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Professor Richard Hall

Job: Professor of Education and Technology

Faculty: Health and Life Sciences

School/department: School of Applied Social Sciences

Research group(s): Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, United Kingdom

T: +44 (0)116 207 8254

E: rhall1@dmu.ac.uk

W: http://richard-hall.org

 

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Personal profile

Richard Hall is Professor of Education and Technology, based in the Division of Education in the School of Applied Social Sciences. Richard contributes to teaching on evidence-based education and educational leadership, as well as supervising Masters and PhD students. His research focuses on higher education policy and pedagogy, co-operative and alternative forms of higher education, academic labour and alienation, and neoliberalism and education.

Richard is an HEA National Teaching Fellow, awarded in 2009, and a fellow of the HEA.

Richard is Director of the Institute for Research in Criminology, Community, Education and Social Justice. He is also a member of the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity and a Research Associate in the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at DMU.

Richard is the editor for Palgrave Macmillan’s Marxism and Education series, and also for DMU’s re-launched education and pedagogic research Journal, Gateway Papers.

Richard has been involved in a range of voluntary, educational activities, including the Social Science Centre in Lincoln, and Leicester Vaughan College. He is a trustee of the Open Library of Humanities, a member of the Management Committee of the Leicester Primary Pupil Referral Unit, and an independent visitor for a looked-after child.

Richard holds PRINCE2 and Managing Successful Programmes Practitioner status. He has worked extensively on research projects and with MA/PhD research students.

Research group affiliations

  • Institute for Research in Criminology, Education and Social Justice
  • Centre for Urban Research on Austerity
  • Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility

Publications and outputs

  • Decolonising DMU: Interim Report, 2022
    Decolonising DMU: Interim Report, 2022 Hall, Richard; Ansley, Lucy; Aujla-Sidhu, Gurvinder; Connolly, Paris; Crofts, Mel; Hall, Chris; Patel, Kaushika; Prescod, Mark; Towlson, Kaye The aim of DDMU is to create the anti-racist University. In the first phase of the project, work built upon a previous Office for Students' project on the awarding gap, Freedom to Achieve, in order to focus work upon the following priorities: institution; students; staff; Library and Learning Services; and research and evaluation. This interim report gives an overview of the evaluation of these workstreams between November 2019 and December 2021, and the ways in which this work supports equality, diversity and inclusion/Race Equality Charter commitments. The report includes the collection of qualitative and quantitative data, and analysis of relevant documents, to look at the impact an challenges of project activities. The purpose of this report is to ascertain the impact of decolonising at DMU on staff and student stakeholders so far, and the extent to which it has been embedded across the institution at a range of levels. The report closes by showing how this work has now shifted in Phase 2, to focus upon 4 commitments: equality of education and research; progression, talent and representation; governance and accountability; and understanding culture and behaviour. These demonstrate a renewed mapping across to DMU's Access and Participation Plan, Race Equality Charter, and the awarding gap.
  • Composting The Anti-Human University
    Composting The Anti-Human University Hall, Richard As the web of life is under assault from the temporal and spatial logics of capitalist reproduction and the law of value, ‘how do we live?’, has become the imperative pedagogical question for intellectual workers. Inside the capitalist University, answering this question has been foreclosed upon by the demands for valorisation, commodification, efficiencies, value-for-money, impact and so on. From inside the capitalist University, there is no way to engage meaningfully with crises of social reproduction, amplified as planetary boundaries are overwhelmed, and as communities and individuals suffer ecological and environmental dislocation. Instead, the capitalist University represents an enclosed pedagogical space that is deeply methodological and pathological. This chapter sets up whether the ways of knowing the world ossified inside an abstract universe of value, and predicated upon the generation of surpluses and processes of exploitation, expropriation and extraction, might be resisted through a fuller, human knowing of the world. This is a renewed pedagogical imperative for-life rather than for-value, and a refusal of the common sense of the University-as-is. It is a yearning for alternative ways of knowing, doing and being in the world, and a demand for a liveable way of life predicated upon the pedagogical imperative of asking, ‘how shall we live?’
  • ‘Whiteness is an immoral choice’: The idea of the University at the intersection of crises
    ‘Whiteness is an immoral choice’: The idea of the University at the intersection of crises Hall, Richard; Gill, Rajvir; Gamsu, Sol Universities in the global North are shaped against intersecting crises, including those of political economy, environment and, more recently, epidemiology. The lived experiences of these crises have renewed struggles against exploitation, expropriation and extraction, including Black Lives Matter, and for decolonising the University. In and through the University, such struggles are brought into relation with the structures, cultures and practices of power and privilege. These modes of privilege are imminent to the reproduction of whiteness, white fragility and privilege, double and false consciousness, and behavioural code switching. In particular, whiteness has historical and material legitimacy, reinforced through policy and regulation, and in English HE this tends, increasingly, to reframe struggle in relation to culture wars. This article argues that the dominant articulation of the University, conditioned by economic value rather than humane values has been reinforced and amplified during the Covid-19 pandemic. The argument pivots around UK Government policy and guidelines, in order to highlight the processes by which intellectual work and the reproduction of higher education institutions connects value-production and modes of settler-colonial and racial-patriarchal control. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • Addressing white privilege as a pedagogic process of decolonising
    Addressing white privilege as a pedagogic process of decolonising Hall, Richard
  • Decolonising DMU: Interim Report, 2022
    Decolonising DMU: Interim Report, 2022 Hall, Richard; Ansley, Lucy; Aujla Sidhu, Gurvinder; Connolly, Paris; Crofts, Melanie; Hall, Chris; Patel, Kaushika; Prescod, Mark; Towlson, Kaye The aim of DDMU is to create the anti-racist University. In the first phase of the project, work built upon a previous Office for Students' project on the awarding gap, Freedom to Achieve, in order to focus work upon the following priorities: institution; students; staff; Library and Learning Services; and research and evaluation. This interim report gives an overview of the evaluation of these workstreams between November 2019 and December 2021, and the ways in which this work supports equality, diversity and inclusion/Race Equality Charter commitments. The report includes the collection of qualitative and quantitative data, and analysis of relevant documents, to look at the impact an challenges of project activities. The purpose of this report is to ascertain the impact of decolonising at DMU on staff and student stakeholders so far, and the extent to which it has been embedded across the institution at a range of levels. The report closes by showing how this work has now shifted in Phase 2, to focus upon 4 commitments: equality of education and research; progression, talent and representation; governance and accountability; and understanding culture and behaviour. These demonstrate a renewed mapping across to DMU's Access and Participation Plan, Race Equality Charter, and the awarding gap. Interim Project Report
  • Alienation and Education.
    Alienation and Education. Hall, Richard n/a
  • Editorial: academic practice and Covid-19
    Editorial: academic practice and Covid-19 Hall, Richard As part of our relaunch of Gateway Papers, we wanted to refocus and re-centre the humane values that underpin our work, and to highlight the impact of the pandemic upon our intellectual being and doing. We deliberately wanted to use stories of lived experiences, in order to show how Covid-19 has recalibrated academic experiences of their work, cultures and institutions. Crucially, we wanted to build a collective and communal understanding of the impacts of the pandemic, reflected and refracted in relation to emotion, ill-being and well-being, workload and working practices, cognition, cooperative working, lone working, the place of technology, and so on. We were also very interested in papers that develop our understanding of the differential, intersectional impacts of Covid-19. This editorial places the papers in this collection inside this context. open access journal
  • The Hopeless University: Intellectual Work at the end of The End of History.
    The Hopeless University: Intellectual Work at the end of The End of History. Hall, Richard Faced by the realities and lived experiences of intersecting crises, the University has become hopeless, in two respects. First, it has become a place that has no socially-useful role beyond the reproduction of capital, and has become an anti-human project devoid of hope. Second, it is unable to respond meaningfully with crises that erupt from the contradictions of capital. Thus. in its maintenance of business-as-usual, the University remains shaped as a tactical response to these contradictions. The Hopeless University examines the structures/forms, cultures/pathologies and activities/methodologies of the University, in order to question what kind of higher learning we yearn for and deserve. In looking at the ways in which the University represents our entangled, intellectual existences, Richard Hall asks whether we might compost the structures, cultures and activities that engender hopelessness and helplessness. Might other modes of intellectual work and higher learning be possible? In addressing this question, individuals and communities are invited to consider the potential for reimagining intellectual work as a movement of sensuous human activity in the world, and as a refusal of its commodification. As widespread social struggles against capitalism are revealed, we are reminded of our ability to make history. Thus, we must discuss how to reimagine and recycle intellectual work in society. We must discuss how to compost The Hopeless University as an indignant movement of dignity. Green Open Access book, available from: http://mayflybooks.org/
  • Struggling for the anti-racist university: learning from an institution-wide response to curriculum decolonisation
    Struggling for the anti-racist university: learning from an institution-wide response to curriculum decolonisation Hall, Richard; Ansley, Lucy; Connolly, Paris; Loonat, Sumeya; Patel, Kaushika; Whitham, Ben Increasingly, institutions are amplifying work on race equality, in order to engage with movements for Black lives and decolonising. This brings universities into relations with individual and communal issues of whiteness, white fragility and privilege, double and false consciousness, and behavioural code switching. Inside formal structures, built upon cultures and practices that have historical and material legitimacy, engaging with such issues is challenging. The tendency is to engage in formal accreditation, managed through engagement with established methodologies, risk management practices and data reporting. However, this article argues that the dominant articulation of the institution, which has its own inertia, which reinforces whiteness and dissipates radical energy, needs to be re-addressed in projects of decolonising. This situates the communal work of the institution against the development of authentic relationships as a movement of dignity. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • Venturing beyond the imposition of a postdigital, anti-human higher education
    Venturing beyond the imposition of a postdigital, anti-human higher education Hall, Richard In an important footnote in Capital, Marx highlights how an analysis of technology enables us to reveal the dialectical construction of our dominant mode of reproducing everyday life. This links humans, infrastructures, modes of production, cultural conceptions, social relations, governance arrangements and nature, in order to describe the dominant political economic context for living. In terms of higher education, this enables an understanding of the relationship between humans and technologies, in order to maintain the reproduction of capitalism. This chapter argues that such a relationship is morbid and lengthens the shadow of value over what it means to be human. Here, the drive, shaped competitively and through commodification, is for productive human capital, the management of risk, and value-for-money. Thus, the idea of what it means to be educated is restructured by economic value, rather than humane values. This is the terrain upon which conceptions of postdigital higher education might be analysed, in order to offer alternatives away from the dehumanising universe of value. The chapter utilises the metaphor of composting as a way that individuals in their environments process anger, grief and trauma, and find new ways of living. It pivots around the potential for a reimagining of the integration of the digital and the human through mass intellectuality, as a new form of sociability.

Click here to view a full listing of Richard Hall's publications and outputs.

Key research outputs

Decolonising DMU

Radical Pedagogies, Macpherson: 20 Years On

Digilit Leicester Project

Electro Acoustic Resource 2 (EARS 2): Implementing sound-based music, technology and education

Open to Change Project

Deliberative User Approach in a Living Lab Project

Connecting Transitions and Independent Learning Project

e-Learning Pathfinder Project on Web 2.0 cultures

Mobilising Remote Student Engagement Project

Research interests/expertise

  • The idea of the University and radical alternatives to it
  • Higher education governance, regulation and funding
  • Academic labour and alienation
  • Pedagogy and critical social theory
  • Higher education and mental health
  • Neoliberalism and Primary Education

Areas of teaching

  • The sociology of education
  • Politics of education
  • Critical pedagogy
  • Contemporary and historical issues in education
  • Evidence-based education
  • Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education
  • Education Practice
  • Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education
  • Philosophy of History

Qualifications

  • B.A. Hons
  • M.A.
  • Ph.D.

Courses taught

  • Ph.D. supervision
  • M.A. Education Practice, including project supervision
  • B.A. Education Studies: EDUC1110: Historical and Contmporary Issues in Education; EDUC1145: Evidenced-based teaching and learning; EDUC2229: Researching Education; EDUC2248: Politics of Education; EDUC3346: Dissertation.

Honours and awards

  • Director of the Institute for Research in Criminology, Education and Social Justice, March 2021
  • Co-director of the Institute for Education Futures, 2016-18, De Montfort University.
  • Professor of Education and Technology, 2013.
  • The Digital Literacy Framework Project won the Reclaim Open Learning Challenge, an international contest sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, the Digital Media and Learning Hub, and MIT Media Lab.
  • Higher Education Academy, National Teaching Fellowship, 2009.
  • Readership in Education and Technology, June 2010, De Montfort University.

Membership of external committees

  • Trustee, Open Library of Humanities (since 2015).
  • Board member, Leicester Vaughan College (2017-19).
  • Teaching Scholar at the Cooperative Institute for Transnational Studies (since 2015).
  • The Association for Learning Technology, OER17 Conference Committee (2016-17).
  • Critical Theory Research Network (since 2016).
  • Beyond the Neoliberal University: Critical Pedagogy and Activism, Organising Committee (a symposium hosted by Coventry University UCU in 2015).
  • European Conference on e-Learning (since 2005).
  • European Conference on Social Media (since 2013).
  • The Association for Learning Technology Conference, Programme Committee (since 2013).

Professional licences and certificates

  • Fellow of The Higher Education Academy
  • PRINCE2, Practitioner
  • Managing Successful Programmes, Practitioner

Projects

A full list of projects is available at: http://www.richard-hall.org/research-projects/

Forthcoming events

Hall, R. (2021). Decolonising and institutional co-optation. Decolonising Critical Thought Workshop, Critical Theory in Hard Times Network, Manchester.

Ansley, L., Connolly, P., Crofts, M., Hall, C., Hall, R. and Patel, K. (2021). Decolonising DMU: Towards the Anti-Racist University. AdvanceHE Equality Diversity and Inclusion Conference 2020: Courageous conversations and adventurous approaches: creative thinking in tackling inequality, Edinburgh.

Hall, R. and Themelis, S. (2021). Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education. Education Research Seminar, De Montfort University.

Hall, R., Loonat, S., Marfu, C., and Prescod, M. (2021). Building engagement with decolonising inside the pandemic University. Festival of Teaching, De Montfort University.

Hall, R. (2021). Invited panel member. The Digital Divide: Why we need to support young people now. De Montfort University and Leicestershire Cares.

Conference attendance

A full list of papers is available at: http://www.richard-hall.org/conference-papers/

All presentations are available at: http://www.slideshare.net/RichardHall

Recent presentations include the following.

Hall, R., Marfu, C. and Sofowora, T. (2021). Decolonising and responsible futures, online workshop. Students Organising for Sustainability.

Hall, R. (2020). Covid-19 and the idea of the University. Documentary Media Centre newsroom on The Future of Higher Education.

Patel, K. and Hall, R. (2020). Decolonising DMU: Becoming an Anti-Racist University. Decolonising Bradford, University of Bradford.

Hall, R. (2020). For humanism and against the methodological University. British Educational Research Association annual conference, University of Liverpool.

Recent research outputs

Hall, R. (2021, forthcoming). The Hopeless University: Intellectual Work at the End of the End of History. Leicester: Mayfly Books.

Hall, R. (2021). Immiseration. In Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education: Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility, ed. Themelis, S, pp. 47-53. London: Routledge. https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/20359

Hall, R. (2021). Managerialism. In Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education: Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility, ed. Themelis, S, pp. 93-99. London: Routledge. https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/20356

Hall, R. (2021). Alternative Education. In Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education: Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility, ed. Themelis, S, pp. 168-73. London: Routledge. https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/20360

Hall, R. (2020). Another world is possible: The possibilities for a transformative post-capitalist education. In The Routledge Handbook of Transformative Global Studies, eds Hosseini Faradonbeh S.A., Goodman, J., Motta, S., and Gills, B.K., pp. 84-96. London: Routledge. https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/19513

Hall, R. (2020). Platform Discontent Against the University. In The Digital Age and its Discontents: Critical Reflections in Education, ed. M. Stocchetti, pp. 123-40. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://doi.org/10.33134/HUP-4 and https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/19697

Hall, R. (2020). The Hopeless University: Intellectual Work at the end of The End of History. Postdigital Science and Education, 2(3), 830-48. DOI: 10.1007/s42438-020-00158-9. https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/20001

Hall., R. (2019). On authoritarian neoliberalism and poetic epistemology. Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy, 33(4), 298-308. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/17412

Key articles information

Hall, R. (2021, forthcoming). The Hopeless University: Intellectual Work at the End of the End of History. Leicester: Mayfly Books.

Hall., R. (2019). On authoritarian neoliberalism and poetic epistemology. Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy, 33(4), 298-308. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/17412

Hall, R. (2018). The Alienated Academic: the struggle for autonomy inside the University. London: Palgrave Macmillan. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/16381

Hall., R. (2018). On the alienation of academic labour and the possibilities for mass intellectuality. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 16(1), 97-113.

Hall, R., and Winn, J. (eds). (2017). Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury Academic. http://bit.ly/2dYsEkD and http://hdl.handle.net/2086/12714

Hall, R., and Smyth, K. (2016). Dismantling the Curriculum in Higher Education. Open Library of the Humanities. 2(1), p.e11. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.66

Hall, R., and Bowles, K. (2016). Re-engineering higher education: the subsumption of academic labour and the exploitation of anxiety. Workplace: A Journal of Academic Labour, 28, 30-47. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/12709

Hall, R. (2015). The University and the Secular Crisis. Open Library of the Humanities, 1(1). DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.15

Consultancy work

I am a reviewer for the Independent Social Research Foundation (since 2018)

As an NTF mentor, I have supported successful internal and external applications.

I am a Trustee of the Open Library of Humanities (since 2015).

I am a Teaching Scholar at the Cooperative Institute for Transnational Studies (since 2015)

I am a member of the Centre for Transformational Learning and Culture (since 2016)

I have examined seven external M.Phil./Ph.D. candidates, 12 internal Ph.D. candidates, and a Masters by Research at DMU.

Between 2008-13, I was External Assessor on the Post-Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching at Glasgow Caledonian University.

I was a consultant on the University of Surrey’s VLE Review (2010).

I reviewed the use of technology in post-graduate teaching and learning curricula at Buckingham New University (2010).

I advised the British Council with Moscow Bauman State Technical University on the development of a Masters in Design Innovation (2006, 2011 and 2012).

I advised Te Wānanga o Aotearoa University in New Zealand in developing technology solutions for distance learners (2008).

I was consulted as part of the UK JISC Mobile and Wireless Technologies Review (2010).

Current research students

Nikki Welyczko, Ph.D. on nurse education, professional practice and resilience (1st supervisor).

Angela Sibley-White, Ph.D. on the lived experience of primary school communities under neoliberal governance and policy (1st supervisor).

Kim Sadique, Ph.D. on Learning from and Preventing Genocide and Crimes of the State: The Role of Religion and Education (1st supervisor).

Ally Ackbarally, Ph.D. on human factors and non-technical skills for Senior First Assistants in clinical settings (1st supervisor)

Sumeya Loonat, Ph.D. on the intersectionality of race and language in the construction and context of minority students within UK Higher Education (1st supervisor).

Camille London-Miyo, Ph.D. on Black Lives Matter Education - Black Educators Navigating the Dynamics of Racism in Leicester Schools (2nd supervisor)

Abena Addo, Ph.D. on heuristic research to inform holistic pedagogical practices in health professional education and research (2nd supervisor).

Jonathan Gration, Ph.D. on Digital anastylosis; exploring the future of public engagement with digital historic interiors (2nd supervisor).

Jennifer Wilkinson, Ph.D. on the historical context for functional skills' development in English Further Education (Advisor)

Externally funded research grants information

Courseware for History Implementation Consortium project, HEFCE TLTP3, 1999 – 2002, PI

e-Learning Capital Investment funding, HEFCE, 2005-2006, PI

e-Learning Benchmarking project, Higher Education Academy, 2006 – 07, PI.

e-Learning Pathfinder Project on Web 2.0 cultures, Higher Education Academy, 2007 – 08, PI

Connecting Transitions and Independent Learning, Higher Education Academy, e-Learning Research Observatory, 2008 – 09, PI

Mobilising Remote Student Engagement, JISC, eLearing Curriculum Delivery Project, 2008-2010, PI, Kingston University

Deliberative User Approach in a Living Lab project, JISC Greening IT Project, 2010 – 11, CI

Sickle Cell Open: Online Topics and Educational Resources project, JISC Open Educational Resources programme, 2010 – 2011, CI

New Dimensions of Security in Europe project, European Commission, Lifelong Learning Programme, 2009 – 10, Project evaluator

Open to Change project, JISC, Greening ICT programme: technical development, 2010-11, CI

HE Leadership Foundation-funded, Changing the Learning Landscape project, 2013-14, PI.

Using a value-added metric and an inclusive curriculum framework to address the black and minority ethnic attainment gap, HEFCE Catalyst Fund, 2017-19, CI 

Internally funded research project information

Building capacity to impact on policy and practice project, Revolving Investment Fund for Research Round 2, 2010-2011, CI

EARS II Pedagogical Project, HEIF5, 2012-13, CI

Knowledge Exchange Digital Literacy Framework Project, HEIF5, 2012-14, PI, Leicester City Council.

Towards Equitable Engagement: the Impact of UDL on Student Perceptions of Learning, Teaching Innovation Project Fund, 2016-17, PI

Leading Change for Sustainability: developing a Social Learning approach within a DMU course, 2016-17, Teaching Innovation Project Fund, CI

Transformative learning for the public good – an integrative approach to sustainable community development, 2016-17, HEIF, CI

Mapping Learning City Infrastructures Under Austerity Governance, CURA, 2017-18 

Professional esteem indicators

I am the editor for Palgrave Macmillan’s Marxism and Education series.

I am a Trustee of the Open Library of Humanities.

I am a member of the Review Boards for: Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies; Research in Learning Technology (formerly ALT-J); TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique; Teaching in Higher Education; Postdigital Science and Education.

I am a reviewer for: Teaching in Higher Education (since 2016); the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (since 2014); the Higher Education Research and Development journal (since 2016); the Journal of Learning, Media, and Technology (since 2010); the Interactive Learning Environments journal (since 2010); Computers and Education (since 2010); the Open Library of Humanities journal (since 2015); Philosophies (since 2020); and the Electronic Journal of e-Learning (since 2005).

I am Editor for the DMU education and pedagogic research journal, Gateway Papers.

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