In recent years, the relation between studying and learning has been a topic of debate. This article is mainly interested in a concept of study practices, conceived of as practices that are strongly engaged with issues of living together in a superdiverse city. Such practices firstly require to think the relation between studying and learning in other-than-oppositional terms, and secondly, to raise questions concerning the political role of education. The aim of the article is double in that it wants to (...) further elaborate the concept of study practices in relation to a concrete practice on the one hand, and, on the other, that it has the objective to rethink in educational terms the notion of solidarity—deeply entwined with matters of living together in superdiversity. These aims are pursued based on an analysis of the study practice of System_D, a film festival in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Brussels, drawing on the work of Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss some thoughts Judith Butler presents regarding corporeal vulnerability. This might help to elucidate the problem of whether critical education is still possible today. I first explain why precisely the possibility of critique within education is a problem for us today. This is because the traditional means of enhancing a critical attitude in pupils, stimulating their self-reflective capacities, contributes to the continued existence and strengthening of the current societal and political regime. A way out of this (...) deadlock is offered from within a Foucauldian perspective. Criticality here refers to an experience of exposure and expropriation of the self. This kind of limit-experience is also of a central importance in the most recent work of Judith Butler. She links this experience to the corporeal condition of susceptibility. Our bodies have a public dimension as we are inescapably exposed to one another. The main argument of my paper has to do with whether this appeal to corporeal vulnerability might offer a new way of thinking about the public realm and about the possibility of critique, especially within the field of education. I conclude the paper by showing the originality of Butler’s thought in this respect and the possibilities it opens for thinking in a radically new way about critical pedagogy. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This paper attempts to reassess the educational affordances of digital screens, at a time when their educational impact has become incontournable, but is also increasingly growing suspicion. To bypass the redundancies of overly critical theoretical approaches, the paper foregrounds the subjectifying potentialities of the screen’s elusive technological ‘plasticity’. After the introduction, in which some pedagogical misgivings about the digital screen are addressed, we turn to Marie-José Mondzain’s historico-philosophical genealogy of iconoclasm. Trying to make sense of the aesthetic-political ambivalence that shrouded (...) the icon’s screenic agency within a Christian ‘economy of salvation’, and which climaxed in a politics of strictly economic equivalency, we concur with Peter Szendy that this ambivalence still haunts the icon’s contemporary heirs. By pedagogically re-reading Szendy’s alternative account of ‘iconomy’ we are subsequently led to make a case for exceeding neoliberal screening politics through an affirmation of the digital screen’s radical plasticity. Along with Yves Citton, we suggest, in our conclusion, that this post-critical affirmation calls for an ‘iconomical’ practice of care-ful experiments with the screen’s dynamic technologies. Instead of combating or adapting to its aesthetically dazzling algorithms, educational practices are required that allow these algorithmic quantities to qualitatively differentiate the uses that educands make of them. (shrink)

Beherrschten vor 20 Jahren noch Industriekonglomerate, Energiekonzerne und Banken die Rangliste der wertvollsten Unternehmen, wurden diese längst von Internetgiganten wie Google, Apple, Amazon und Tencent abgelöst. Digitale Technik ist allgegenwärtig: Wir tragen Hochleistungsrechner in unseren Taschen herum, Waschmaschinen können sich mit dem Internet verbinden. Doch erschöpft sich darin das Neue am digitalen Kapitalismus? 0Philipp Staab beleuchtet den digitalen Kapitalismus aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven, um ihn präziser auf den Begriff zu bringen. Er zeigt, wie digitale Überwachungs- und Bewertungspraktiken in immer mehr Bereiche (...) der Wirtschaft vordringen und dabei die soziale Ungleichheit verschärfen. Das Spezifische am digitalen Kapitalismus, so Staab, ist die Herausbildung 'proprietärer Märkte': Kam es früher darauf an, Dinge herzustellen und mit Gewinn zu verkaufen, geht es im Zeitalter der Unknappheit um das Eigentum an den Märkten selbst. (shrink)

Felix Kaufmanns Wissenschaftstheorie Hans-Georg Zilian. X KAUFMANN, DIE ÖKONOMEN UND DAS A PRIORI Bei den österreichischen Grenznutzentheoretikern, mit deren Arbeiten sich Kaufmann vor allem auseinandersetzte, ist von ...

In this paper we explore a new way to deal with social inequality and injustice in an educational way. We do so by offering a particular reading of a scene taken from Minnelli's film The Band Wagon which is often regarded as overly western-centred and racist. We argue, however, that the way in which words and movements in this scene function are expressive of an event that can be read as a new beginning and that it is for this reason (...) in and of itself educational. By drawing on Agamben's and Cavell's insights on childhood and what it means to acquire a language, we argue that in this scene a form of childhood is displayed which denotes a general condition for education to take place in children and grown-ups alike. Hence, education can be understood as a interruption of existing power structures and as a transformation of one's existence. (shrink)

ÖZ “Tanzanya’da Leibzig Misyoner Cemiyeti Misyonerliği, Karşılaşılan Zorluklar ve Kullanılan Yöntemler” isimli makale “Tanzanya’da Misyonerlik Faaliyetler Lutheran Kilise Örneği” isimli yüksek lisans tezine dayanmaktadır. Makale, Lutheran misyonerliğinin Tanzanya’da faaliyetlerine nasıl başladıkları, ilerleme yöntemleri ve karşılaşılan güçlükleri anlama noktasında önem arz etmektedir. Makalede ana konuya odaklanmadan önce, Tanzanya hakkında genel bir bilgilendirme yapılmış, ardından Leibzig Misyon Cemiyeti’nin (LMS) faaliyetlerine nasıl başladığı, kronolojik bir şekilde açmış olduğu istasyonlar, bu istasyonlarda karşılaşmış olduğu zorluklar ve kullanılan yöntemler hakkında bilgi verilmiştir. Ayrıca, Tanzanya’da Lutheran misyoner (...) cemiyetlerinin, Tanzanya Evanjelik Lutheran Kilisesi (Tanzania Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania) ELCT ile tek bir kilise çatı altında toplanması ele alınmıştır. Son olarak, ELCT’nin kabul etmiş olduğu ilkeler ve Martin Luther’in öğretilerinin Afrika’daki yansımaları üzerinde durulmuştur. Makale, sadece misyonerleri ve misyonerlik faaliyetlerini değil, ayrıca muhatap olunan ve yüzyıllardır sömürgeleştirilen Afrika halkını anlamamıza da yardımcı olmaktadır. Araştırma, Lutheran misyonerliğinin Tanzanya’da başlamış olduğu 19. yüzyıl sonu ve yoğunlaştığı 20. yüzyıl ile sınırlandırılmıştır. Otto von Bismarck’ın (1815-1898) katkılarıyla gerçekleşen Berlin Konferansı sayesinde, batılı ülkelerin bayrakları ile haçları da sömürge topraklarına girmiştir. Tanzanya'da Lutheran Misyon, Johann Ludwig Krapf (1810-1881) ve Johannes Rebmann'ın (1820-1876) CMS tarafından görevlendirilmeleri sonucu başlamıştır. LMS, CMS'den 1892 tarihinde görevi devralmıştır ve Machame, Mamba, Old Moshi, Pare, Meru'da faaliyet göstermiştir. Misyon faaliyetleri süresince, savaşlar, kıtlık ve salgın, çok eşlilik, sünnet uygulaması, tanrı anlayışı gibi birçok zorlukla karşılaşılmıştır. Zorluklar, onları ortadan kaldırmaya yardımcı olacak; eğitim, sağlık, bütüncül hizmet, ortak dil (lingua franca), Kutsal Kitap çevirileri, ev ziyaretleri, yerli yardımcılar ve yerlileştirme gibi yöntemleri de beraberinde getirmiştir. Tanzanya’da LMS dışında; Katolik Kutsal Ruh Babaları (Holy Ghost Father/ Spiritanlar), Katolik Beyaz Babalar (Peres Blancs), Katolik Benediktinler, Anglikan Kilise Misyon Topluluğu (Chuch Missionary Society) CMS, Anglikan Üniversitelerin Orta Afrika Misyonu (The Universities’ Mission to Central Africa) UMCA gibi misyon grupları mevcuttur. Tanzanya'da bulunan Lutheran Misyon toplulukları, Evanjelik Lüteriyen Kilisesi (ELCT) adı altında 1963 yılında tek bir çatı altında toplanmıştır. ELCT bugün 5,2 milyon üyesi ile Tanzanya nüfusu içinde hatırı sayılır bir yere sahiptir. Bu çalışmada, deskriptif yöntem kullanılmıştır. Ulaşılabilen tüm ilk kaynaklara inilerek Lutheran misyonerler ve Tanzanya hakkında bilgi verilmiştir. Çalışmada Türkçe kaynaklara yer verilmekle birlikte yabancı kaynak kullanımına ve misyon topluluklarının bilinen kısaltmalarının kullanılmasına önem gösterilmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler; Tanzanya, Hıristiyanlık, Misyonerlik, Lutheranizm, Leipzig Misyon Cemiyeti. (shrink)

On the basis of a close reading of three authors , I try to elucidate what the growing presence of digital technologies in our lives implies for the sphere of schooling and education. Developing a technocentric perspective, I discuss whether what is happening today concerns just the newest form of humankind's fundamental dependency on a technological milieu or that it concerns a fundamental shift. From Flusser, I take the idea that the practice of writing shapes human subjectivity, as well as (...) our very sense of history and progress, and that with the advent of digital technologies the possibility of a posthistorical era is granted. I confront this idea with Stiegler's analysis of technological tools and practices as strongly materialized memories, which amounts to a plea for securing the link with the particular history behind the technologies we use. Here, education should play a conservative role and take responsibility for using technologies in a correct way. I argue that Stiegler is not wholly consistent on this point and, moreover, that his view precludes the possibility to rethink the very meaning of education under present conditions. This possibility is opened if we turn to a philosopher which is ruthlessly criticized by Stiegler for being a technophobe: Agamben. I argue, however, that a more detailed reading of Agamben—n combination with Flusser—might show a completely different and far more positive appreciation for digital technology and that this view offers an opening for rethinking what education is all about. (shrink)

This special issue aims to explore what is educational in the seemingly humble gesture of making notes: not only how and why the practice of note-taking is educative in and of itself, but also what it says about education as such. The contributions to the issue each highlight different aspects of note-making and approach it differently, but all assume that note-making is an educational practice that merits philosophical study. Interestingly, they mostly focus on note-making as a non-digital practice (putting aside (...) the use of laptops for note-making in class), perhaps because most were written prior to the great digitisation ushered in by educational institutions’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Let us first address how we see the different aspects of note-making highlighted by the contributions to the issue. (shrink)

This article deals with the educational challenge of responding to the pending ecological crisis (and many other future apocalyptic scenarios that haunt our imagination). It seems we are living in a time when we have given up on the idea that progress is possible or desirable, and this questions education at its roots. In order to find a proper educational response that befits our time, it is requested that we gain a new sense of orientation (which is no longer aimed (...) at progress). This is an idea I pick up from the recent work of Bruno Latour, which is the focus of the first part of the paper. In the second part, I start fleshing out what this new orientation could look like by turning to the work of Immanuel Kant (usually regarded as one of the most outspoken defenders of education geared to progress). Nonetheless, I try to read Kant against himself, so as to show how orientation can be understood in a non-modernist manner. I connect this in the third part to the radically immanent and empiricist work of William James, and draw out in the final section how a combined reading of Kant and James offers the orientation we need. (shrink)

This article explores the uses of Agamben’s philosophy for understanding the educational meaning of practices that typically take/took place at school, such as the collective rehearsal of the alphabet or the multiplication tables. More precisely, I propose that these forms of ‘practising’ show what schooling, as a particular and historically contingent institution, is all about. Instead of immediately assessing the ‘practice of practising’ in terms of learning outcomes, I turn to Bollnow’s attempt to analyze this phenomenon in a substantially educational (...) way, which for him essentially consists in opposing practising and learning. I show that his analysis is superficial and that we need Agamben’s notion of ‘potentiality’ in order to come to grips with the sense of this phenomenon. This will allow to see that practising concerns an uncommon way to relate to a subject matter that makes possible a transformation of individual and collective existence. The main objective of this investigation is not to hold a plea for reintroducing obsolete pedagogical methods, but to rethink the very meaning of education. (shrink)

In this article we focus on note taking as a practice that is fundamental to (higher) education. We argue that note-taking should not primarily be regarded as a method that supports effective learning, but as formative of the student herself (making her attentive and granting possibilities for self-transformation). Hence it is a practice that has educational meaning in and of itself. It is a pedagogical form in its own right. We go on arguing that the practice of lecturing can itself (...) be seen as a form of note taking and that both phenomena are not only closely related, but also that note making and lecturing consist of reciprocal operations. Studying on the basis of one’s notes comes down to the reverse operation the teacher had to perform when preparing her lessons. Moreover, thanks to making notes during a class students have a deeply embodied sense of what it means to generate and to construct new arguments and ideas. (shrink)

In this article, I critically engage with a vital assumption behind the work of Paulo Freire, and more generally behind any critical pedagogy, viz. the belief that education is fundamentally about emancipation. My main goal is to conceive of a contemporary critical pedagogy which stays true to the original inspiration of Freire’s work, but which at the same time takes it in a new direction. More precisely, I confront Freire with Jacques Rancière. Not only is the latter’s work on education (...) fully predicated on the idea of emancipation. For both Freire and Rancière, literacy initiation practice can be seen as an archetypical model for understanding the emancipatory moment in education. For both, educational practices are never neutral, as they decide to a great extent on the fate of our common world. Reflecting on similarities and differences in both their positions, I will propose to conceive of critical pedagogy in terms of a thing-centred pedagogy. As such, I take a clear position in the discussion between teacher- and student-centred approaches. According to Rancière, it is the full devotion to a ‘thing’, i.e. to a subject matter we study, which makes emancipation possible. Over and against Freire’s defense of emancipatory education, I highlight with Rancière the importance of educational emancipation. (shrink)

This article discusses, from a theoretical and philosophical perspective, the meaning and the importance of basic literacy training for education in an age in which digital technologies have become ubiquitous. I discuss some arguments, which I draw from the so-called literacy hypothesis approach, in order to understand the significance of a ‘traditional’ initiation into literacy. I then use the work of Bernard Stiegler on bodily gestures and routines, related to different technologies, in order to elaborate and criticize the claims the (...) literacy hypothesis makes. Bringing together insights from both the literacy hypothesis approach and Stiegler's work, I defend the view that there exists an essential difference between traditional and digital literacy, and I try to argue for the introduction of a spelling and grammar of the digital in the educational curriculum. (shrink)

Justice, equality, and righteousness—these are some of our greatest moral convictions. Yet in times of social conflict, morals can become rigid, making religious war, ethnic cleansing, and political purges possible. Morality, therefore, can be viewed as pathology-a rhetorical, psychological, and social tool that is used and abused as a weapon. An expert on Eastern philosophies and social systems theory, Hans-Georg Moeller questions the perceived goodness of morality and those who claim morality is inherently positive. Critiquing the ethical "fanaticism" of (...) Western moralists, such as Immanuel Kant, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Rawls, and the utilitarians, Moeller points to the absurd fundamentalisms and impracticable prescriptions arising from definitions of good. Instead he advances a theory of "moral foolishness," or moral asceticism, extracted from the "amoral" philosophers of East Asia and such thinkers as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Niklas Luhmann. The moral fool doesn't understand why ethics are necessarily good, and he isn't convinced that the moral perspective is always positive. In this way he is like most people, and Moeller defends this foolishness against ethical pathologies that support the death penalty, just wars, and even Jerry Springer's crude moral theater. Comparing and contrasting the religious philosophies of Christianity, Daoism, and Zen Buddhism, Moeller presents a persuasive argument in favor of amorality. (shrink)

In this article Joris Vlieghe defends the view that technologies of reading and writing are more than merely instruments that support education, arguing that these technologies themselves decide what education is all about and that they form subjectivity in substantial ways. Expanding on insights taken from media theory, Vlieghe uses the work of Bernard Stiegler in order to develop a “technosomatic” account of literacy initiation, that is, a perspective that zooms in on the physical dimensions of how to (...) operate writing and reading technologies. He argues that that the bodily gestures and disciplines that constitute literacy give rise to a particular space of experience, which comes down to a heavily embodied, first-hand sense of what it means to be able to produce script. Vlieghe contends that the advent of digital writing and reading technologies implies a fundamental shift in this sense of ability, and that in order to understand digital literacy we need to take into account the technosomatic aspects of learning to read and write with digital media. (shrink)

In this article we focus on note taking as a practice that is fundamental to education. We argue that note-taking should not primarily be regarded as a method that supports effective learning, but as formative of the student herself. Hence it is a practice that has educational meaning in and of itself. It is a pedagogical form in its own right. We go on arguing that the practice of lecturing can itself be seen as a form of note taking and (...) that both phenomena are not only closely related, but also that note making and lecturing consist of reciprocal operations. Studying on the basis of one’s notes comes down to the reverse operation the teacher had to perform when preparing her lessons. Moreover, thanks to making notes during a class students have a deeply embodied sense of what it means to generate and to construct new arguments and ideas. (shrink)

The background of the argument Joris Vlieghe develops in this article is the idea, proposed by neopragmatic scholars, that a way of aptly dealing with the societal issues that have come about in the wake of a global ecological crisis consists of engaging in practices of study. This involves thinking, a concept that needs to be reconsidered from an educational perspective. Hence the article turns to John Dewey's classical pragmatic account of thinking, so as to show that this Deweyan (...) approach could be enriched by reading it together with Giorgio Agamben's reflections on this matter. This allows for rendering with greater accuracy certain aspects of thinking that unearth its properly educational meaning: that thinking is necessarily a collective endeavor that is driven by an interruption of our habitual ways of living together with a view toward envisaging truly alternative futures. Thinking is a risky experience in which the foundational subject disappears. Such a view allows, furthermore, for the reconceptualization of thinking in a posthumanist key. (shrink)

In this short reply to Riis’ paper I first deal with his perceptive defence of ICT literacy, to which I fully subscribe, showing how his ideas might gain from highlighting the ‘technical’ dimensions involved in literacy practices. Second, this will allow me to make some comments regarding the curricular and organizational aspects of contemporary education, which forms the largest part of his paper. My main line of criticism towards Riis’ paper is that I defend a ‘technical’ rather than a ‘non-technical’ (...) account of digital literacy. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the musical work of classical composer Benjamin Britten as a lasting legacy for public music education. Our starting point is the contemporary urgency to rethink both public music education in general, and the public-educational significance of Western classical music in particular, in the face of the dual threats posed by anti-educational tendencies of “functionalization” and “hobbyfication.” Relating this situation to concerns already voiced by Britten in his time, we consider in what ways aspects of Britten’s (...) musical work can be shown to reveal a highly original, post-critical answer to these threats. While his pedagogical musings remain riddled with ambiguities, which readily invite critical deconstruction, our paper argues for the more affirmative option of reconceptualizing these ambiguities as constitutive tensions of a public-educational love for (classical) music. To gauge the practical implications of such a post-critical music-educational love, we analyze the concrete case of the Aldeburgh Festival, perhaps Britten’s most full-fledged effort to reclaim music as a public affair. Thinking about this case, we reflect on how Britten’s legacy could lastingly impinge on the publicness of Western classical music, as well as on ongoing and future practices of public music education in general. (shrink)

In this article I try to conceive a new approach towards laughter in the context of formal schooling. I focus on laughter in so far as it is a bodily response during which we are entirely delivered to uncontrollable, spasmodic reactions. To see the educational relevance of this particular kind of laughter, as well as to understand why laughter is often dealt with in a very negative way in pedagogical contexts, this phenomenon should be carefully distinguished from humor or amusement. (...) I build my argument for a smaller part on the basis of conceptual analysis, and to a greater extent on Bakhtin’s work on the transition from Medieval folk culture to Modern civilized culture, in which he claims that a reduction from laughing as a strongly physical experience to mere forms of amusement or humor actually implies that laughter no longer possesses its inherent equalizing and communizing potential. In a sense, laughter forms a threat to any organization of social existence according to similarities and differences in identity and position, and this explains why we usually try to suppress it, or why we try to render it functional in view of the continuation of a societal regime or pedagogical order. More positively formulated, laughter may be said to have an intrinsic educational meaning, because it allows a significant transformation of individual and collective existence. (shrink)

Introduces contemporary American philosophy of technology through six of its leading figures. The six American philosophers of technology whose work is profiled in this clear and concise introduction to the field—Albert Borgmann, Hubert Dreyfus, Andrew Feenberg, Donna Haraway, Don Ihde, and Langdon Winner—represent a new, empirical direction in the philosophical study of technology that has developed mainly in North America. In place of the grand philosophical schemes of the classical generation of European philosophers of technology, the contemporary American generation addresses (...) concrete technological practices and the co-evolution of technology and society in modern culture. Six Dutch philosophers associated with Twente University survey and critique the full scope and development of their American colleagues’ work, often illustrating shifts from earlier to more recent interests. Individual chapters focus on Borgmann’s engagement with technology and everyday life; Dreyfus’s work on the limits of artificial intelligence; Feenberg’s perspectives on the cultural and social possibilities opened by technologies; Haraway’s conception of the cyborg and its attendant blurring of boundaries; Ihde’s explorations of the place of technology in the lifeworld; and Winner’s fascination with the moral and political implications of modern technologies. American Philosophy of Technology offers an insightful and readable introduction to this new and distinctly American philosophical turn. Contributors are Hans Achterhuis, Philip Brey, René Munnik, Martijntje Smits, Pieter Tijmes, and Peter-Paul Verbeek. (shrink)

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to "present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent.

In this article, we explore the possibilities that works of art might possess for looking in original and unforeseen ways into something that, at first sight, has little to do with arts and artistic practice. To be more precise, we present here three artistic representations, taken from various times and style periods, that depict a well-known figure in art history: angels. A detailed description and analysis of these images give us the opportunity to figure out something about another figure, which (...) is fascinating to us as philosophers of education: the teacher. Our basic intuition is that the way in which three important artists—Albrecht Dürer, William Hogarth, and Paul Klee—have tried to capture and trace out... (shrink)

Hans Joas is one of the foremost social theorists in Germany today. Based on Joas’s celebrated study of George Herbert Mead, this work reevaluates the contribution of American pragmatism and European philosophical anthropology to theories of action in the social sciences. Joas also establishes direct ties between Mead’s work and approaches drawn from German traditions of philosophical anthropology. Joas argues for adding a third model of action to the two predominant models of rational and normative action—one that emphasizes the (...) creative character of human action. This model encompasses the other two, allowing for a more comprehensive theory of action. Joas elaborates some implications of his model for theories of social movements and social change and for the status of action theory in sociology in the face of competition from theories advanced by Luhmann and Habermas. The problem of action is of crucial importance in both sociology and philosophy, and this book—already widely debated in Germany—will add fresh impetus to the lively discussions current in the English-speaking world. (shrink)

Nähere Informationen zu diesem Buch erhalten Sie direkt vom Verlag / For further information about this title please contact Mohr Siebeck.

In this book Han Thomas Adriaenssen offers the first comparative exploration of the sceptical reception of representationalism in medieval and early modern philosophy. Descartes is traditionally credited with inaugurating a new kind of scepticism by saying that the direct objects of perception are images in the mind, not external objects, but Adriaenssen shows that as early as the thirteenth century, critics had already found similar problems in Aquinas's theory of representation. He charts the attempts of philosophers in both periods to (...) grapple with these problems, and shows how in order to address the challenges of scepticism and representation, modern philosophers in the wake of Descartes often breathed new life into old ideas, remoulding them in ways that we are just beginning to understand. His book will be valuable for historians interested in the medieval background to early modern thought, and to medievalists looking at continuity with the early modern period. -/- . (shrink)

In this article, I deal with the transition from traditional ‘school’ forms of instruction to educational processes that are fully mediated by digital technologies. Against the background of the idea the very institution ‘school’ is closely linked to the invention of the alphabetic writing system and to the need of initiating new generations into a literate culture, I focus on the issue of literacy training. I argue that with the digitization of education, a fundamental transition takes place regarding what it (...) means to be literate, but also what it means to educate and to be educated. I do so by developing a ‘techno-somatic’ approach, which means that I look at the use of concrete instructional technologies, and the bodily disciplines that are involved. I set out a double comparison in which I contrast existing, ‘traditional’ ways of learning how to read/write with the way in which literacy training looked like before the nineteenth century, on the one hand, and with the initiation into literacy in the Chinese/japanese language, on the other hand. I argue that these comparisons shed light on the differences between traditional and digital literacy. More precisely, I show that in each case, a different relation toward what it means to produce script is involved. As such, both forms of literacy go together with different spaces of experience and senses of being-able, and therefore with altogether different ideas of what education is all about. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, we argue that it is possible to approach teaching from a fully affirmative perspective: as an educational practice that has its own internal logic and intrinsic value. By analysing a fragment from one of the Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts presented in this article as a teaching event, we show that when starting from an empirical example of teaching it is possible to distinguish principles and gestures that testify to an ontological dimension of teaching. This is possible, (...) however, only when a particular reading of this empirical material is applied. We call this an immanent reading, as opposed to a transcendent reading. It should be clear that this kind of inquiry we briefly demonstrate here is exactly a post-critical attempt to re-establish our affirmative relation with one of the most devalued, repressed, and neglected educational practice, namely teaching. (shrink)

In this article, I go deeper into the educational meaning of tiredness. Over and against the mainstream view that tiredness is an impediment for education, I show that this phenomenon is intrinsically meaningful. My arguments are based, first, on a detailed phenomenological analysis of tiredness, as proposed by Buytendijk. Tiredness can be defined as the point where lack of willpower and lack of ability become utterly indistinguishable. Second, I turn to Agamben’s genealogy of the will, which shows that willpower was (...) invented in order to control a more original, but also more arcane sense of what it means to be able to do something: potentiality. I argue that tiredness, as analysed by Buytendijk, is a state of potentiality. As such it has the power to interrupt the contemporary ordering of society and of the realm of education, which is fully predicated upon individual wilful self-commandment. More positively speaking, tiredness has an important educational value in that it grants the opportunity of beginning anew with the world. This article is also an attempt to show how phenomenological work and genealogical approaches can inform one another. (shrink)