Cultural and Educational Institutions

This strand of IMCC research concerns the impact of political, technological and economic shifts in modern and contemporary society upon cultural and educational institutions, and in particular the increasingly – conceptual and institutional – overlapping roles of education, culture and art. This is reflected in a range of interests – from the educational value of photography at the Regent Street Polytechnic (the forerunner of the University of Westminster), the creative practices lost with the decline of the art school, creative interpretation of the British Library’s archival material, to analysis of the contemporary changes in education – that is united in a shared critical concern with the educational function of culture and art.

The IMCC also hosts the Higher Education And Theory (HEAT) network, which has run international conferences on  Avant-Garde Pedagogies  (2016), Educational Eliminationism and Cultural Colonization (2014), and Walter Benjamin, Pedagogy and the Politics of Youth (2013).

Selected Research

John Beck and Matthew Cornford, The Art School in Ruins
Matthew Charles, ‘Lines in Class: The Ongoing Attack on Mass Education’
Matthew Charles, ‘Philosophy for Children’
Matthew Charles (with Howard Eiland), ‘Walter Benjamin and Education‘, special issue of Boundary 2.
Matthew Charles, ‘Walter Benjamin and the Inhumanities: Towards a Pedagogical Anti-Nietzscheanism’ in Pedagogies of Disaster
Matthew Charles, ‘Teaching in Spite of Excellence‘
David Cunningham, What is to be done? (Education)
Sara Dominici, ‘Tourist photographers and the promotion of travel: the Polytechnic Touring Association, 1888–1939‘
Peter Ride, ‘Reflections on “Resolutely Analogue? Art Museums in Digital Culture”’
Peter Ride, ‘Redefining Access: Redefining Access: Embracing multimodality, memorability and shared experience in Museums‘