Dr. Laura Smithers has a new publication out in a special issue of on the work of Erin Manning. The article, The Value of the Useless: Erin Manning, Impact, Higher Education Research, Progress, brings Manning's theorizations on valuing the useless to the practicalities of everyday postsecondary life. How can we think and do impact without measurement? What comes from enacting a useless progress? How can legitimate research call forth lessons from high theory, cultural studies, the DegreeWorks progress bar, The L Word, Nike Run Club, and Arcade Fire? This piece places the philosophy of Erin Manning in contact with these disparate locations of knowledge to perform alternative valuations of higher education research and practice.

The link to the article is here: