Crisis of the private? Digital technology, raising children, and the bypassing of speech
Stefan Ramaekers (KU Leuven, Belgium)

In the Black Mirror episode “Arkangel” an implant in a girl’s temple provides a visual feed and real-time physiological information to her mother. Affordances of contemporary devices (Google Pixel Watch e.g.) illustrate this is not far from reality. I investigate how the invasion of the other’s (inner) life by such devices constitutes the bypassing of speech in the parent-child relationship. Drawing on Cavell’s conception of “speech”, what it means to share language and to accept “[t]he human body [as] the best picture of the human soul” (Wittgenstein) draws out the relevance of the private (as otherness) in the parent-child relationship.

Stefan Ramaekers is professor at the Laboratory for Education and Society. His research is situated in the field of educational philosophy, at the intersection of the Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophical traditions, and finds inspiration in the work of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Berardi. His main focus is a critical investigation of the contemporary discourse of parenting, specifically: the instrumentalization, scientization, and (neuro)psychologization of upbringing; the pedagogical role of parents; the meaning of digital technologies (e.g. parenting apps) in raising children. He has written also about the pedagogical stakes of film, postmodernism and skepticism, and the nature of educational research.

For further inquiries: Yuxin Su (yuxin.su.16@ucl.ac.uk).