Letting the ghosts in: re-designing HE teaching and learning through posthumanism

Abstract

Alongside the neoliberalisation of UK Higher Education (HE), the values of speed, competition, marketisation and individualism increasingly shape teaching and learning globally. This article takes seriously the feeling of unease expressed by lecturers and students in this context, proposing that posthumanism offers a theoretical, methodological and praxical means to challenge neoliberal logics and their effects. Through assemblages, diffractive analysis and an experimental film, we explore how module re-design and delivery around ‘posthumanist project-based learning’ (PBL) attends to materiality, embodiment, affect, ethicality, social justice and political transformation. We argue that by de-centring the human, posthumanist PBL alerts students, teachers and researchers to the ‘trouble’ that haunts educational experiences and centres an ethics of community that reshapes the boundaries of accountability. Our work indicates how posthumanism might offer new ways to engage in HE knowledge production – and position materiality, care and our common future as the drivers for teaching and learning.