Dr Ansgar Allen
School of Education
PhD Programme Director
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- Research interests
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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.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Bartleby is dead : inverting common readings of melville’s bartleby, the scrivener. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 24(5), 61-72. View this article in WRRO
- Beckett and the Plight of the Educator. Other Education, 7(2), 88-96. View this article in WRRO
- The Economic Problem of Masochism in Education. Confero. View this article in WRRO
- The end of education? Nietzsche, Foucault, Genealogy. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 1, 47-65. View this article in WRRO
- The Culture of Education: Ancient Cynicism and 'the scandal of the truth'. materiali foucaultiani. View this article in WRRO
- Bartleby is dead : inverting common readings of melville’s bartleby, the scrivener. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 24(5), 61-72. View this article in WRRO
- Teaching activities
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I teach across a range of programmes in the School of Education, in areas including history and philosophy of education, continental philosophy, educational and social theory, educational politics, childhood studies, academic writing and research methodology. I am responsible for the following modules:
- EDU106 Histories of Education
- EDU310 Philosophies of Education
- EDUT6356 Critical Issues in Education and Educational Research
- EDUT6084 Globalisation and Education
I welcome applications to study for doctoral research degrees, in particular from those wishing to undertake research in the areas of educational philosophy, history and theory.
- Professional activities
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Editorial and professional roles:
- Co-editor of Risking Education, an imprint of Punctum Books
- Pedagogy, Culture and Society Editorial Board Member and Book Reviews Editor
- Power and Education Editorial Board Member
- Other Education Editorial Board Member
- PESGB Branch Secretary
- PESGB Large Grants committee member (2016-18)
- Docent in Philosophy of Education, University of Helsinki
- External Examiner, MA in Philosophy of Education, University of Winchester
In addition to the conference circuit (in the areas of education, utopian studies and literary theory), I have been invited to participate in discussion and speak in a range of academic and non-academic contexts, including the World Forum for Democracy (Strasbourg, France), the International Conference on Reimagining Schooling (Thessaloniki, Greece), the Society for the History of Children and Youth (London, Canada), the Qingshan Education Bureau (Wuhan, China), the German-British Association (Berlin, Germany), the European Network on Neoliberal Education Policy (York, UK), ESRI (Manchester, UK), the Social Theory Group (Manchester, UK), various PESGB seminars across the UK, and the Sheffield Education Collective.