The Para-Academic Handbook

Frustrated by the lack of opportunities to research, create learning experiences or make a basic living within the university on our own terms, para-academics don't seek out alternative careers in the face of an evaporated future; we just continue to do what we've always done: write, research, learn, think and facilitate that process for others. As the para-academic community grows, there is a real need to build supportive networks, share knowledge, ideas and strategies that can allow these types of interventions to become sustainable and flourish. There is a very real need to create spaces of solace, action and creativity.

Para-academics mimic academic practices so they are liberated from the confines of the university. Our work, and our lives, reflect how the idea of a university as a place for knowledge production, discussion and learning, has become distorted by neo-liberal market forces.

We create alternative, genuinely open access, learning-thinking-making-acting spaces on the internet, in publications, in exhibitions, discussion groups or through other mediums that seem appropriate to the situation. We don't sit back and worry about our career developments paths. We write for the love of it; we think because we have to; we do it because we care.

Contenu

Foreword: We Are All Para-Academics Now Gary Rolfe

Para-academia: Reclaiming What Has Been Devastated Deborah Withers & Alex Wardrop

A Procrastination Alex Wardrop

Notes on the Prefix Alexander M. Kokoli

Spaces of Possibility: Pedagogy and Politics in a Changing Institution Lena Wånggren & Maja Milatovic

Interview with Joyce Canaan Joyce Canaan & Deborah Withers

A Pedagogics of Unlearning Éamonn Dunne & Michael O'Rourke

Emboldened and Unterrified: In/ Outside and - In Spite Of - The Neoliberal Academy Christian Garland

A Lesson from Warwick The Provisional University

Beyond the Defence of the Public University: Building a New Schole Kelvin Mason & Mark Purcell

Decentring Knowledge Production - Reflections on Learning Spaces In and Alongside Academic Institutions Laura Sterry

Edge, Empowerment and Sustainability: Para-Academic Practice as Applied Permaculture Design Tom Henfrey

Higher Degree (Un) Consciousness: A Frierean Approach to Post-Graduate Study Emma Durden, Eliza Govender and Sertanya Reddy

Crowdfunding of Academic Books: A Case Study Oliver Leistert & Theo Röhle

Para-Academic Publishing As Public-Making Paul Boshears

An Activist-Academic's Reflections on Para-Academia Louise Livesey

No More Stitch Ups! Media, Research Justice and Fat Activist Community Knowledge Charlotte Cooper

Simultaneous Life and Death in Every Moment Georgina Huntley

On the Academy's Point of Exteriority/ DUST Manifesto Fintan Neylan

The Pros and Cons of Para-Academia: A Personal UK Perspective Tony Keen

Reflections of an Incidental Maverick Paul Hurley

Otherwise Engaged B.J. Epstein

Marginal Inquiries; Precarity, Parergons and Situated Knowledges Margaret Mayhew

Epicurean Rain Eileen Joy

Resources