ABSTRACT This paper reflects an effort to speculate at the nexus between a collective consciousness in a capitalist society in the wake of apartheid, and the operations of a predominant pedagogy. I pose several questions in terms of the political imagination and its regulation by capitalist realism: what is the relation between the university, ideological reproduction, and the political imagination? Politically speaking, what can we claim in the name of the commons? I am interested in the theoretical nature of the State that is being contested, as well as the state of mind, where the word state implies a mental or emotional condition. Thinking with Lauren Berlant’s work on cruel optimistic relations, as well as the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire and W.E.B. Du Bois, I speculate on the South African university’s shared ideological complicities. I argue against its emphasis on the production of a subject that is in synch with the reproduction of capital, and well suited for insertion into its structures. This is evidence of the role universities plays in sustaining the enduring fantasy of “the good life.” What magnetises the university’s desire and fidelity to a certain mode of production, even when that mode proves painfully unsustainable?

中文翻译：

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作为自由的实践的教育：走向欲望的非殖民化

摘要本文反映了一种努力，以推测种族隔离之后的资本主义社会中的集体意识与主要教学法的运作之间的关系。关于政治想象及其对资本主义现实主义的调节，我提出了几个问题：大学，意识形态再生产与政治想象之间是什么关系？从政治上来讲，我们可以以公地名义主张什么？我对所争论的国家的理论性质以及心态感兴趣，其中“状态”一词暗示着一种精神或情感状态。考虑Lauren Berlant关于残酷的乐观关系的工作，以及Paulo Freire和WEB Du Bois的教育理念，我推测南非大学有共同的意识形态共谋。我反对将重点放在与资本再生产同步的主题的生产上，该主题非常适合插入其结构。这证明了大学在维持“美好生活”的持久幻想中所扮演的角色。是什么使大学对某种生产方式的渴望和忠诚吸引了他们，即使这种生产方式被证明极度不可持续？