Toward a Cybernetic Pedagogy

I thank Kenaz Filan and Anna Longo for their careful attention to this paper and for their thoughtful feedback.

Abstract: What I propose here is the theoretical integration of Simondon’s allagmatics with the critical pedagogy popularized by Paulo Freire. With it’s emphasis on dialectic educational praxis and conscientization, Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed forms a framework which coheres perfectly with Gilbert Simondon’s notions of allagmatics: the dynamic interaction of structure and operation, laid out in his Épistémologie de la cybernétique. Through the application of Simondonian ideas surrounding collective epistemology and normativity, to Freire’s democratic ideal of the dialogic learning environment, we find the potential to transcend static curricula, creating adaptive educational clearings that amplify information and position students as co-creators of knowledge. Aligning a cybernetic focus on operational dynamics with a commitment to social justice empowers students to navigate and reshape their own social realities, offering a novel and robust alternative to hierarchal educational model. 

Nomadic Masculinity

In 2017, there was a call for papers at a nearby conference relevant to notions of "Identity and Difference." Just for kicks, I wrote up an abstract proposing a paper on Jack Donovan's ideas in The Way of Men (2012). I was surprised at the acceptance notification I received shortly after. The paper I wrote was well-received, the presentation was very well-attended, and while there were a lot of critical questions from a feminist perspective, they were uniformly well-structured and honest.

This is that paper, lightly edited in 2025 to clean up some poorly cited sources. It was never more than half-finished, and in keeping with Deleuze's concept of evading capture by operating outside of convention, it lacks a conclusion. 

Abstract: Jack Donovan’s 2012 monograph The Way of Men offers up an expository and prescriptive definition of the masculine, based largely on evolutionary psychology and the values extant in classical antiquity. The canon of Gilles Deleuze, in contrast, contains close to nothing relevant to contemporary gender studies. Sexed topics in Deleuze are seldom, and when they do appear, it is solely in service to his deeper metaphysical claims. In such exceptions, Deleuze emphasizes the performativity of sex, and the importance of becoming over being. A surface reading of each text suggests these authors and their work have little in common, despite the fact that each construct critical theories of contemporary modernity. Indeed, each has been lambasted in print, generally by the same type of affirmative, establishment-promoted thinkers. For all of his attempts at even-handedness, feminist scholars repeatedly criticize Deleuze and his work as exploitative, problematic and trivializing. While contemporary thinkers refuse to acknowledge Jack Donovan, they do indirectly contend with his work. What I intend to do in this brief essay is to put forward a few notes toward an honest investigation of Donovan’s Way of Men, using the Deleuzo-Guattarian notion of the ‘war machine’ as a lens through which we might obtain fresh insights into a surviving notion of masculinity. My synthesis recontextualizes Deleuze’s concept of ‘territorialization’ as a precursor to Donovan’s reconstruction of antique masculine virtues. In the contemporary hypermodern with its associated accelerating crises, I demonstrate that a return to a more nomadic view of masculinity will empower men toward a revolutionary becoming.

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