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Ford, Derek R., Ph.D. - Faculty Bio

Ford, Derek R., Ph.D.

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(765) 658-4370

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Education Studies 

Associate Professor of Education Studies

I teach courses on how education has, does, and can help us struggle for, imagine, and enact liberatory ways of being together in the world. My courses depend on and inform my research interests, which are quite varied but generally focus on the relationships between education and political struggles. What moves my research and teaching also moves my organizing with groups like the Indianapolis Liberation Center, ANSWER Coalition, the International Manifesto Group, and others.

I've written a few books, the latest of which is Teaching the actuality of revolution: Aesthetics, pedagogy, and the sensations of struggle. My scholarship appears in a range of academic journals and popular outlets, but I'm increasingly researching and publishing collectively with Education Studies students and alum. I also hosted and helped create the podcast series, Reading Capital with Comrades, which takes listeners through volume 1 of Marx's magnum opus and is available on all major streaming platforms.

I serve as the editor of Liberation School, associate editor of Postdigital Science and Education, deputy editor of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, co-editor of the book series Radical politics and education, and chair of the Hampton Institute's education department. You can see my cv here.

CLASSES

EDUC 170: Foundations of education
EDUC 197: We can't breathe: Identity, capitalism, and air conditions
EDUC 197: Urban revolutions: Space, capitalism, and social change
EDUC 197: The politics of sound: Education and the struggle over listening
EDUC 223: Deconstructing difference
EDUC 275: Radical philosophy and education
EDUC 290: Education, space, and urban revolution
EDUC 290: Art, politics, and education: Unlearning and the aesthetics of struggle
EDUC 325: History of American education
EDUC 360: Political economy of schools
EDUC 390: Pedagogy in the 'post-truth' era
EDUC 390: Philosophy and alternative educational spaces
EDUC 390: Critical disability studies: Disordering education and society
EDUC 480: Educational research
EDUC 490: Senior research seminar
UNIV 183: (North) Korea in Japan: Colonialism and education
UNIV 184: The Baltimore Rebellion: Anatomy of an uprising

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
(click here for a complete list)

* denotes DePauw student/alum
Co-authored with students

  • Ford, D., & Chaparro, D. (2024). (Un)learning aesthetics: Pedagogy and the perceptual ecology of class struggle. Critical Education, 15(1), 1-14.
  • Pappachen, M.S.*, & Ford D. (2023). Historical materialism: A postdigital philosophical method. In P. Jandric, A. MacKenzie, & J. Knox (Eds.), Postdigital research: Genealogies, challenges, and future perspectives. New York: Springer.
  • Ford, D., Swenson, K*, & Fosher, M*. (2022). From the knowable and transparent individual to the secret thought of individuation: An anti-capitalist postdigital ecopedagogy. In P. Jandric & D. Ford (Eds.), Postdigital ecopedagogies: Genealogies, contradictions, and possible futures. New York: Springer.
  • Ford, D., & Sasaki, M.* (2022). The multitude beyond measure: Building a common stupor. Educational Philosophy and Theory, (54)7, 938-945. (republished in A.J. Means, A. Sojot, Y. Ida, and M. Sustarsic (Eds.). (2023). Empire and Education. New York: Routledge.
  • Pappachen, M.*, & Ford, D. (2022). Spreading stupidity: Disability and anti-imperialist resistance to bio-informational capitalism. In M. Peters, P. Jandric, and S. Hayes (Eds.), Bioinformational philosophy and postdigital knowledge ecologies. New York: Springer.
  • Ford, D., & Esposito, M.* (2021). Aesthetic encounters beyond the present: Historical materialism and sonic pedagogies for resisting  abstraction. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 19(3), 32-55.
  • Ford, D., & Sasaki, M.* (2021). Listening like a postdigital human: The politics and knowledge of noise. In M. Savin-Baden (Ed.), Postdigital humans: Transitions, transformations, and transcendence. New York: Springer.
  • Ford, D., Waalkes*, A., Wilcek, S.*, & Cooprider, C.* (2019). An introduction, a wager: Long live radical philosophy and education! In D. Ford (Ed.), Keywords in radical philosophy and education: Common concepts for contemporary movements. Boston: Brill.

Books

Edited books

  • Jandric, P., & Ford, D. (2022). Postdigital ecopedagogies: Genealogies, contradictions, and possible futures. New York: Springer.
  • Ford, D. (2019). Keywords in radical philosophy and education: Common concepts for contemporary movements. Boston: Brill. (*with editorial assistants Anneliese Waalkes '20, Savannah Jo Wilcek '20, and Clayton Cooprider '19)
  • Ford, D., & Malott, C. (2019). Learning with Lenin: Selected works on education and revolution. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
  • Means, A., Ford, D., & Slater, G. (2017). Educational commons in theory and practice: Global pedagogy and politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Porfilio, B., & Ford, D. (2015). Leaders in critical pedagogy: Narratives for understanding and solidarity. Boston: Brill-Sense.

Recent peer-reviewed journal artices
  • (2023). From "authentic" to actual marxist educational theory: Advancing revolutionary pedagogies. International Critical Thought, 13(4), 506-524.
  • (2023). Art, education and the actuality of revolution: Althusser's aesthetic materialism. International Journal of Education Through Art, 19(2), 261-273.
  • (2023). Sonic directions to the urban student: Lyotard, the Megalopolis, and not listening as pedagogy. Contemporary Music Review, 42(2), 426-440.
  • (2023). Rhythmanalysis and the revolutionary rupture of detournement: Lefebvre and the pedagogical rhythms of post-fordism. Postdigital Science and Education, 5(20, 440-454.
Recent podcast interviews
Selected popular articles

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University, 2015
M.S., Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University, 2012
B.A., Peace Studies, Goucher College, 2008