Thinking with the Concept of Slow Academia
Special issue of Knowledge Cultures (Addleton)
This special issue of Knowledge Cultures aims to engage critically with the concept of ‘slow academia’ to explore possibilities for thinking the university differently beyond the binary of fastness and slowness. ‘Slow academia’ has usually been defined negatively as resistance to the acceleration and relentlessness of academic life in the neoliberal university. And, although the concept has sometimes been criticised as over-simple, nostalgic or elitist, it is a persuasive concept. But other spatiotemporal concepts for thinking – and ‘doing’ – the university differently are possible, for example, the concepts of the transversal institution (Guattari), the undercommons (Harney & Moten), the ecology of practices (Stengers) or the marae (the Māori, or New Zealand Indigenous, meeting place). In this issue, authors are invited to think with the concept of ‘slow academia’ to stretch it in new directions that make sense of their educational practices.
Contributions might address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- ‘slow’ and other interventions in higher education: activism, decolonisation, feasible utopias, feminism, indigenisation, open education, etc.
- speculative, experiential and creative approaches to ‘doing’ the university differently
- theorisation of ‘slow academia’ and ‘slow scholarship’ using critical, posthumanist and postdigital theory
- critical responses to writing on slowness in higher education.
Format for the final submission of the manuscripts
- Manuscripts should be no more than 9,000 words, including the abstract, endnotes and references.
- Each manuscript should include a 250-word abstract and 5 keywords.
- Final manuscripts should follow APA 7 style.
- Each manuscript should have a cover page with the authors’ names and affiliations as they will appear in the journal.
Note that each contributor will be asked to review two other contributors’ manuscripts in a collaborative peer review process.
Please feel free to contact the Editor to discuss topics or approaches to topics, and submit your manuscripts directly to the Editor: s.sturm@auckland.ac.nz
Timeline
- Manuscripts due June 1, 2024
- Reviews conducted and manuscripts returned to authors Aug 1, 2024
- Revised manuscripts due Oct 1, 2024
- Publication Dec 1, 2025
The call as a pdf: Thinking with the Concept of Slow Academia
For an exploration of the theme, see Agnes Bosanquet’s post at The Slow Academic on ‘Universities, goodness and plague‘ …