspired by Ian Ground’s PESGB lecture last week and also because I felt his thoughts about language … Continue reading

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Animal consciousness revisited

I’ve started going along to the PESGB’s Wednesday lectures. Oral comprehension is something I’m trying to get better at (I don’t know whether it’s an attention problem or a processing problem, probably both), but the chats in the bar afterward are a suitable reward, so … Continue reading

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Some reflections on writing an autoethnography about psychedelic experience

I’ve been enjoying Leon Anderson’s 2006 paper on analytic autoethnography, plus half a dozen responses to it, followed by his concluding remarks. The entire exchange is published in a single issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (Vol 35 (4), … Continue reading

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Writing the PhD Journey – the need for balance?

Stanley, P. 2013. Writing the PhD Journey(s): An Autoethnography of Zine-writing, Angst, Embodiment, and Backpacker Travels. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 44 (2) pp143-168 While I find autoethnographies absorbing, I tend to react to them in a not entirely positive way. … Continue reading

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The ‘Truth’ about LSD? Drugs and personal/educational development

A google search for ‘drugs and education’ offers a fair snapshot of the dominant discourse, which generally focuses on drugs and educational failure (delinquency), or educational programmes that promote abstinence. I am currently writing an autoethnography that proposes and explores a connection … Continue reading

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Some notes on the EdD Colloquium

On Saturday 1 July, delegates from EdD programmes across the UK and beyond came to Oxford Brookes to present and discuss work in progress, and hear from keynote speakers on the theme of Academic Voices. Dr Felicity Fletcher-Campbell from the … Continue reading

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Maskell and Robinson – on HE, money, and professionalisation

Maskell, D, and Robinson, I. 2002. The New Idea of a University. Imprint Academic. I loved this book. Ian Robinson and Duke Maskell are both (ex?) professors of English Literature (specialising in Chaucer and Austen respectively), and their book is … Continue reading

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More on this thing we call Curiosity

On the PyRP unit we have been given various things to study on the subject of Curiosity – the Shulman and Schmitt & Lahroodi articles I wrote about earlier, and the following piece by Donald Schön: Schön, D. A. 1992. The … Continue reading

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Getting better at talking to people

(Notes from qualitative data analysis workshop 12.03.16) In Graham’s session on qualitative data analysis we discussed the value of preliminary or ‘primary’ analysis of the data, beginning early in the process of data gathering (i.e. during/after the first interview), with … Continue reading

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Epistemological assumptions – Usher and Scott

This threatened to be rather dry reading, but I’m getting some good stuff out of it. Maybe I’m growing up. The key point Robin Usher makes in Chapters 1 and 2 is that research is a social practice; there is no … Continue reading

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PyRP – 13 February notes

Some things to consider while I’m reengaging with the research methods literature (aided by matcha green tea and the No55 bus): What is driving me to do the research. What is driving my desire to know? (is it my sense of … Continue reading

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The good life?

I’ve not written much over midwinter, mainly because anything I write at this time of year sounds so morose and apathetic that people start to worry about me. But Spring is coming so here I am. I’ve been reading quite a … Continue reading

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