Dr Ansgar Allen

Based on the idea that academic form restricts (and is often in ironic relation to) academic content, my writing experiments with style, ranging from more standard academic tropes to the fictive and fragmentary.

As well as the usual research outputs (peer-reviewed papers), I have written three academic books, co-written a textbook, and have published a range of book chapters, reviews, encyclopaedia entries, blogs, and media articles listed here.

Research interests include the role of ancient Cynicism as an ‘educational philosophy’, the function of contemporary cynicism in education, and the construction of the Western-educated subject.

My research traces the development of educational subjectivities, including the history of our commitment to the supposed inherent value of education and the importance of being ‘educated’. In my writing and teaching, I study the unquestionable goods of education, remaining open to the possibility that education in all its forms (even where it appears most benign) is a form of violence. My work attempts a history of its good intentions.

My research has benefited from the support of a PESGB fellowship (2014) as well as a number of smaller research, conference and travel grants.