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Crisis of the private? Digital technology, raising children, and the bypassing of speech

01 May 2024, 5:30 pm–7:15 pm

A girl using a tablet device whilst seated on a couch (Image: Svitlana / Adobe Stock)

Join this event to hear Stefan Ramaekers investigate how the invasion of the other's (inner) life by devices constitutes the bypassing of speech in the parent-child relationship.

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All

Availability

Yes

Cost

Free

Organiser

Yuxin Su

Location

Nunn Hall
UCL IOE
20 Bedford Way
London
WC1H 0AL

In the Black Mirror episode “Arkangel,” an implant in a girl’s temple provides a visual feed and real-time physiological information to her mother. Affordances of contemporary devices illustrate that this is not far from reality.

Drawing on Cavell’s conception of “speech”, what it means to share language and to accept “the human body as the best picture of the human soul” draws out the relevance of the private (as otherness) in the parent-child relationship.


This in-person event will be particularly useful for those interested in Cavell and Wittgenstein's philosophy, parenting, and the role technology can play in child raising and education more generally.


PESGB seminar series

This event is part of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) seminar series. PESGB is a learned society that promotes the study, teaching and application of philosophy of education. Its London Branch hosts seminars every Wednesday in conjunction with the Centre for Philosophy of Education. These seminars are led by national and international scholars in the field, covering a wide range of issues of educational and philosophical concern.

All are welcome to attend.


Related links

About the Speaker

Professor Stefan Ramaekers

Professor at the Laboratory for Education and Society

His research is situated in the field of educational philosophy, at the intersection of the Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophical traditions, and finds inspiration in the work of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Berardi.

His main focus is a critical investigation of the contemporary discourse of parenting, specifically: the instrumentalisation, scientisation, and (neuro)psychologisation of upbringing; the pedagogical role of parents; the meaning of digital technologies (e.g. parenting apps) in raising children.

He has written also about the pedagogical stakes of film, postmodernism and skepticism, and the nature of educational research.