Greig de Peuter – författare

Utopian Pedagogy is a critical exploration of educational struggles within and against neoliberalism. Editors Mark Coté, Richard J.F. Day, and Greig de Peuter, along with a number of innovative voices from a variety of different academic fields and political movements, examine three key themes: the university as a contested institution, the role of the politically engaged intellectual, and experiments in alternative education. The collection contributes to the debates on the neoliberal transformation of higher education, and to the diffusion of social movements that insist it is possible to create workable alternatives to the current world order.This critical examination of the educational dimension of social and political struggles is presented by both professional academics and activists, many of whom are directly involved in the very experiments they discuss. Rescuing and revaluing the concept of utopia, the editors and their international contributors propose that utopian theory and practice acquire a new relevance in light of the hyper-inclusive logic of neoliberalism. Utopian Pedagogy is a challenge to the developing world order that will stimulate debate in the fields of education and beyond, and encourage the development of socially sustainable alternatives.Contributors:Michael AlbertBrian AlleyneIan AngusAllan AntliffFranco BerardiMarkEdelman BorenGuido BorioEnda BrophyColectivo SituacionesMark CotéMariarosa DallaCostaRichard J.F. DayGreig de PeuterNick DyerWithefordHenry GirouxStuart HallKelly HarrisMartinImran MunirFrancesca PozziGigi RoggeroShveta SardaSarita SrivastavaRichard ToewsCarlos Alberto TorresSebastian TouzaJerry Zaslove

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, video games are an integral part of global media culture, rivaling Hollywood in revenue and influence. No longer confined to a subculture of adolescent males, video games today are played by adults around the world. At the same time, video games have become major sites of corporate exploitation and military recruitment.In Games of Empire, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter offer a radical political critique of such video games and virtual environments as Second Life, World of Warcraft, and Grand Theft Auto, analyzing them as the exemplary media of Empire, the twenty-first-century hypercapitalist complex theorized by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. The authors trace the ascent of virtual gaming, assess its impact on creators and players alike, and delineate the relationships between games and reality, body and avatar, screen and street.Games of Empire forcefully connects video games to real-world concerns about globalization, militarism, and exploitation, from the horrors of African mines and Indian e-waste sites that underlie the entire industry, the role of labor in commercial game development, and the synergy between military simulation software and the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan exemplified by Full Spectrum Warrior to the substantial virtual economies surrounding World of Warcraft, the urban neoliberalism made playable in Grand Theft Auto, and the emergence of an alternative game culture through activist games and open-source game development.Rejecting both moral panic and glib enthusiasm, Games of Empire demonstrates how virtual games crystallize the cultural, political, and economic forces of global capital, while also providing a means of resisting them.

Investigating the wave of unionization that has seen over 60 digital and legacy media outlets unionize since 2015, this book explores how a flash of organizing by digital-first journalists has become a full-blown movement to unionize journalism, particularly in the United States.Through in-depth interviews with journalists and organizers, New Media Unions maps the process of labor organizing, foregrounding journalists’ voices and documenting a historic and ongoing moment in the digital media industry. Cohen and de Peuter examine what motivates union drives, then follow journalists through the making of a union from scratch. They explore how journalists strategically self-organize, apply their communication skills to alternative ends, generate affective bonds of solidarity, and build power to confront anti-union campaigns and bargain first contracts, winning significant gains and drafting a new labor code for journalism in a digital age. This book demonstrates that if journalism is to have a future, it must be organized. New Media Unions provides a counter-perspective on an industry in flux, whose protagonists—young journalists facing precarious futures—are using collective organizing to articulate a bottom-up vision for journalism’s future. This is a valuable resource for academics and researchers interested in political economy, journalism studies, and labor studies.Book website: www.newmediaunions.com