The Ballad of Goodwill
Date Issued
April 29, 2021
DOI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHdikt-vwao
Abstract
The Ballad of Goodwill or The Lecturer’s Lament at the Demise of Goodwill in the Neoliberal University is a practice-based research project developed by Post Workers Theatre during a residency at Allmänningen (The Common Room), University of Gothenburg. Conceived as a performative symposium, the project brought together academics, researchers, and cultural practitioners to collectively explore the hidden economies of goodwill that underpin contemporary academic labour.
Through processes of discussion, storytelling, and collective writing, participants contributed to the creation of a new workers’ ballad that reflects on precarity, institutional dependency, and the affective dimensions of labour within marketised higher education. Drawing on the historic form of the broadside ballad, the project reactivates its social function as a vehicle for sharing experiences, building solidarity, and articulating dissent.
The resulting ballad was performed and recorded by soprano Roxanne Korda, accompanied by a modular synthesiser arrangement by Post Workers Theatre, reworking the traditional tune Packington’s Pound. The project demonstrates how performative and collective artistic practices can operate as tools for critical reflection and knowledge production across institutional contexts.
Through processes of discussion, storytelling, and collective writing, participants contributed to the creation of a new workers’ ballad that reflects on precarity, institutional dependency, and the affective dimensions of labour within marketised higher education. Drawing on the historic form of the broadside ballad, the project reactivates its social function as a vehicle for sharing experiences, building solidarity, and articulating dissent.
The resulting ballad was performed and recorded by soprano Roxanne Korda, accompanied by a modular synthesiser arrangement by Post Workers Theatre, reworking the traditional tune Packington’s Pound. The project demonstrates how performative and collective artistic practices can operate as tools for critical reflection and knowledge production across institutional contexts.
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