Avainsana: poised

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Pasi Takkisen artikkeli kestävyydenjälkeisestä ajasta

Väitöskirjatutkija ja kasvatusfilosofi Pasi Takkinen tutkii kestävyydenjälkeistä aikaa eli post-sustainability-käsitettä, joka ilmentää tutkijoiden epävarmuutta ja huolta kestävyyden tulevaisuudesta. Hänen keväällä 2025 julkaisemansa laaja kirjallisuuskatsaus tarkastelee eri tieteenalojen keskustelua siitä, onko kestävyyden käsite enää relevantti ja mitä kestävyydenjälkeinen aika voisi tarkoittaa.

Tutkimuksen mukaan antroposeenin edetessä perinteinen kestävyyskäsitys on joutunut kyseenalaistetuksi, ja monet tutkijat pohtivat, millainen tulevaisuus on mahdollinen, jos kestävyyttä ei enää voida saavuttaa. Kestävyydenjälkeinen aika viittaa tilanteeseen, jossa epäjatkuvuudet ja kriisit korostuvat, ja tarvitaan uusia lähestymistapoja tulevaisuuden hahmottamiseen. Lue lisää Tampereen yliopiston julkaisemasta tiedotteesta.

Artikkeli: Takkinen, P. (2025). Post-sustainability: A hermeneutic literature review. The Anthropocene Review, 0(0). DOI: 10.1177/20530196251339474

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The Hidden Histories of the “Attention Crisis” in Education

In an era of digital distractions and AI-driven media, strategies to reclaim focus—like meditation, unplugging, and reconnecting with nature—are widely promoted. But what if our understanding of attention is shaped by deeper historical forces?

A new open-access article in Educational Theory by Antti Saari and Bernadette Baker explores the long-standing connections between attention, spirituality, and education. The authors trace contemporary concerns about the “attention crisis” back to European Christian monastic traditions, where disciplining attention was tied to both personal transformation and practices of Othering.

Their research uncovers how medieval vigilance and soul-governing techniques became embedded in Christian empire-building, influencing modern educational approaches to focus and distraction. By examining these historical trajectories, the authors reveal how today’s discussions on attention remain entangled with spiritual binaries and exclusionary logics.

Read the full article here.

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New Article on the History of Datafication in Education

Datafication is often portrayed as a revolutionary development within and beyond educational governance. It is believed to usher in novel modes of governance, foster new relationships between private and public entities, and introduce innovative data technologies along with new forms of research and scholarship.

Amid the prevailing focus on what’s new , Antti Saari examines the ghosts of data futures past. He delves into the historical continuities of datafication in education, shedding light on the overlooked aspects of past data revolutions and their varying success in driving substantial changes within the field of education.

You can access the article here (open access)

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Examining the psychologization of student subjectivity in Finnish universities

In a recent article in Sociological Research Online Antti Saari, together with Kristiina Brunila and Saara Vainio (University of Helsinki) analyze the assemblages involved in constructing the university student as a mentally vulnerable individual.

Abstract: Public debate and media attention concerning mental health problems, stress, psycho-emotional vulnerabilities, and anxiety among university students has reached record level. Informed by media representations, student mental health guides, and our observations, we focus on the ethos of vulnerability as an articulation of psychologized student subjectivity in Finnish academia. We explore the multiple registers in which the ethos of vulnerability tends to operate as an assemblage to depict and govern student subjects.

You can access the OA article The Psychologization of Student Subjectivity in the Finnish Academia here.

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New Article: Proustian lessons on self-cultivation

In a recently published article in Philosophical Inquiry in Education, Antti Saari and Jan Varpanen discuss the cultivation of desire from a psychoanalytic point of view.

Abstract: Taking Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) as a literary vehicle, this article uses a psychoanalytic lens to examine the problem of what to do with our desires in the philosophy of education. The article describes an apprenticeship, a personal process of learning in which an ethical rapport with desire can be established. Apprenticeship entails a temporal relationship called “afterwardsness” (Nachträglichkeit), in which the subject constructs the truth of its desires in hindsight. This result can only be achieved by first failing to see the possibility of attaining the object of desire and then eventually coming to understand the nature of desire in general. While others have framed the relationship between desire and education in terms of either fulfilling one’s desires or questioning their desirability, we argue that a more lasting ethical attunement to desire can be found via an apprenticeship in failure.

You can read the article (open access) here.