A song of teaching with free software in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Bernard Stiegler highlights many of the problems faced by education with respect to the ‘bringing forth’ of knowledge on an individual, collective, and technical level in the Anthropocene. These problems include the short-circuiting of dreams, automatization of thought, and toxic digital networks. Stiegler’s φάρμακον (pharmakon) seeks to treat the toxicity of the Anthropocene with a care-ful hermeneutic approach that is directed towards the disautomatized, inventive, co-individuating knowledge act. This paper first explores Stiegler’s Anthropocene and his development of Heideggerian ποίησις (poeisis) in terms of the challenge of the ‘bringing forth’ of knowledge acts, which are illustrated by free software. It then explores, through the additional example of free radio, of Félix Guattari’s work in free radio, the problem and possibility of creative co-individuating ex-pression in the Anthropocene by expanding on Stiegler’s emphasis on the importance of hermeneutics. This raises the question of how to read Stiegler’s own ex-pression of the future of knowledge. Next, the paper reviews Stiegler’s educational project involving a dis-automatizable hermeneutic web. Finally, the paper gives an autoethnographic account of an attempt to ‘bring forth’ learning through the implementation of free software in local, online classrooms. The free software example does not solve the problem of the Anthropocene but does raise the question of our responsibility to choose our digital tools care-fully and the importance of maintaining the possibility of co-individuating ex-pression like the kind that is remembered in song and which online education should remind us of.

Keywords:

• Negentropy
• co-individuation
• digital humanities
• critical pedagogy
• mythopoeisis
• hermeneutics

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Notes on contributors

Greta Goetz

Greta Goetz, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. Her research is concerned with developing the potential of project-based networked learning and epistemic fluency to restore intercultural rifts such as the science and technology-humanities divide, the meanings and limitations of “digital literacy”, and the problem of receptivity in intercultural dialogue. Her work is informed by her East-West background and some of it can be found at https:gretzuni.com.