YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION:
BETWEEN BENJAMIN AND AGAMBEN
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34813/26coll2024Słowa kluczowe:
youth, Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, Education, technologyAbstrakt
In this paper, I reflect on the modern conception of youth and its relevance, or perhaps irrelevance, to the growing use of technological tools, like Zoom for teaching and learning. For this purpose, I focus on Giorgio Agamben’s short blog post entitled “Requiem for the Student” (posted on the internet in May 2020), which offers a sharp, and to some extent provocative, critique of the shift to online learning during the COVID pandemic. I argue, that one of Agamben’s central arguments harks back to Walter Benjamin’s metaphysics of youth, developed between 1910–1917. Other works that address a range of issues con- nected to Agamben’s short post (e.g. bio-politics, state of emergency, contemporary conservative thought) have not raised this connection between Agamben and Benjamin. I show that Agamben’s critique of online education reintroduces a modern conception of youth. Although this conception is not explicit in his post, Agamben makes a strong case against youth’s disappearance from the educational arena. I examine the connection between youth technology and education and point to some of its broader political implications.
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Prawa autorskie (c) 2024 Yotam Hotam
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