2015 Presentations (Communicative Events)

Promoting and Resisting Student “Success”: Critical Information Literacy Instruction in the Neoliberal Academic Library

Beilin, Ian G.

How can a critical library praxis encourage and support students’ academic and career success but still remain faithful to the struggle against the system of inequality and oppression that enables that success? Is student success an affirmation of the neoliberal myth that personal initiative, honest hard work and worthy talent will receive their just rewards? This presentation problematizes the idea of success and explores ways that students can learn important skills and knowledge to advance themselves in a corporatized, privatized world governed by individualistic competition, while also learning how those abilities can be used to challenge and undermine that system.