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A Map of Techno-Politics of the Future University: Deep Convergence, Platform Ontologies, and Cognitive Efficiency

Michael A. Peters
Thesis Eleven Forum for Social and Political Theory

Thesis Eleven Forum for Social and Political Theory presents a public lecture delivered by Professor Michael A. Peters (Beijing Normal University). This lecture coincided with a week of workshops and conference on Global Education co-hosted by the International Education Association Australia.

The supreme value of cognitive efficiency requires that we participate and labour endlessly, that we give away our data free, and that we integrate ourselves into the soon to be one trillion-dollar data monopolies of surveillance capitalism, a form of ‘digital authoritarianism’. The ‘dataism’ that creates new ‘platform ontologies’ now threaten the tracking and hacking of the body. The US National Science Foundation has been working on the notion of ‘converging technologies’ for over a decade. The ‘new paradigm’ consists in a deep and progressive convergence of ‘nano-bio-info-cogno’ (NBIC) technologies that signal a revolutionary integration of science at the nano-level. The final phase of this convergence is the application of ‘cogno’ technologies — the least mature — funded through cognitive neuroscience that focuses on cognitive efficiency to harness a ‘bio-informationalism’ of a re-/programmed body. This is the map of the techno-politics of the future university and the battleground of the algorithmic academy in which philosophy and the critical humanities are dying.

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Michael A. Peters

Michael A. Peters (FRSNZ, FHSNZ, FPESA) is a globally recognised scholar whose interdisciplinary work spans philosophy of education, political economy and ecological civilisation. He holds the distinction of Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U.S.A.), Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University (P.R. China), and Research Associate in the Philosophy Program at Waikato University (New Zealand).

Previously, he served as Distinguished Professor of Education at Beijing Normal University (2018–2024) and held prestigious appointments including Personal Chair at the University of Auckland (2000), Research Chair at the University of Glasgow (2000–2006), Excellence Hire Professor at the University of Illinois (2005–2011), and Professor of Education at the University of Waikato (2011–2018).

A prolific author, Professor Peters has written over 120 books and 500 articles, shaping discourse in educational theory, philosophy, and critical policy studies. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Educational Philosophy and Theory for 25 years and founded multiple international journals, cementing his role as a leader in academic publishing.

His contributions have been honoured with fellowships in the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ, 2008) and the Humanities Society of New Zealand (FHSNZ, 2006), alongside honorary doctorates from State University of New York (SUNY, 2012) and the University of Aalborg (2015).

His latest research explores post-apocalyptic philosophy and ecological futures, including the forthcoming Civilisational Collapse and the Philosophy of Post-Apocalyptic Survival (Peter Lang, 2025). He is currently editing the Handbook of Ecological Civilization (Springer, 2025), advancing critical dialogues on sustainability and global transformation.

For more on his work, visit: https://michaeladrianpeters.com/