Covid-19 and the Epigenetics of Learning

Abstract

Covid-19 is a natural phenomenon that has rapidly upended much of the cultural infrastructure of societies across the globe. Education, which in recent years increasingly tied itself to notions of global culture and markets, is deeply threatened by these changes to the natural environment. This paper makes the case that the relationship between nature and culture in education requires a deep level analysis of the biological and physical substrate of human learning. Only with a sufficiently fundamental level of analysis can society reorganise its systems of learning and scientific inquiry to this rapidly changing environment. Drawing on evolutionary biology, we argue that institutional and individual structures and processes are recapitulations of evolutionary cellular development. Understanding the impact of Covid-19 on cells presents an invitation to consider the larger-scale cultural recapitulations of similar mechanisms and structures, and this has implications for the ways education might most effectively deploy technology. Whilst universities seek to maintain their existing structures, practices and business models, a cellular evolutionary approach points to the necessity for fundamental rethinking of intellectual life and learning. We consider the parameters of effective educational organisation in a post-Covid-19 world. As the richness and variety of the physical campus is removed, viable educational relationships will necessitate deeper intellectual connections and personal inquiries than are currently permitted in the transactional processes of education.

Postdigital Research, Networked Learning, and Covid-19

“…As phrased by Johnson, Maitland and Torday: The campus has been a critical and largely uninspected ingredient in the transactionalising of education: the epigenetic environment of the coffee bar, shared housing and the pub provide opportunities for individuals to establish deep relationships which recognise their common biological heritage. (Johnson, Maitland, and Torday 2020 ) …”

Postdigital-biodigital: An emerging configuration

“…In the context of Covid-19, Johnson et al (2020) present 'evolutionary biology and epigenetics as a foundation for an argument for reconfiguring the parameters of learning and educational organisation'. Precision learning, epigenetics and other educational projects at the fringes of biology and information are now all parts of a wider notion of postdigital education.…”

Biology, Information, Society

“…Early postdigital theorists such as Kim Cascone, and mainstream responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, are still predominantly focused to the digital-analog side of the definition (Cascone and Jandrić 2021;). Yet studies of the relationships between biology, information, and society have closely followed the development of various bioinformational, technoscientific, and other convergences (Bainbridge and Roco 2006;Williamson 2019), and the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a rapid growth of research in the field (Johnson et al 2020;Pickersgill 2020).…”