Ford, Derek R., Ph.D. - Faculty Bio

Education Studies

Associate Professor of Education Studies, Chair of the Education Studies Department and Coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program

I am associate professor of philosophy and history of education and teach courses on how education has, does, and can help us imagine, struggle for, and enact liberatory ways of being together in the world. My courses depend on and inform my research interests, which are quite varied but generally focus on the relationships between education and political movements. If you like podcasts, I think the brilliant hosts of Nothing Never Happens helped me articulate the larger picture of my work in this interview.

I've written a few books, the latest of which is Teaching the Actuality of Revolution: Aesthetics, Pedagogy, and the Sensations of Struggle (and you can hear about on Revolutionary Left Radio). Until the next round of cutbacks come, I am deputy editor of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies and associate editor of Postdigital Science and Education. My work appears in a range of scholarly journals and popular outlets. I hosted and co-created the podcast series, Reading Capital with Comrades, which takes listeners through volume 1 of Marx's magnum opus and is available on all major streaming platforms, and helped write and produce the mini-documentary, "26 Years Too Long: Vernon T. Bateman's Fight for Freedom."

What moves my research and teaching also moves my organizing. I am the Coordinator of Free Shaka Shakur, Education Department Chair at the Hampton Institute, and an organizer with the the Indianapolis Liberation Center and the International Manifesto Group, among other groups. I also serve as the editor of Liberation School and chair of the Hampton Institute's education department.

You can see my cv here.

CLASSES

EDUC 170: Foundations of education
EDUC 197: We can't breathe: Identity, capitalism, and air conditions
EDUC 197: Urban revolutions: Space, capitalism, and social change
EDUC 197: Art, politics, and education
EDUC 197: The politics of sound: Education and the struggle over listening
EDUC 223: Deconstructing difference
EDUC 275: Radical philosophy and education
EDUC 290: Education, space, and urban revolution
EDUC 290: Art, politics, and education: Unlearning and the aesthetics of struggle
EDUC 325: History of American education
EDUC 360: Political economy of schools
EDUC 390: Pedagogy in the 'post-truth' era
EDUC 390: Philosophy and alternative educational spaces
EDUC 390: Critical disability studies: Disordering education and society
EDUC 480: Educational research
EDUC 490: Senior research seminar
UNIV 183: (North) Korea in Japan: Colonialism and education
UNIV 184: The Baltimore Rebellion: Anatomy of an uprising

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
(click here for a complete list)

* denotes DePauw student/alum
Co-authored with students

• Ford, D., & Chaparro, D. (2024). (Un)learning aesthetics: Pedagogy and the perceptual ecology of class struggle. Critical Education, 15(1), 1-14.
• Pappachen, M.S.*, & Ford D. (2023). Historical materialism: A postdigital philosophical method. In P. Jandric, A. MacKenzie, & J. Knox (Eds.), Postdigital research: Genealogies, challenges, and future perspectives. New York: Springer.
• Ford, D., Swenson, K*, & Fosher, M*. (2022). From the knowable and transparent individual to the secret thought of individuation: An anti-capitalist postdigital ecopedagogy. In P. Jandric & D. Ford (Eds.), Postdigital ecopedagogies: Genealogies, contradictions, and possible futures. New York: Springer.
• Ford, D., & Sasaki, M.* (2022). The multitude beyond measure: Building a common stupor. Educational Philosophy and Theory, (54)7, 938-945. (republished in A.J. Means, A. Sojot, Y. Ida, and M. Sustarsic (Eds.). (2023). Empire and Education. New York: Routledge.
• Pappachen, M.*, & Ford, D. (2022). Spreading stupidity: Disability and anti-imperialist resistance to bio-informational capitalism. In M. Peters, P. Jandric, and S. Hayes (Eds.), Bioinformational philosophy and postdigital knowledge ecologies. New York: Springer.
• Ford, D., & Esposito, M.* (2021). Aesthetic encounters beyond the present: Historical materialism and sonic pedagogies for resisting  abstraction. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 19(3), 32-55.
• Ford, D., & Sasaki, M.* (2021). Listening like a postdigital human: The politics and knowledge of noise. In M. Savin-Baden (Ed.), Postdigital humans: Transitions, transformations, and transcendence. New York: Springer.
• Ford, D., Waalkes*, A., Wilcek, S.*, & Cooprider, C.* (2019). An introduction, a wager: Long live radical philosophy and education! In D. Ford (Ed.), Keywords in radical philosophy and education: Common concepts for contemporary movements. Boston: Brill.

Books

• Ford, D. (2023). Teaching the actuality of revolution: Aesthetics, unlearning, and the sensations of struggle. Madison: Iskra Books.
• Ford, D. (2022). Communist study: Education for the commons, 2nd ed. Lanham: Lexington Books. (1st ed. published 2016).
• Ford, D. (2022). Encountering education: Elements for a marxist pedagogy. Madison: Iskra Books.
• Ford, D. (2021). Marxism, pedagogy, and the general intellect: Beyond the knowledge economy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Ford, D. (2021). Inhuman educations: Jean-Francois Lyotard, pedagogy, thought. Boston: Brill.
• Ford, D. (2019). Politics and pedagogy in the "post-truth" era: Insurgent philosophy and praxis. London: Bloomsbury.
• Ford, D. (2017). Education and the production of space: Political pedagogy, geography, and urban revolution. New York: Routledge

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University, 2015
M.S., Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University, 2012
B.A., Peace Studies, Goucher College, 2008

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