Global Philosophy of Education PhD Course

April 2023, and we are busily preparing to offer the course PhD911 Non-Western Educational Philosophy and Policy, now that the administration has completed its admissions process. I am pleased to report that we had 34 applicants from universities in 17 countries: Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, UAE, Iran, Bangladesh, India, China, Australia, Canada, and the USA.

The course runs during the first two weeks of May 2023 as an entirely online doctoral seminar, and its live discussion sessions will be planned for compatibility with the various time zones. Later, the students will work on their writing assignment with some individual tutoring. It is exciting to see such interest in this topic, and I am hopeful that we will learn much from each other and collectively produce some unique outcomes.

The first two cohorts of this course (2020-2022) produced the book Comparative and Decolonial Studies in Philosophy of Education, and hopefully the 2023 cohort will also develop plans for a collaborative project of some kind.

The images shown here are from the beautiful Faroe Islands, where I serve on a PhD committee as an Affiliate Professor at University of Faroe Islands.

Music of the Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands is an autonomous territory of 18 islands located north of Scotland, between Iceland and Norway. With roots traceable to a teacher’s seminary founded in 1870, the University of the Faroe Islands is located in the capital city Torshavn (pictured here).   

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to serve as a supervisory professor on the PhD dissertation committee of Knut Eysturstein at University of the Faroe Islands. Knut is researching music traditions of the Faroe Islands and ways of sustaining traditional music through school education.

Qatari and Uzbek Music Dissertation

I am happy to announce that Dr. Nasser Sahim Aljassim successfully defended his PhD degree in musicology at the Uzbekistan State Conservatory of Music, Tashkent at the end of March 2023. It was a pleasure to serve as the doctoral opponent (external examiner) for his unique doctoral dissertation comparing music traditions in Qatar and Uzbekistan.

Dr. Nasser Sahim is an accomplished musician who works with the Qatar Foundation and Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. His main supervisor was professor Elnora Mamadjanova. The dissertation is available in multiple languages.

Comparison and Decoloniality

It is a pleasure to announce that our book Comparative and Decolonial Studies in Philosophy of Education has just been published, and is now available as a download via SpringerLink.

Here is a link to the website for that: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-0139-5

This book is designed to stimulate alternative ways of understanding the nature and value of education based on historically-informed awareness of ideas from parts of the world that experienced colonization.

Wonderment of Arts in a Fragile World

I look forward to giving a keynote speech soon for the Arts Education Symposium at the Technical University of Kenya. My title is Rediscovering the Wonderment of Arts in a Fragile World, and it will address some of the main themes and lessons learned from some recent research and development projects.

Below is a poster for this event, and here is a link for more information about the symposium: https://tukenya.ac.ke/eap-symposium

Kenya is a nation with a rich artistic heritage and innovative work in arts education fields, so it is exciting to have this opportunity to interact with scholars and educators there, but this keynote speech will necessarily be presented through videoconference.  

In the speech, I will describe some concepts and examples from my latest book, a recent article, and some current and ongoing projects (e.g. CABUTE, Music Talks, NNME, MusiPæd, HK-Global Competence, Sympathetic Resonance, etc.).

Below are links to some other keynote speeches I have recently presented in Uganda and China, as well as the poster for the event in Kenya:

https://www.uib.no/en/cabute/155608/2nd-east-african-teacher-education-symposium-pandemic%C2%B4s-effect-ugandan-and-east

https://sociomusicology.blogspot.com/2022/09/keynote-speech-for-national-conference.html

 

Resilience Studies in Spain

It is a pleasure to be visiting Spain (first Madrid, and then on to Granada, and finally Malaga) as my first research trip in the RESUPERES project, an EU Erasmus Plus initiative for interdisciplinary and comparative study of resilience in higher education.

We look forward to developing a clearer understanding of how the Norwegian and arts components of the project will integrate with the rest of this initiative with partners in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Serbia.

 

Doctoral Defense in Luxembourg

It was a pleasure to serve this week on the PhD examining committee for Dr. Miwa Chiba at University of Luxembourg. Chiba’s dissertation is titled Comparing Inclusive (Music) Education in Luxembourg and Japan, a study that contributes to the fields of inclusive education, comparative education, and music education policy studies. My role was as the external examiner along with Kanae Nishioka from Kyoto University. Chiba's dissertation supervisor was sociologist of education Justin Powell, and other committee members included Damien Sagrillo and Christina Siry. 

University of Luxembourg is a multilingual public research university with a growing profile, and its Belval campus features unique architecture built around the impressive historic structures of what had been Europe’s largest center for steel manufacture.

Dr. Chiba has articles appearing in various research journals as well as a chapter in the book Comparative and Decolonial Studies in Philosophy of Education.

Congratulations to Dr. Miwa Chiba!