Eric Ferris – författare

This book critically interrogates the function of schooling in the United States of America using the writings of sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Asking whether the function is to produce citizens, workers, a combination of the two, or something altogether different, it argues that the designs of schooling are part of a carefully crafted ordering, illustrated via an analysis of the ways in which schooling introduces students to various forms of coercion and seduction that socialize students in particular ways: ways that support an order.

By engaging with the prolific and insightful works of one of the most prominent social thinkers of the 21st century, this book considers schooling and its contributions to order. Be they solid or liquid modern ordering mechanisms, ordering through repression and seduction, or supporting ordering through the creation of boundaries separating an “orderly inside” from its “disorderly outside,” schools imperfectly support the construction of order and in doing so, privilege some representations and individuals over others. To order is to harness ambivalence and steer it in directions that privilege the “in” group at the expense of the “out” group; and schools, from the curriculum they teach to the values and ideas they promote, are desirable captive marketplaces instrumental in steering this ambivalence.

The author ultimately suggests that the function of schools, whether recognized or not, are not so much to educate students to be free thinkers, but rather to be orderly cogs in a particular functional social machine. As such, the book will be of interest to faculty, scholars, and postgraduate-level students with interests in the sociology of education, schooling, sociology, and social theory.

This book critically interrogates the function of schooling in the United States of America using the writings of sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Asking whether the function is to produce citizens, workers, a combination of the two, or something altogether different, it argues that the designs of schooling are part of a carefully crafted ordering, illustrated via an analysis of the ways in which schooling introduces students to various forms of coercion and seduction that socialize students in particular ways: ways that support an order.

By engaging with the prolific and insightful works of one of the most prominent social thinkers of the 21st century, this book considers schooling and its contributions to order. Be they solid or liquid modern ordering mechanisms, ordering through repression and seduction, or supporting ordering through the creation of boundaries separating an “orderly inside” from its “disorderly outside,” schools imperfectly support the construction of order and in doing so, privilege some representations and individuals over others. To order is to harness ambivalence and steer it in directions that privilege the “in” group at the expense of the “out” group; and schools, from the curriculum they teach to the values and ideas they promote, are desirable captive marketplaces instrumental in steering this ambivalence.

The author ultimately suggests that the function of schools, whether recognized or not, are not so much to educate students to be free thinkers, but rather to be orderly cogs in a particular functional social machine. As such, the book will be of interest to faculty, scholars, and postgraduate-level students with interests in the sociology of education, schooling, sociology, and social theory.

This book examines the intensification of fascist politics in contemporary America via an analysis of the fundamental shift in relationships between political fringes and institutions of power, situating the rise of contemporary fascist politics within a broader culture of pedagogy.

Employing an interpretive and theoretically synthetic approach, it brings together phenomenology, critical theory, moral philosophy, social theory, cultural analysis, and educational theory to interrogate the cultural politics of moral insensitivity. Informed by Elias Canetti''s seminal work Crowds and Power, the authors explore how crowds, death, and menace have become central to American political culture, offering an essayist approach to understanding fascist crowd politics through four key analytical frameworks: Education as a battleground for defining American identity, crowd manipulation and social menace, the manufacturing of social and political death, and the weaponization of "anti-woke" rhetoric. Engaging with theorists including Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe, and Zygmunt Bauman, each chapter provides a standalone analysis while contributing to a comprehensive and sophisticated critique of American-style fascism''s threat to pluralistic democracy.

An original, theoretically rigorous, and urgently needed contribution to understanding how fascism functions as a cultural and pedagogical project, it will hold strong appeal for scholars and upper-level students of sociology, political theory, and educational studies, with interest in morality, culture, right-wing extremism, and fascism.

This book examines the intensification of fascist politics in contemporary America via an analysis of the fundamental shift in relationships between political fringes and institutions of power, situating the rise of contemporary fascist politics within a broader culture of pedagogy.

Employing an interpretive and theoretically synthetic approach, it brings together phenomenology, critical theory, moral philosophy, social theory, cultural analysis, and educational theory to interrogate the cultural politics of moral insensitivity. Informed by Elias Canetti''s seminal work Crowds and Power, the authors explore how crowds, death, and menace have become central to American political culture, offering an essayist approach to understanding fascist crowd politics through four key analytical frameworks: Education as a battleground for defining American identity, crowd manipulation and social menace, the manufacturing of social and political death, and the weaponization of "anti-woke" rhetoric. Engaging with theorists including Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe, and Zygmunt Bauman, each chapter provides a standalone analysis while contributing to a comprehensive and sophisticated critique of American-style fascism''s threat to pluralistic democracy.

An original, theoretically rigorous, and urgently needed contribution to understanding how fascism functions as a cultural and pedagogical project, it will hold strong appeal for scholars and upper-level students of sociology, political theory, and educational studies, with interest in morality, culture, right-wing extremism, and fascism.