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"If we possess the land," cultural activist Ben Caldwell said, "we can become erasure proof." The essay reveals how BIPOC community arts spaces negotiate spatial sovereignty that fortify ecologies of culture and place. The work analyzes a culminating activity in a participatory action research process structured around the themes of land, story, memory, and leadership. The axis of the paper is an intergenerational conversation with cultural producers and arts administrators at Self Help Graphics & Art in the Latinx neighborhood of Boyle Heights, Kaos Network the African-American neighborhood of Leimert Park, and Visual Communications in the Asian Pacific Islander led neighborhood of Little Tokyo. The conversation is set in Los Angeles—a megalopolis on the Pacific Rim recognized globally for its creative and cultural production. "How to Become Erasure Proof" provides a robust conceptual framework, and highlights BIPOC strategies for community organizing that cherish culture and land. The discussion contributes to broader movements centering BIPOC imaginaries, creative flourishing, and organizing for spatial justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the need for Arts, Humanities and Cultural Studies to be widely studied within Higher Education. Research shows that such topics are necessary for the development of critical thinking, this type of analysis being innate to these domains. In this paper, I introduce the concept of creating meaning, which I define as the link between creative thinking and critical thinking and as the first attribute of a critical thinker. Before making inferences, judgements or decisions, one must identify the framework of a problem, determine the parameters of the discussion and reflect upon assumptions. These are propaedeutic to a good discussion and are prerequisites of a good critical thinker. Arguing that creativity is not a separate process from critical thinking, I aim to demonstrate that the Arts, Humanities and Cultural Studies are the promoters of critical thinking. Because disciplines in these fields are likely to create environments that foster critical thinking and encourage the production of meaning, I argue that these necessarily belong in all curricula of Higher Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is it that teacher-educators “do”? This paper draws on interview data with Deans/Heads of Schools of Education in the Australian context to explore this question by asking: How is the teacher-educator produced as a category of academic worker? Using critical approaches to discourse analysis, the paper presents two interlocked storylines woven with varying emphasis through the interviews. First, the teacher-educator is produced as a superhero researcher and teacher, elevated by the expectations of theExcellence in Research for Australiaaudit/surveillance tools. Second, there is a concomitant struggle to reconcile pressure to research with commitment to meeting the needs of schooling systems, and to addressing the work of the teacher-educator in ethical terms. It is suggested that teacher-educators’ work reflects a desire to legitimate various performances of teacher education within current dynamics of audit culture pressures, set against the less visible ethical project of education more broadly conceived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the risk presumably involved in the narratives of non-Western international relations theory (IRT) by focusing on a similar historical case in Japan. It reveals the risk of uncritically accepted geographical division, and particularly focuses on the discourses of the Kyoto School's theory of world history as an example of non-Western narratives in the past, which was to ‘overcome’ the Western civilization similar to the contemporary non-Western IRT. However, they are also infamous for providing justification for the wartime regime in Japan for their aggression in the Asian continent. What is the connection between their philosophy and support for the imperialist regime? If there is a connection between them, is there any possibility of the resurrection of the same results in the case of non-Western IRT? To answer these questions, the article introduces the philosophy of Tosaka Jun who was critical of the School but, unlike Kyoto School philosophers, stubbornly fought against the mainstream politics of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]