Papers by Megha Summer Pappachen
Postdigital Science and Education, 2023
This chapter advances historical materialism as a postdigital research method. It wagers that his... more This chapter advances historical materialism as a postdigital research method. It wagers that historical materialism and postdigitalism are compatible—fellow travelers, companions even. We focus on Marx’s oft-misunderstood base and superstructure model which has strangely served as a stand-in for the entire marxist method in many students’ educations. Through a close textual analysis of this model (and in conversation with postdigital concepts and sensibilities) we rescue historical materialism from the determinism, stageism, and linear developmentalism so often assigned to it. Postdigital concepts help us gain a deeper understanding of historical materialism beyond its caricature in U.S. academia. Historical materialism, in turn, helps us understand capitalist relations under the postdigital era more precisely. We also excavate a serendipitous, common origin story between marxist and biological methodology. Ultimately, in a time of deepening suffering for most of the working people of the world, we sense the need to combine theoretical forces, unite disparate apparatuses, and build a united research front that can take on the postdigital challenges in front of us.
socialist transformation of society." 1 Driven by international, coalitional, intersectional, and... more socialist transformation of society." 1 Driven by international, coalitional, intersectional, and revolutionary politics, the PSL organizes the working people of the world to take back their power. As we will see, the party has a crucial role to play in shaping my narrators and my own political consciousness. Narrator biographies. Lastly, I have included here brief biographies for my narrators. Their only purpose is to provide some facts about my narrators that are relevant to this project. Neena is my mother's name, here I refer to her as "Maa." She is an Indian immigrant, and 50 years old. She has worked as a teacher most of her life, and moved to the United States with my family eight years ago from Mumbai, India. When we came to this country, she did not work for a few years, but began working in schools in Chicago three years ago. She now has two jobs as a teacher and an after school teacher in Chicago Public Schools. Aviva is a 23 year old trans woman, secular Jew, and revolutionary socialist. She grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and now lives in Chicago with her partner. She is a student, long-time care worker for people with disabilities, and an organizer with the Chicago branch of the PSL and the ANSWER Coalition. Beth is in her 70s, and is a lifelong organizer with the PSL and the ANSWER Coalition. She is revered in the PSL for her years of activism and wisdom. Beth was married to her late partner, Bill, who was also a beloved revolutionary fighter with the PSL for almost 55 years. Beth nursed Bill in the last ten years of his life as his health debilitated. She worked all her life, mostly as an accountant, and is now living in Chicago. Sammy is in her 20s, and is also an organizer with the PSL and the ANSWER Coalition. She is a student at Northern Illinois University, and lives with her partner, Brian, in Chicago.
Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies
In what follows, we show how a productivist pedagogy is the fundamental educational motor of not ... more In what follows, we show how a productivist pedagogy is the fundamental educational motor of not only capitalism (in its bioinformational, colonial, and imperialist forms) but also its attendant oppressions such as ableism. In response, we propose a theory and practice of stupidity as a socialist and anti-imperialist form of resistance, one that is subversive precisely because it is not productive. Stupidity as a knowledge thwarts bioinformational capitalism’s attempts and ability to valorize and exploit knowledge: thereby repelling its increasing command over labor and life. The primary reason is that stupidity can’t be quantified, measured, communicated, articulated, or rendered transparent. This means that stupidity is not a lack of determinate knowledge because such a lack would always refer to something that is already known. Stupidity, then, is not ‘opposed to knowledge’ but rather entails ‘the absence of a relation to knowing’ (Ronell 2002: 5). Viewed this way, our current political struggle is not merely one of ownership but one of pedagogy as well. Stupidity becomes a key aspect of a knowledge ecology oriented against bioinformational capitalist exploitation and oppression.
book chapters by Megha Summer Pappachen
Postdigital research, 2023
This chapter advances historical materialism as a postdigital research method. It wagers that his... more This chapter advances historical materialism as a postdigital research method. It wagers that historical materialism and postdigitalism are compatible—fellow travelers, companions even. We focus on Marx’s oft-misunderstood base and superstructure model which has strangely served as a stand-in for the entire marxist method in many students’ educations. Through a close textual analysis of this model (and in conversation with postdigital concepts and sensibilities) we rescue historical materialism from the determinism, stageism, and linear developmentalism so often assigned to it. Postdigital concepts help us gain a deeper understanding of historical materialism beyond its caricature in U.S. academia. Historical materialism, in turn, helps us understand capitalist relations under the postdigital era more precisely. We also excavate a serendipitous, common origin story between marxist and biological methodology. Ultimately, in a time of deepening suffering for most of the working people of the world, we sense the need to combine theoretical forces, unite disparate apparatuses, and build a united research front that can take on the postdigital challenges in front of us.
Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies, 2022
This chapter advances a particular form of socialist knowledge and demonstrates why it is necessa... more This chapter advances a particular form of socialist knowledge and demonstrates why it is necessary for resistance against bioinformational capitalism. By engaging concepts of secrecy and opacity, we advocate for a socialist (and specifically anti-imperialist) knowledge that can resist within conditions of a new, emergent era. We begin by drawing on lessons from critical disability studies, revisiting how autism was once framed by advocacy conglomerates as an ‘epidemic’ — as a kind of viral stupidity that threatens liberal democratic imperialism. Early forms of bioinformational capitalism declared war on that autism, and salivated over its inarticulable, opaque, “secret life” of disability (McGuire 2006). Agents of capital within schools, hospitals, and homes demanded that the disabled sit up straight, speak clearly, and express themselves - for only that which is expressed can be exploited.
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Papers by Megha Summer Pappachen
book chapters by Megha Summer Pappachen