On this day MTV began broadcasting in the United States. Its first video was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. More recently, MTV has decided to resurrect Beavis and Butthead. Ironically, by reintroducing Beavis and Butthead, MTV plans to reintroduce music videos, which they have gradually replaced with reality TV and canned crap. (Wiki)

On this date Albert Einstein died quietly in his sleep at Princeton Hospital in New Jersey. Among his many contributions to the field of physics, he was also sympathetic to spirituality: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” (Wiki)

18th amendment (prohibition) goes into effect in the US. Revitalizes nation and organizes crime. (Pravda)

For the past year I’ve used this ‘Dead Trees’ series to track adoptions and consumption of literature in our household. With the initial, orienting post I shared my rationale: a curiosity about “how [our home] library might look during/after grad studies.” Observing a lack of “expertise”, I wondered what genres would expand, which new genres would arise, and which genres would slowly fall to the wayside. A year into the series and a meagre semester into my studies, some trends are becoming apparent: (i) philosophy = win; (ii) esoterica = fail; (iii) cultural studies = HUGE; (iv) academic publishing = classist, elitist.

Whereas I began the year with a mild appreciation for classical philosophical texts (Socratics through Enlightenment, more or less) and a budding interest in ‘pop philosophy’ (see Pink Floyd & philosophy & House MD & philosophy), these days my interests have become far more Continental and ‘poststructural’ in disposition: Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Guattari, Lacan, Zizek, Badiou, Stuart Hall, etc. This ‘Continental turn’ has, I think, profoundly influenced and strengthened my research. Not only am I asking different questions, but I’m looking at the way my questions structure the horizons of possibility. I have every reason to suspect that this ‘turn’ may mark one of my life’s greatest dispositional fulcrums. At the very least it signposts a particular and radical addition to my conceptual armoury.

Marking a strong contrast with my renewed affinity for philosophy, esoterica and spirituality have all but fallen off my radar. It took more than a year to read the archival collection of Gnosis I bought, and I drifted more or less seamlessly from scholarly approaches to esoterica to scholarly approaches to education, culture, and philosophy. Having passed through this portal, much of that esoteric literature now smacks of narcissism, psychological naivete, and conceptual bankruptcy. For instance, it’s very common within the esoteric/magickal community to take great pride in the efficacy of personal practice. When asked about the efficacy and value of personal practice, most practitioners happily follow in the tracks of Crowley, Lon Milo Duquette, Starhawk, Don Juan Matus, etc, and wax romantic about the ‘power’ of their ‘magick’. However, looking a little deeper into the lives and worldviews of these paragons – or the antecedents of their motivations – and you’re likely to find frustration, disenfranchisement, and marginalization. A great many of us are perpetually locked in positions of subjugation, and in these instances esoteric practice can definitely have value – so my argument here isn’t one of value, but of power. I think whether they admit/realize it or not, a lot of practitioners of the esoteric arts are in pursuit of power – and without a doubt, esoteric practice can reify power in ways few other hobbies can! But for those who take as their objective to resolve (rather than exacerbate or ignore) those structural tensions which underly marginalization and disenfranchisement, different methods and competencies are needed. Sadly, although esoteric practice is often construed as ‘enlightening’ or ‘illuminating’, its individualistic and idiosyncratic horizons make it a poor referent for socially conscious practitioners.

As I incrementally position myself within the field of cultural studies I’m finding it increasingly difficult to disagree with one of the most enduring critiques of cultural studies: as an anti-discipline, it’s had no recourse to tradition or coherence and has come to mean almost ‘any damn thing’. Not only does ‘cultural studies’ mean different things in different places (and times), but there’s no agreed upon understanding of what ‘culture’ actually means, or how we might ‘study’ it. As a result, ‘cultural studies’ can reference queer studies, feminism, neo-Marxism, pop culture, post-colonialism, ethnography, etc – and forget about any coherent methodology! Consequently, ‘cultural studies’ is rather volatile, and it’s very difficult to say how this will unfold within the shelves of our home library.

A sizeable minority of this year’s adoptions were ‘academic texts’, and I have become progressively sensitive to and discouraged by the classist domination of scholarly discourse. First, I think it’s tragic that the general public lacks access to scholarly databases. Outside of universities and large public libraries the subscription fees of research databases (e.g., JSTOR, EBSCO, Wiley) are beyond the financial means of most civilians, and this unnecessarily creates and perpetuates information hegemonies. Second, I think it’s deplorable that academic texts cost so bloody much! Take, for instance, Vighi & Feldner’s Zizek: Beyond Foucault, a text which I hope to use in my attempt to bridge cultural studies and Critical Discourse Analysis. List price? $85! Or James Paul Gee’s Social Linguistics & Literacies: Ideology in Discourses, a text which I hope to use to inform my application of Critical Discourse Analysis. List price? $180! So long as the Academy positions itself as a means of stratification and marginalization it cannot hope to secure the sympathies of the public – or serve as the vanguard for revolution.

This lucid and concise introduction to cultural theory brings a much-needed sense of historical and theoretical scale to the growth of cultural studies. Each of the chapters in this third edition has been extensively revised to include entirely new material, on such topics as the new historicism, Zizek, Bourdieu, Bakhtin, Deleuze and Guattari, queer theory, Black and Latino cultural studies, posthumanism and the Sokal affair. There are also new chapters on ‘Cultural Studies and Cultural Theory’ and on ‘Cultural Criticism and Cultural Policy’. – (Amazon)

Bobbi Lee confronts white Canadian society on the grounds that it stole from the First Nations of this country. A tough autobiography of an Indian woman’s life from the mud flats of Second Narrows Bridge, Vancouver, to the Toronto of the sixties and seventies, Lee Maracle gives us an important sense of the tough terrain of struggle toward political consciousness which all oppressed peoples undertake. Bobbi Lee is a hopeful work for recovering the possibilities of envisioning a world where we are not beaten down every day. – (Amazon)

Adding a new introduction and two previously unpublished papers, Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis brings together van Leeuwen’s methodological work on discourse analysis of the last 15 years. Discourse, van Leeuwen argues, is a resource for representation, a knowledge about some aspect of reality which can be drawn upon when that aspect of reality has to be represented, a framework for making sense of things. And they are plural. There can be different discourses, different ways of making sense of the same aspect of reality that serve different interests and will therefore be used in different social contexts.
However abstract some discourses are, discourses ultimately always represent doings, van Leeuwen argues. Doing is the foundation of knowing, and social practices are the foundation of discourses. Studying children’s books, newspaper reports, brochures and other texts, as well as photographs and children’s toys, van Leeuwen investigates what can happen when practices are transformed into discourses and provides analytical tools for reconstructing discourses from texts.

Throughout the book, van Leeuwen makes connections between sociological and linguistic or semiotic concepts and methods to ensure the social and critical relevance of his analytical categories. van Leeuwen’s work has already been widely used by critical discourse analysts across the world. This volume will be a welcome guide for anyone looking for a form of discourse analysis that is both explicit and methodical, and critically incisive. – (Ebookee)

This book offers a readable and compelling introduction to the work of one of the twentieth century’s most important and elusive thinkers. Other books have tried to explain Deleuze in general terms. Todd May organizes his book around a central question at the heart of Deleuze’s philosophy: how might we live? The author then goes on to explain how Deleuze offers a view of the cosmos as a living thing that provides ways of conducting our lives that we may not have dreamed of. – (Amazon)

In Slavoj Zizek and Michel Foucault, this book brings together two of the most prominent thinkers in contemporary critical theory. Starting from a critical assessment of the Foucauldian paradigm of discourse analysis, it explores the theoretical scope and political consequences of Zizek’s blend of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hegelian philosophy and Marxist politics. The comparison between the two thinkers throws into relief the commonalities and irreconcilable differences of their respective approaches to critical theory. By unmasking reality as contingent symbolic fiction, the authors argue, Foucauldian criticism has only deconstructed the world in different ways; the point, however, is `to recognize the Real in what appears to be mere symbolic fiction’ (Zizek) and to change it. – (Amazon)

Extensively revised and updated, this new edition of Fieldwork in Educational Settings will be welcomed by researchers and academics in education and the social sciences. Embracing both sociological and anthropological approaches to qualitative research, the book covers education inside and beyond schools. It emphasises writing up ethnographic research and getting the project finished, and is packed with examples from research in progress.

This new edition brings the original text right up to date for new researchers. There is an additional chapter on computer software for data handling and attention is given to the implications of postmodernism for writing up research. The examples given are taken from the latest research, replacing those from the first edition. This is an indispensable handbook by an author whose work on this subject is widely recognised as being an essential resource for the researcher in education. – (Informaworld)

Called by many France’s foremost philosopher, Gilles Deleuze is one of the leading thinkers in the Western World. His acclaimed works and celebrated collaborations with Félix Guattari have established him as a seminal figure in the fields of literary criticism and philosophy. The long-awaited publication of in English marks the culmination of Deleuze’s career. Deleuze and Guattari differentiate between philosophy, science, and the arts, seeing as means of confronting chaos, and challenge the common view that philosophy is an extension of logic. The authors also discuss the similarities and distinctions between creative and philosophical writing. Fresh anecdotes from the history of philosophy illuminate the book, along with engaging discussions of composers, painters, writers, and architects. A milestone in Deleuze’s collaboration with Guattari, brings a new perspective to Deleuze’s studies of cinema, painting, and music, while setting a brilliant capstone upon his work. – (Amazon)

In this companion volume to John van Maanen’s “Tales of the Field”, three scholars reveal how the ethnographer turns direct experience and observation into written fieldnotes upon which an ethnography is based. Drawing on years of teaching and field research experience, the authors develop a series of guidelines, suggestions and practical advice about how to write useful fieldnotes in a variety of settings, both cultural and institutional. Using actual, unfinished “working” notes as examples, they illustrate options for composing, reviewing and working fieldnotes into finished texts. They discuss different organizational and descriptive strategies, including evocation of sensory detail, synthesis of complete scenes, the value of partial versus omniscient perspectives and of first-person versus third-person accounts. Of particular interest is the authors’ discussion of notetaking as a mindset. They show how transforming direct observations into vivid descriptions results not simply from good memory but more crucially from learning to envision scenes as written. A good ethnographer, they argue, must learn to remember dialogue and movement like an actor, to see colours and shapes like a painter, and to sense moods and rhythms like a poet. The authors also emphasize the ethnographer’s core interest in presenting the perceptions and meanings which the people studied attach to their own actions. They demonstrate the subtle ways that writers can make the voices of people heard in the texts they produce. Finally, they analyze the “processing” of fieldnotes – the practice of coding notes to identify themes and methods for selecting and weaving together fieldnote excerpts to write a polished ethnography. This book, however, is more than a “how-to” manual. The authors examine writing fieldnotes as an interactive and interpretive process in which the researcher’s own commitments and relationships with those in the field inevitably shape the character and content of those fieldnotes. They explore the conscious and unconscious writing choices that produce fieldnote accounts. And they show how the character and content of these fieldnotes inevitably influence the arguments and analyses the ethnographer can make in the final ethnographic tale. This book shows that note-taking is a craft that can be taught. Along with “Tales of the Field” and George Marcus and Michael Fisher’s “Anthropology as Cultural Criticism”, “Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes” should provide an essential tool for students and social scientists alike. – (FishPond.nz)

A timely and topical look at the role of ethics in fieldwork taking into account some of the major issues confronting qualitative researchers.
The main purposes of this book are twofold, to promote an understanding of the harmful possibilities of fieldwork, and provide ways of dealing with ethical problems and dilemmas. To these ends, examples of actual fieldwork are provided that address ethical problems and dilemmas, and posit ways of dealing with them.

This book covers traditional and contemporary approaches to fieldwork, including the role of self//identity, participation, feminist methods, ethical and moral issues. The examples discussed include fieldworkers’ experiences with sensitive topics, sensitive situations, dramatic scenarios and events, and difficult circumstances for which there seem no satisfactory resolutions.

The author tackles the central issues that the role of the fieldworker has to confront.

Fieldworkers are often attempting to balance observation with participation, and others struggle with the interests and responsibilities of various audiences (sponsors, gatekeepers, academics, participants); and with the self. She further addresses the problems researchers face around the boundaries between private and public place, conventional and sensitive topics, overt and covert methods, fieldnotes and texts.

These dilemmas are placed in the context where decisions have to be made that draw on values, principles, codes of ethics, professional standards and feelings. The main emphasis of the book is on ethical problems and dilemmas that move the researcher to centre stage, although the risk of threat from research for participants is given due recognition. – (Amazon)

The latest book in The New Press’s Essential series collects key texts from the influential French philosopher.

Few philosophers have had as significant an impact on contemporary thought as Michel Foucault. His complete uncollected writings, under the title Dits et écrits, were published in French in 1994 and in a three-volume series from The New Press that brought the most important of these works—courses, articles, and interviews, many of them translated into English for the first time—to American readers. Now, Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose have collected the best pieces from the three-volume set into a one-volume anthology.

The Essential Foucault, which features a new and provocative introduction by Rabinow and Rose, is certain to become the standard text for all those interested in a comprehensive overview of Foucault’s thought. – (Amazon)

Who Was Jacques Derrida? is the first intellectual biography of Derrida, the first full-scale appraisal of his career, his influence, and his philosophical roots. It is also the first attempt to define his crucial importance as the ambassador of “theory,” the phenomenon that has had a profound influence on academic life in the humanities. Mikics lucidly and sensitively describes for the general reader Derrida’s deep connection to his Jewish roots. He succinctly defines his vision of philosophy as a discipline that resists psychology. While pointing out the flaws of that vision and Derrida’s betrayal of his most adamantly expounded beliefs, Mikics ultimately concludes that “Derrida was neither so brilliantly right nor so badly wrong as his enthusiasts and critics, respectively, claimed.” – (Amazon)

John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorization drills. Gatto’s earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, put the now-famous expression of the title in common use worldwide. Weapons of Mass Instruction promises to add another chilling metaphor to the brief against schooling.

Here is a demonstration that the harm school inflicts is quite rational and deliberate, following high level political theories constructed by Plato, Calvin, Spinoza, Fichte, Darwin, Wundt, and others, which contend the term “education” is meaningless because humanity is strictly limited by necessities of biology, psychology, and theology. The real function of pedagogy is to render the common population manageable.

Realizing that goal demands the young be conditioned to rely upon experts, conditioned to remain divided from natural alliances, conditioned to accept disconnections from the experiences, which create self-reliance and independence. – (New Society)

This collection of essays and interviews edited by Sylvere Lotringer and published in 1995, focuses on the French anti-psychiatrist and theorist’s work as director of the experimental La Borde clinic (“A Clinic Unlike Any Other”) and longtime collaborator with the philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

Chaosophy is a groundbreaking introduction to Guattari’s theories on “schizo-analysis”: a process meant to replace Freudian interpretation with a more pragmatic, experimental, and collective approach rooted in reality. Unlike Freud, Guattari believes that schizophrenia is an extreme mental state induced by the capitalist system itself, which keeps enforcing neurosis as a way of maintaining normality. Guattari’s post-Marxist vision of capitalism provides a new definition not only of mental illness, but also of the micropolitical means of its subversion. – (MIT Press)

Alain Badiou is the world’s most influential living philosopher. Few contemporary thinkers display his breadth of argument and reference, or his ability to intervene in debates critical to both analytic and continental philosophy. “Alain Badiou: Key Concepts” presents an overview of and introduction to the full range of Badiou’s thinking. Essays focus on the foundations of Badiou’s thought, his ‘key concepts’ – truth, being, ontology, the subject, and conditions – and on his engagement with a range of thinkers central to his philosophy, including Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Heidegger and Deleuze. Students new to Badiou will find this work, written by the key scholars in the field, accessible and comprehensive, while readers already familiar with Badiou will find detailed, focused and innovative discussions of Badiou’s key themes, concepts and engagements. – (Amazon)

A vehement defense of the principle of democracy against neoconservative repression.

Jacques Ranciere was a student of Althusser before he famously turned against his mentor; now, he’s regarded as one of the major thinkers of our age. In his new book, he examines how the West can no longer simply extol the virtues of democracy by contrasting it with the horrors of totalitarianism.

As certain governments are exporting democracy by brute force, and a reactionary strand in mainstream political opinion is willing to abandon civil liberties and destroy collective values of equality, Ranciere explains how democracy — government by all — attacks any form of power based on the superiority of an elite. Hence the fear, and consequently the hatred, of democracy amongst the new ruling class.

In a compelling and timely analysis, Hatred of Democracy rediscovers the ever-new and subversive power of the democratic idea. – (Amazon)

In this provocative and brilliantly argued work, philosopher Zizek takes readers on an intellectual and artistic tour—drawing upon Picasso’s Guernica, Alfred Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan’s films, Michel Houellebecq’s novels, jokes, Lacanian psychology and a Kantian analysis of Hurricane Katrina—to demonstrate how societies understand, obscure and deny the sources of violence. His is not an examination of offenses but an argument that violence can perhaps be best defined by the bystanders and not by its perpetrators or victims. Zizek enumerates the varieties of violence (subjective, objective, systemic) and how it inheres in language, economics and religion, urging readers to discern the violence that sustains our very efforts to fight violence and to promote tolerance. In meditations on the events of 9/11, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the 2005 Paris riots, the book turns numerous familiar arguments on their ear (he proposes that the guards at Abu Ghraib represent the true underside of American society). His unrelenting scrutiny and host of cultural and literary references dazzle, and this bracing and rewarding read will challenge anyone unwilling to recognize his or her complicity in systems of institutional and interpersonal violence. – (Amazon)

Stuart Schneiderman was one of the first Americans to travel to France to study under Lacan and to undertake an analysis with him … Jacques Lacan: The Death of an Intellectual Hero … traces the fraught and divisive events in Lacan’s School during the time that Schneiderman was part of it in the 1970s, towards the end of Lacan’s life. Personal anecdotes about Lacan as an analyst and the political schisms that dominated his final years are presented by – at least as he tells it – one who did not ‘take sides’. – (Lacan Online)

Hedges is clear from the outset: there is nothing inherently moral about being either a believer or a nonbeliever. He goes a step further by accusing atheists of being as intolerant, chauvinistic, bigoted, anti-intellectual, and self-righteous as their archrivals, religious fundamentalists; in other words, as being secular versions of the religious Right. Like best-selling atheists Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett, Hedges is disgusted with the Christian Right, going so far as to call it the most frightening mass movement in American history. Even more disturbing for Hedges, however, is the notion, which many atheists and liberal churchgoers share, that as a species humanity can progress morally. There is nothing in human nature or human history to support the idea, Hedges maintains, nor that the flaws of human nature will ever be overcome. He discusses the dark sides of the Enlightenment, Darwinism, consumer culture, the justifications for America’s wars (including in Vietnam and now Iraq), and obsession with celebrity, among other equally hot topics. His purpose in this small, thought-provoking book is, he says, to help Americans, in particular, accept the limitations of being human and, ultimately, face reality. – (Amazon)

The third edition of this comprehensive work explores perennial questions in the philosophy of religion, adding valuable new material while retaining the accessible style and thorough coverage of previous editions. Drawing from the best in both classical and contemporary discussions, the authors examine standard topics in the field as well as more recent issues. The new edition adds material on feminist views of religious language, the new Intelligent Design argument, and the question of how relativity theory relates to divine timelessness. It also takes into account recent work by Marilyn Adams and Alvin Plantinga and adds a new chapter on God’s action in the world. – (Amazon)

Incorporating ten new readings and expanded pedagogical features, the fourth edition of Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings is the most complete–and economically priced– introductory anthology in the philosophy of religion. It presents seventy-eight selections (more than any other collection) organized into fourteen thematic sections, providing instructors with great flexibility in organizing their courses. Addressing both classical concepts and a host of contemporary issues, the readings cover all of the standard subjects–including religious experience, divine attributes, theistic arguments, the problem of evil, and miracles–as well as more recent topics like reformed epistemology, process theism, the kalam cosmological argument, the religion-science controversy, religious ethics, and the diversity of world religions. While it deals primarily with the Western and analytic traditions in philosophy, the book also incorporates readings representing continental, feminist, and Asian perspectives.

The fourth edition offers enhanced pedagogy including substantially expanded section introductions, numerous new glossary terms, and updated suggestions for further reading. It also provides ten new selections, including pieces by Daniel Dennett, Stephen T. Davis, and Gottfried Leibniz, and work on various issues in religion and science by William Dembski, Philip Kitcher, John Lennox, and John Polkinghorne. – (Oxford)

The life story of Louis Riel has been told in almost every form imaginable, from traditional historical fiction (Rudy Wiebe’s The Scorched Wood People) to punk rock (Thee Headcoats’ “Louie Riel”). Chester Brown’s Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography introduces the Métis rebel to yet another medium: the graphic novel. Brown covers the Riel tale from the arrival of Canadian surveyors in the territory that would become Manitoba to Riel’s martyr’s death on a Regina gallows. Brown tells a highly subjective version of the story but provides maps, plenty of footnotes, and an extensive bibliography, making accessing the historical record very easy.

Riel is Canada’s most famous folk hero, and only a country like Canada could turn someone like him into a national icon. He was a religious zealot, a probable lunatic, a tormented, charismatic despot with a good but hopeless cause. His memory is usually defiled by complacency; Canadian nationalists like to bandy his name about, but the social ills that drove him to rebellion continue to fester. It is to Brown’s credit that he resists the temptation to present Riel as an unimpeachable hero, or to pretend that Riel’s legacy has become part of the Canadian state.

The drawings in Louis Riel are impeccable. Brown notes in his introduction that his work is commonly compared to that of Tintin creator Hergé, and he cites Little Orphan Annie as a primary influence for this book. Both are abundantly evident here, combined with a feeling that Brown is illustrating a minimalist political play, staged under Brecht’s dramatic principles. Landscape and period detail take a back seat to character and caricature: Riel is stout and taciturn; Gabriel Dumont, his deputy, is stouter yet and oozes righteous violence; Sir John A. MacDonald is given the small head of a moron and a huge gin-guzzler’s schnozz. Brown’s weakness is his use of language; his dialogue pushes the plot along and gets the story told, but there is no snap or sparkle to it. Readers with no special affinity for the artwork will probably find the book flat, but those who are immediately drawn to his illustrations will find Louis Riel a visually stunning and pleasingly accessible take on the old Riel tale. – (Amazon.ca)

The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor’s name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women–the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar–who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow’s outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez’s magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man’s shade that it haunts Buendía’s house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía’s wife, Úrsula, is so moved that “the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house.”

With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introduced Latin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into more than two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondo stands at the apex of 20th-century literature. – (Amazon)

It’s no wonder he hates it here. Spider Jerusalem, journalist and hero of sorts in Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan, wades through a sewer of poverty and high-tech despair daily in his efforts to understand and report on America. In The New Scum, Ellis contrasts the powerful, in the form of presidential candidates, with the powerless, who are begging and hustling on the streets. The satire is savage and rarely subtle, but the author takes care to show some human warmth lest the comic descend into the nihilism it warns against. The plot, largely secondary to the characters and background events, focuses loosely on Jerusalem’s assignment to interview the two candidates, each psychotic and unfit for any office. His bodyguard and personal assistant, meanwhile, discover the terrors of pleasure in a post-nanotech world with unlimited credit. The election-eve climax fully captures the anxiety and depression that come from having no real choice in matters of great importance. – (Amazon)

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• Farrelly, M. (2010). Critical discourse analysis in political studies: An illustrative analysis of the ‘empowerment’ agenda. Politics, 30(2).

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(Visual Complexity, by Maisson Bisson)

Few would contest the suggestion that public education rests at the heart of modern civilization, and yet it is important to note that attempts to reform, reconstitute, or renew educational policies are typically contentious and divisive. Sadly, it is often the case that efforts of achieving educational reform are reactionary and structurally problematic. Politicians are not scholars. Their allegiance is not to ‘conceptual rigour’, ‘social constructivism’, or ‘post-colonial discourse’. Rather, most politicians’ worldviews could be characterized by an enmeshment within and enforcement of status quos (see, for e.g., Boston Herald, 2010). Even still, reforming public education seems to have become a never-ending ‘priority’ for not only politicians (largely seeking political/personal gain – i.e., power), but also educationists (primarily seeking to address grievances or gaps in policy). With such polarized interests, it should be no surprise when enacted policies cannot easily be reconciled with the priorities and needs of those affected. Nevertheless, there is great value in systematically re-visioning schooling – if only so that stakeholders can give voice to their desire to ‘not be governed in a particular way’ (Foucault, 1997). By interrogating the discourses and regimes of truth which constitute and limit the horizons of public education, gaps and cracks can be identified, asymmetries of power deconstructed, and new vistas of experience exhumed and legitimated. Moreover, it is also the case that a better tomorrow is contingent on the dreams – and dreamers! – of today.

In order to better articulate a coherent vision of reform for British Columbia’s public schools, I embarked on a course of studies in which I investigated approaches to curricula – the “emerging of coalescing experiences within a transformative process” (Doll, 2002, p. 40). The central question animating my research was: How can British Columbia’s high school social studies curriculum be revised so that it better prepares students for unrealized futures? My specific research objectives were to: (i) identify competing approaches to curriculum theory; (ii) determine ways in which curricula can be found to marginalize and exclude; (iii) map an outline for a radical vision for British Columbia’s high school social studies curricula.

During the inquiry phase of my study I conducted a broad yet focused literature review. Various approaches to curriculum were surveyed, analyzed, and critiqued. In this way, I attempted to examine a range of perspectives, approaches, and theories in order to map the major contours of the concept of curricula. However, I do not claim to have reviewed every article ever published on curriculum theory. Rather, I took on an limited analysis of texts that are set in a context which is complimentary to my research objectives – either by explicitly locating themselves within the field of curriculum theory or the domain of radical critique.

As a result of this study I have come to the understanding that systemic educational reforms may be vital to the continuation of life on Earth. Owing to the fact that public education in the West has taken on decidedly neoliberal characteristics, it has become increasingly problematic. By that I mean public education has adopted and normalized an emphasis on:

the privatization of the public provision of goods and services – moving their provision from the public sector to the private – along with deregulating how private producers can behave, giving greater scope to the single-minded pursuit of profit [emphasis added] and showing significantly less regard for the need to limit social costs or for redistribution based on nonmarket criteria. The aim of neoliberalism is to put into question all collective structures capable of obstructing the logic of the pure market. (Tabb, 2002, p. 29).

In its incessant fetish for commodification, neoliberal capitalism becomes antithetical to the perpetuation of life. According to Slavoj Žižek (2010), neoliberal capitalism is rapidly pushing human civilization towards an eschatological precipice: ecological degradation, the creation of new apartheid regimes, and bio-molecular engineering threaten the entire biosphere, yet neoliberalism compels civilization onwards – ever in pursuit of new forms of exploitation and profit. To that end, UNESCO’s International Commission on Education in the Twenty-First Century observed a “gradual but fundamental change in the manner in which education is perceived in relation to economic development”, adding that education has come to be seen as an “indispensable” means of economic expansion (1994, p. 1). In effect, by directly linking educational outcomes with neoliberal values, public schools can be construed as ambassadors for the apocalypse.

In the hope of contributing to a much-needed counter-narrative, I will have an eye towards Alain Badiou’s (2010) Communist Hypothesis, in which he maintains forms of collective organization which eliminate inequalities of wealth and access are not only possible, but practicable. To that end, in the following exposition I will sketch a powerful new vision for BC’s high school social studies curricula which speaks to long-standing tensions over access, relevance, and preferred outcomes. In so doing, I aim to challenge status quos, exorcise ‘ghosts’ (Doll, 2002), and slaughter sacred cows.

A thorough consideration of axiologic and epistemic privileging should precede and give rise to all attempts at educational reform. Today, for instance, technological innovation has irrevocably altered the global socio-political landscape and catalyzed an age of superabundant information, but many educational philosophies and curricula are still framed by traditional epistemic prejudices. According to Colin Lankshear there are four general dimensions to this epistemic divergence: changes found in the nature of knowers, changes in the world to be known, changes in conceptions of knowledge and processes of coming to know things, and changes in the relative significance of different ‘modes’ of knowing (2003, p. 167). Although these epistemic divergences remain largely unacknowledged by educationists and trivialized by policymakers, they present serious consequences for every aspect of the learning process and challenge traditional theories of knowledge. Accordingly, in my re-visioning of BC’s high school social studies curriculum the proposed epistemic values diverge from classical hierarchies and attempt to breathe new life into stale learning environments. In juxtaposition with classical epistemologies which privilege rote memorization, competition, and universal orthodoxies, my vision for British Columbia’s high school social studies curriculum honors cooperation, complexity, and jouissance.

In spite of and in contrast with prevailing attitudes, I do not think schools should foster competition as a means of control, motivation, or excellence. This is, in part, because I view most instances of competition in schools as sociopathic and counter-productive. Although it is certainly the case that this is a minority opinion, I am in agreement with Foucault, who maintained that “People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what they do does” (Foucault, as cited in Odell, 1993, p. 122). With this in mind:

One must marvel at the intellectual quality of a teacher who can’t understand why children assault one another in the hallway, playground, and city street, when in the classroom the highest accolades are reserved for those who have beaten their peers. In many subtle and some not so subtle ways, teachers demonstrate that what children learn means much less than that they triumph over their classmates. Is this not assault? . . . Classroom defeat is only the pebble that creates widening ripples of hostility. It is self-perpetuating. It is reinforced by peer censure, parental disapproval, and loss of self-concept. If the classroom is a model, and if that classroom models competition, assault in the hallways should surprise no one. (Wax, 1975, p. 197)

Consequently, my vision for BC’s high school social studies curricula attempts to provide students with a more sustainable worldview by ennobling cooperation and interdependence. It is absolute critical to recognize that if students are focused on gaining status through competition, they cannot be focused on doing a task well (Kohn, 1992). Moreover, so long as students are encouraged to aim to ‘win’ or gain status through competition, a majority of students must necessarily ‘lose’. On the basis of this awareness, competition-driven applications of curricula can be recognized as unethical and structurally inconsistent. Therefore, instead of manufacturing artificial scarcities and ranking students according to grade averages, I envision schools which acknowledge the unique value of each and every student – every day. Furthermore, in lieu of award ceremonies which validate and elevate an elite few while excluding and insulting a strong majority, schools might endeavor to recognize the collective contributions of their entire student body. Since competition is firmly engrained within most schools, however, a shift towards cooperation cannot occur overnight. Nevertheless, by intentionally and thoroughly addressing the dilemma of competition in curricula, classrooms, and schools, public education can sever its reliance on failure and begin to access the creative potential of all students.

Building on the interdependence implicit within cooperative frameworks, my re-visioning of British Columbia’s high school social studies curriculum replaces linear causative maps with complex, rhizomatic understandings. According to Davis & Sumara (2008) complex phenomena can be characterized by their self-organization, self-maintenance, and nestedness. Given that almost all aspects of BC’s social studies curricula – in some way or another – embody these emergent qualities, a shift towards complexity thinking can not only be seen as pragmatic, but also as ‘realistic’. Whereas much of the social studies curriculum currently frames discourses according to simplistic linear causation, an integration of the principles of complexity would provide students with greater, more coherent understandings. Similarly, by situating aspects of the curricula rhizomatically, students can begin to replace vertical thinking with horizontal thinking. By that I mean that today’s social studies curricula inappropriately frame understandings as discreet and mutually exclusive. In contrast, a curriculum filtered by rhizomatics and infused with complexity would circumvent and uproot simplistic linear understandings and replace them with messy, context-specific hetero-understandings. For example, today’s social studies curricula structure units as separate or unrelated, but a curriculum which stressed lateral antecedents and effectively integrated the principles of complexity might proceed in an entirely different fashion. Rather than arbitrarily compartmentalizing different ‘epochs’ of human history according to the whims of imperialists, perhaps social studies can be repackaged as an internested whole, or an inextricably networked continuum of experience – and struggle. In so doing, students would have the opportunity to penetrate and challenge layers of meaning which are intentionally occluded by the simplistic causative narratives in BC’s current secondary social studies curricula.

In recognition of the fact that learning proceeds by way of choice – not force – it is crucial that the epistemic foundations of British Columbia’s high school social studies curricula be oriented towards personal relevance and personal pleasure. To that end, Lacan’s notion of jouissance allows for conceptual and programmatic anchoring. According to Lacan (1986/1992), jouissance can only be understood in relation with plaisir – comfortable and reassuring pleasure which confirms or affirms previously held values and expectations. Jouissance, in contrast, refers to unsettling and destabilizing bliss – which can never be satisfied. Although Lacan’s use of jouissance focused on psychoanalytic excavation, I contend that the concept is transdiscursive and well-suited to the field of education. If curricula were less antagonistic to the experience of jouissance, I think students might find schooling more relevant and less troublesome. As an illustration, if curricula could be re-visioned so that students could correlate jouissance with learning, they might be more open to change and new ideas. On the other hand, the current social studies curriculum systematically alienates students from jouissance. By that I mean that BC’s social studies curricula opposes jouissance and sanctions plaisir. Students are not encouraged to pursue unsettling truths; rather, they are compelled to accept and adapt to others’ truths. In so doing, BC’s secondary social studies curricula implicitly suggests that plaisir trumps jouissance, with the result being that most students become alienated from their own enjoyment. In contrast, a curriculum which affirmed jouissance over plaisir would necessarily be more student-centered, more provocative, and more constructive. Within the sphere of secondary social studies, this might take the form of student-led problem-based learning, project-based learning, or problem-oriented project-based learning (Uziak et al, 2010).

It is categorically impossible to devise or execute a curriculum without privileging some “stories” (Fatemi, 2004) over others. Consequently, an inescapable challenge for curriculum theorists and developers lies in deciding which stories should be emphasized, which should be de-emphasized, and which should be omitted entirely. Owing to demographic trends and a vicious colonialist legacy, in BC this dilemma takes on particular relevance. Thus, my re-visioning of BC’s social studies curricula makes an effort to address these dissonant narratives, but only with the caveat that any such effort is necessarily incomplete, tentative, and exclusionary.

Citizenship is perhaps foremost among the concepts to be foregrounded in my re-visioning of British Columbia’s high school social studies curricula. According to Abowitz & Harnish “citizenship, at least theoretically, confers membership, identity, values, and rights of participation and assumes a body of common political knowledge” (2006, p. 653). Even so, it is important to realize that curricula typically mask conservative approaches to citizenship. In so doing, curricula – and teachers! – tend to legitimate nationalism, hegemony, and passive political participation. My vision for BC’s high school social studies curricula, in contrast, supports critical citizenship frameworks, problematizes forms of hegemony, and encourages active political participation.

Although approaches to citizenship are varied and contentious within the scholarly literature, most curricula fail to convey any sense of ambiguity in regards to the ‘appropriate’ forms and responsibilities of citizenship. BC’s high school social studies curricula, for example, follows a liberal citizenship model in which the primacy of individual liberty, cooperative participation in government activities (for e.g., voting, support of political parties, ‘civic duties’), ‘reasoned’ debate and consensus building, and tolerance for diversity are normalized as ‘appropriate citizenship practices’. Absent entirely from this narrative are the voices of the oppressed and exploited. As a result, many students acquire simplistic and prejudiced understandings of citizenship which are likely to contribute to political alienation. However, “rather than blaming democratic disengagement on the apathetic choices of young people, we should perhaps be looking at how we reduce, confine, diminish, and deplete citizenship meanings in our formal and taught curriculum” (Abowitz & Harnish, 2006, p. 657).

In my re-visioning of British Columbia’s high school social studies curricula conservative models are eschewed for an emphasis on ‘critical’ citizenship discourses. By that I mean that instead of privileging forms of citizenship which empower and defend status quos, an effort would be made to stress the validity of cultural, reconstructionist, and queer citizenship discourses. To clarify, cultural discourses of citizenship interrogate how “citizenship identities can require assimilation and thus prove inhospitable and harmful to cultural identities that are of great importance to individuals and groups”; reconstructionist discourses of citizenship “question how active, critical participation in democratic societies has been neglected in our conceptualizations of citizenship”; and queer discourses of citizenship “use postmodern thinking to inquire into citizenship not simply as a status, membership, or stable identity, but as a performance of civic courage and risk” (Abowitz & Harnish, 2006, p. 667). Admittedly, a re-scripting of the citizenship discourses conveyed through BC’s high school social studies curricula would be a politically contentious matter. In fact, in recognition of the global-dominance of neoliberal political ideologies, most anyone who made such an ‘unrealistic’ suggestion would likely be ridiculed and ignored. However, I would contend that by shifting the boundaries of ‘acceptable citizenship’ to more active and critical forms of political engagement, BC’s students can begin to make headway in challenging entrenched hierarchies of power.

Insofar as backgrounding, my re-visioning of British Columbia’s high school social studies curricula reinforces critical discourses of citizenship by creating distance between what humanity is collectively capable of and the prevailing worldviews of the elite. To that end, instead of buttressing nationalism, capitalism, or celebrity culture, an emphasis will be given to problematizing and confronting forms of unsustainable and unethical socio-cultural practice. Thus, by foregrounding critical citizenship discourses and backgrounding and deconstructing conservative discourses, BC’s students may begin to take on new horizons of possibility and meaning.

Naturally, given that a finite amount of time is available for classroom teachers to convey and reinforce curricular standards, if some concepts are added to British Columbia’s high school social studies curriculum others must be subtracted. Therefore, in order to free up time and space for teachers and students, I would suggest excluding standardized tests and grades. Standardized tests generally fail to meaningfully assess understanding because the standards imposed are impersonal and arbitrary; but, more meaningfully, “Every hour spent on such exam preparation is an hour not spent helping students to become critical, creative, curious learners” (Kohn, 1999b). Grades, meanwhile, have three critical failings: they reduce students’ interest in learning for the sake of learning, reduce students’ preference for challenging tasks, and they reduce the quality of students’ thinking (Kohn, 1999a). Thus, by disassociating BC’s high school social studies curricula from standardized tests and grades, more time and resources can be devoted to cultivating jouissance via authentic and personally-meaningful inquiry.

Insofar as significant additions, my re-visioning of British Columbia’s high school social studies curricula calls for an expanded emphasis on varieties of problem-based learning, virtualization, and Learning Commons. Such a re-orientation of pedagogic values would, of course, be exceptionally contentious and deeply problematic. In fact, although nowadays a majority of teachers profess support for student-centered, problem-based teaching strategies, a recent survey of American schools indicated that the overwhelming majority of instruction is whole-class teacher-led and/or seatwork (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2005). Moreover, even when class sizes are reduced, teachers still may not change their teaching strategies to incorporate student-centered methods (Shapson et al, 1980). Consequently, in order to address this gap in theory and practice significant effort should be given to integrate classroom study with problems and projects outside the classroom. To this end, I suggest a widescale adoption of Buckminster Fuller’s World Game – a resource-distribution simulation intended to address the exploitation of Earth’s resources. Buckminster’s World Game grew out of a realization that:

an economy which wastes a sizable percentage of its production capacity on items such as toilet seats with dollar bills embedded in plastic or a multitude of stuffed animals while thousands of human beings starved to death daily or live without adequate shelter does not yet possess the comprehensive perspective required for the success and survival of humanity as a global species and is not supporting the true function of humans on Earth. (Sieden, 1989, p. 376)

If allowed to engage the world’s troubles through massive World Games, it might be possible to simultaneously foster jouissance in BC’s students while constructively engaging with meaningful problems. In so doing, curricula becomes personally and globally meaningful. Moreover, through World Game simulations students can begin to realize the limits of what is possible in civilizations which exploit the resources of others. By re-visioning the high school social studies curricula in this way, BC’s students can begin to take more active roles in subverting neoliberalism’s attack on the commons.

In order to cultivate a communal approach to learning, my re-visioning of British Columbia’s high school social studies curricula calls for the adoption and development of Information and Learning Commons. According to Beagle (2010), Information Commons can be defined as clusters of “network access points and associated IT tools situated in the context of physical, digital, human, and social resources organized in support of learning” whereas Learning Commons more specifically depend for their success “not only on joint action by support/service units (such as the library and academic computing) but also on the involvement of academic units that establish learning goals for the institution” (Beagle, 2010, p. 17-18). More concretely, Information Commons can be viewed as consolidated resources for learning and Learning Commons can be viewed as active attempts to incite learning. Although it is certainly the case that wide disparities in access to digital resources exist in- and outside of BC’s schools, by systematically implementing IC/LC programs schools can begin to enable mass-participatory innovation while reinforcing self-directed inquiry. And, if yolked with World Game simulations and student-led problem/project-based learning, IC/LC programs could begin to counteract neoliberal atomization while serving as significant repositories for knowledge.

British Columbia’s public school system is in dire need of reform, and I suggest this reform include initiatives which privilege cooperation, complexity, jouissance, critical citizenship discourses, problem-based learning, virtualization, and Learning Commons over competition, memorization, orthodoxies, conservative citizenship discourses, grades and standardized tests. Following the suggestion of Félix Guattari, “The problem is not to put up bridges between already fully constituted and fully delimited domains, but to put in place new theoretical and practical machines, capable of sweeping away the conditions for a new exercise in desire” (Guattari, 1995). To that end, the changes I have proposed sever the bridge between BC’s high school social studies curricula and neoliberal objectives. However, so long as neoliberal horizons inform and constrain BC’s educational reform debate, truly radical solutions will remain unrecognized and undervalued. In so doing, the needs of the public are trumped by an insatiable demand for profit. That being the case, the people of BC might well begin to ask themselves whether reforms similar to those which I have suggested are appropriate for BC’s schools.

Abowitz, K. & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses of citizenship. Review of Educational Research, 76(4), 653-690.

Badiou, A. (2010). The communist hypothesis. London, UK: Verso Books.

Beagle, D. (2010). The emergent information commons: Philosophy, models, and 21st century learning paradigms. Journal of Library Administration, 50(1), 7-26.

Boston Herald. (2010, October 14). Barney Frank: It’s no crime having pals with money. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1288694

Davis, B. & Sumara, D. (2001). Complexity as a theory of education. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 5(2), 33-44.

Doll, W. (2002). Ghosts and the curriculum. In W. Doll & N. Gough (Eds.), Curriculum Visions (pp. 23-70). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.

Fatemi, S. (2004). Creational capabilities of language. Rural Social Work, 9(3), 180-188.

Foucault, M. (1997). What is critique? (excerpt) (L. Hochroth, Trans.). The politics of truth (pp. 23-47). New York, NY: Semiotext(e).

Guattari, F. (1995). Chaosophy. New York, NY: Semiotext(e).

Kohn, A. (1992). No contest: The case against competition. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

Kohn, A. (1999a, March). From degrading to de-grading. High School Magazine, 6(5), 38-43.

Kohn, A. (1999b, December 9). Tests that cheat students. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/ttcs.htm

Lacan, J. (1992). The ethics of psychoanalysis, 1959-1960. (D. Porter, Trans.). In J.-A. Miller (Ed.), The seminar of Jacques Lacan (Book VII). New York, NY: Norton.

Lankshear, C. (2003), The challenge of digital epistemologies. Education, Communication & Information, 3(2), 165-186.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network. (2005). A day in the third grade: A large-scale study of classroom quality and teacher and student behavior. Elementary School Journal, 105(3), 305-323.

Odell, L. (Ed.) (1993). Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing: Rethinking Discipline. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press.

Seiden, L. (1989). Buckminster Fuller’s universe: His life and work. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Publishing.

Shapson, S., Wright, E., Eason, G., & Fitzgerald, J. (1980). An experimental study of the effects of class size. American Educational Research Journal, 17(2), 141-152.

Tabb, W. (2002). Unequal partners: A primer on globalization. New York, NY: The New Press.

UNESCO. (1994). Basic education in the 21st century. International Commission on Education for the 21st-Century, Vancouver, B.C.

Uziak, J., Oladiran, M., Eisenberg, M., & Scheffer, C. (2010). International team approach to project-oriented problem-based learning in design. World Transactions on Engineering & Technology Education, 8(2), 137-144.

Wax, J. (1975). Competition: Educational incongruity. The Phi Delta Kappan, 57(3), 197-198.

Žižek, S. (2010). Living in the end times. London, UK: Verso Books.

… or not. It occurred to me that the agenda or purposes behind this series may be misconstrued. So before I get started with this month’s adoptions I’d like to reference Dead Trees: Initializing Start-Up, in which I laid some context for the series. Subsequently I’ve added scholarly materials, as this helps track my consumption better than just books alone might.

Insofar as what I hope readers might take from this series, that’s far less complex: I consider entries ‘successful’ if they manage to provoke curiosity or wonder. If some idea or concept was useful for me, perhaps you can take some utility from it too.

With these orienting details resolved, let’s get on with this month’s adoptions!

This is a thorough and wide-ranging analysis of the thoughts and writings of Jacques Derrida. The contributors to this volume acknowledge throughout the book that Derrida is not an easy theorist to get to grips with. Nevertheless, the clarity of their writing enables even novices to Derrida’s thought to uncover some of the provocative ideas presented by the late theorist.

Readers looking for a breakdown of Derrida’s views will find that the compartmentalising into chapters such as ‘Metaphysics’,'Ethics’ and ‘Religion’ offers the opportunity to treat these different sectors as ‘stand-alones’; useful, one would imagine, for any lecturers planning a module around Derrida’s perspectives.

While each chapter has its merits and unique attractiveness, it is the multi-authored chapter on ‘Encounters with Other Philosophers’ that is the most distinctive within this volume as many books on individual theorists tend to treat them as somewhat atomistic in their outlooks. Here, however, Derrida is portrayed as interacting with some of the greats – Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche – in order to create the impression that Derrida was tied into the canon of social and philosophical thought to a far greater degree than some commentators on postmodernism may care to admit.

Some critics may contend that the only route into Derrida’s work is through Derrida himself as volumes such as this are merely translation and, in the spirit of deconstruction, can never do justice to the original ‘thought-processes’ of the actual author. Leaving aside these areas of debate, this book will nevertheless prove to be a more than useful addition to the various literature available on Derrida. This is because it succeeds in simplifying, if not completely deciphering, some of the author’s more complex ideas. To these ends, the target audience for Understanding Derrida – primarily advanced undergraduates and postgraduates – should find it an invaluable reader. – (Political Review Net)

Jacques Lacan is now regarded as a major psychoanalytical theorist alongside Freud and Jung, although recognition has been delayed by fierce arguments over his ideas.

Written by a leading Lacanian analyst, Introducing Lacan guides the reader through his innovations, including his work on paranoia, his addition of structural linguistics to Freudianism and his ideas on the infant ‘mirror phase’. It also traces Lacan’s influence in postmodern critical thinking on art, literature, philosophy and feminism. This is the ideal introduction for anyone intrigued by Lacan’s ideas but discouraged by the complexity of his writings. – (Icon Books)

Jacques Lacan’s writings, and especially the seminars for which he has become famous, offer a controversial, radical reappraisal of the legacy bequeathed by Freud. This volume is based on a year’s seminar in which Dr. Lacan addressed a larger, less specialized audience than ever before, among whom he could not assume familiarity with his work. For his listeners then, and for his readers now, he wanted to “introduce a certain coherence into the major concepts on which psycho-analysis is based,” namely, the unconscious, repetition, the transference, and the drive. Along the way he argues for a structural affinity between psychoanalysis and language, discusses the relation of psychoanalysis to religion, and reveals his particular stance on topics ranging from sexuality and death to alienation and repression. This book constitutes the essence of Dr. Lacan’s sensibility. – (Amazon)

This book is a critical introduction to discourse analysis as it is practised in a variety of disciplines today, from linguistics and sociolinguistics to sociology and cultural studies. The author shows how the concern with the analysis of discourse can be combined in a systematic and fruitful way, with an interest in broader problems of social analysis and social change.

Fairclough provides a concise and critical review of the methods and results of discourse analysis. He discusses the descriptive work of linguists and conversation analysts as well as the more historically and theoretically oriented work of Michel Foucault.

Against the [backdrop] of this critical overview, Fairclough develops an original framework for discourse analysis which formly situates discourse in a broader context of social relations. This framework brings together text analysis, the analysis of processes of text production and interpretation, and the social anlysis of discourse events. It breaks new ground by showing how the analysis of discourse and textual processes can be combined with the study of political and ideological change. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated by means of specific and up-to-date examples.

This book wil be invaluable as an introduction to current debates concerning discourse, power and ideology and as a practical guide for the analysis of texts. – (Sopper.dk)

Discourse analysis considers how language, both spoken and written, enacts social and cultural perspectives and identities. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis examines the field and presents James Paul Gee’s unique integrated approach which incorporates both a theory of language-in-use and a method of research.

The third edition of this bestselling text has been extensively revised and updated to include new material such as examples of oral and written language, ranging from group discussions with children, adults, students and teachers to conversations, interviews, academic texts and policy documents. While it can be used as a stand-alone text, this edition has also been fully cross-referenced with the practical companion title How to do Discourse Analysis: A Toolkit and together they provide the complete resource for students with an interest in this area.

Clearly structured and written in a highly accessible style, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis includes perspectives from a variety of approaches and disciplines, including applied linguistics, education, psychology, anthropology and communication to help students and scholars from a range of backgrounds to formulate their own views on discourse and engage in their own discourse analysis. – (School Psychology Arena)

This comprehensive volume allows students to quickly and accurately come to grips with the key terms encountered in cultural theory today. In more than 350 clear and succinct entries, Cultural Theory: The Key Concepts provides an up-to-date and authoritative introduction to the essential terms, theories and major concerns of this complex field. It covers topics such as: Deconstruction , Epistemology, Feminism, Hermeneutics, Holism, Methodology, Postmodernism, Semiotics, Sociobiology and many more.

In addition to the suggestions for further reading which accompany all major entries, this work also features a useful bibliography of essential texts in cultural theory. – (Amazon)

• Biesta, G. (2009). Witnessing deconstruction in education: Why quasi-transcendentalism matters. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(3), 391-404.

• Bingham, C. (2009). Under the name of method: On Jacques Ranciére’s presumptive tautology. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(3), 405-420.

• Derrida, J. (1988). Letter to a Japanese friend (D. Wood & A. Benjamin, Trans.). In D. Wood & R. Bernasconi (Eds.), Derrida and difference (pp. 1-5). Warwick, UK: Parousia Press.

• Fatemi, S. (2003). Fighting for ‘Otherwise’ (Mindfulness, creativity and language education). International Journal of Learning, 10, 3097-3109.

• Fatemi, S. (2004). Creational capabilities of language. Rural Social Work, 9(3), 180-188.

• Foucault, M. (1997). What is critique? (excerpt) (L. Hochroth, Trans.). The politics of truth (pp. 23-47). New York, NY: Semiotext(e).

• Gough, N. (2010). Performing imaginative inquiry: Narrative experiments and rhizosemiotic play. In T. W. Nielsen, R. Fitzgerald & M. Fettes (Eds.), Imagination in educational theory & practice: A many-sided vision, 43-60. Newcastle upone Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.

• Hostetler, K., Macintyre Latta, M. & Sarroub, L. (2007). Retrieving meaning in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 58(3), 231-244.

• Mackey, S. (2009). Towards an ontological theory of wellness: a discussion of conceptual foundations and implications for nursing. Nursing Philosophy, 11(3), 103-112.

• Masschelein, J. (2004). How to conceive of critical educational theory today? Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38(3), 351-367.

• Murrow, S. (2004). Charting “Unexplored territory” in the social foundations: Pedagogical practice in urban teacher education. Educational Studies, 43(3), 229-245.

• O’Riley, P. (2003). Technology, culture, and socioeconomics: A rhizoanalysis of educational discourses. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

• Papadopoulou, M. & Birch, R. (2009). ‘Being in the world’: The event of learning. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(3), 270-286.

• Sellers, W. (2006). Review of Technology, culture and socioeconomics: A rhizoanalysis of educational discourses by Patricia O’Riley. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry: The Journal of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, 3(1).

• Watras, J. (2007). Was fundamental education another form of colonialism? International Review of Education, 53(1), 55-72.

• Weaver, J. (2010). Complicating the curriculum studies conversation. In Educating the posthuman: Biosciences, fiction, and curriculum studies (pp. 24-33). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Speaking of course-work – my last class was in early December. Now I have a few weeks in which I have the opportunity to read a few books – first up will be some Lacan, then more discourse analysis and cultural studies.

Classes resume in early January. I’ll be taking courses on theorizing knowing; discourse analysis; and cultural perspectives on learning, education, and media. At some point before classes resume I’d like to post a few more details, but that’s about it for this month’s installment of Dead Trees.

['Convergence', via International Association of Transdiciplinary Psychology]

After submitting two different proposals for MA studies to two different departments my wife and I were faced with a decision: accept an invitation to study in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), accept an invitation to study in the Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiries in Education (CCFI), or reject both invitations and pursue a career teaching social studies in Vancouver’s secondary schools. Having delayed the third choice on the basis of scarcity of employment, we attempted to weigh the particularities of CCFI’s and EDCP’s orientations to educational research. Both were populated by scholars I esteemed, offered courses I found tantalizing, and provided fertile ground for pursuing research interests. However, there were critical distinctions between the two and after deliberation CCFI was chosen – primarily on the basis of its stated intent to “drive intellectual and social innovation through the nurturance of transdisciplinary scholarship in education” (CCFI: Welcome, n.d.). Although what ‘transdisciplinary’ entailed was unclear to me at that time, I intuited a certain conceptual and methodological transgressiveness which distinguished CCFI from EDCP. Nevertheless, now that the decision has been made and classes begun, some of my colleagues have been murmuring about the possibility that CCFI may be in danger of bureaucratic streamlining. If legitimate, I wondered if this threat of closure was due to university politics or somehow a disavowal of CCFI’s agenda, and decided to inquire into the basis of transdisciplinarity. My principle objective in this inquiry is to clarify and justify the practice of transdisciplinarity by differentiating it from other species of disciplinarity. In doing so, I hope to establish transdisciplinarity as a vehicle for integral research.

Although transdisciplinarity is a rather new and often poorly elaborated organizational modality, it has been adopted and applied by the sciences and humanities in a wide array of contexts (see, for example, Palaiologou, 2010; Flinterman et al., 2001; Dölling & Hark, 2000; Jantsch, 1970; Dronkers & de Vries, 1999). Transdisciplinarity “proceeds from the insight that disciplines are conventionally thought of territorially, as independent domains with clear boundaries” (Dolling & Hark, 2000, p. 1196), and “involves ‘transcending’ the more traditional academic disciplinary structure” (Palaiologou, 2010, p. 277). Methodologically, transdisciplinarity occurs when “a discipline is ‘stretched’ toward another discipline by incorporating elements of its scientific approach” (Dronkers & de Vries, 1999, p. 98). This insinuates a kind of ‘transdisciplinary unity’ and “the result is a system without internal methodological boundaries, a system in which a common set of axioms is established for a set of disciplines” (Swora & Morrison, 1974, p. 49). Hence, Gérard Fourez argues the primary constituent of transdisciplinarity is the notion of ‘transversal mobilisation’, a process of constructing “knowledge, ideas, procedures in an active way that transcends the fragmented scope of the disciplinary core through overarching synthesis, critique and sustainability” (Fourez, 2001, as cited in Palaiologou, 2010, p. 277). The general goal of transdisciplinarity is to “open all disciplines to that which they share and to that which lies beyond them” (Charter of Transdisciplinarity, 1994) by assimilating widely differing forms of knowledge into an “overall integral knowledge … characterized by its … orientation toward public perspectives and its problem-solving capacity” (Flinterman et al., 2001, p. 257-8). Particularized applications aside, transdisciplinarity “enables knowledge from disciplines to become unified to … create synergy that relates to local contexts and specific problems (Palaiologou, 2010, p. 278-9), and its utility lies in its ability to generate creative solutions to perceived problems.

Transdisciplinarity has distinct relational, philosophical, and epistemological attributes. According to Flinterman et al. (2001) the main characteristics of transdisciplinary research are: (i) holistic, integral inquiry; (ii) attention to public perspectives and contextualized problem-solving; (iii) acknowledgement of complex context and sets of actors; (iv) integration of knowledge from scientific and nonscientific perspectives; (v) a view of reality rooted in complementarity; (vi) continuous quality checking of research criteria; (vii) driven by dynamic, interactive feedback loops (p. 259). Moreover, transdisciplinarity is notable for its hierarchical relationships and teleologic aims. By that I mean that in transdisciplinary frameworks axiologic maps are imposed and shared, and the operational objective is always to resolve some complex dilemma. For example, Dronkers & de Vries (1999) suggest that in order to understand how individuals and groups interact with each other and their natural environment, a transdisciplinary study of coastal environmental dynamics might include interested individuals from the public and biological as well as social scientists. However, it is important to emphasize that in order to qualify as transdisciplinary, research methodologies must be dynamic and porous. It is an approach “that occasions the emergence of new data and new interactions from out of the encounter between disciplines” (Palaiologou, 2010, p. 278), and becomes subverted and neutered in the presence of distinct disciplinary boundaries. Finally, transdisciplinary frameworks are unique in the way they use specialists and experts. Rather than seeking mastery of several disciplines, transdisciplinarity stresses complimentarity to achieve a more inclusive understanding of reality (Flinterman et al., 2001). As a result, although monodisciplinary mastery can be a vital constituent of successful transdisciplinary research, solutions are said to emerge horizontally (i.e., through complementarity) instead of vertically (i.e., as an exercise of power).

The conceptual and procedural contours of transdisciplinarity should be understood in relation with six other disciplinary modalities: monodisciplinarity, cross-disciplinarity, multi-disciplinarity, pluri/pseudo-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and indisciplinarity (see Fig. 1). Traditional monodisciplinary frameworks “study the same object, share the same paradigm, use common methodologies, speak the same ‘language’” (Flinterman et al., 2001, p. 257). Disciplinarity references “not merely a body of knowledge but also a set of practices by which that knowledge is acquired, confirmed, implemented, preserved, and reproduced (Post, 2009, p. 751). Cross-disciplinarity “implies a ‘brute force’ approach to reinterpret disciplinary concepts and goals (axiomatics) in the light of one specific (disciplinary) goal” (Jantsch, 1970, p. 414). Multi-disciplinarity can be “characterized by a juxtaposition of various disciplines with no methodological cooperation” (Swora & Morrison, 1974, p. 48). In these frameworks several disciplines are harnessed simultaneously, but possible relationships between them are not made explicit. Pluri/pseudo-disciplinarity applies when two or more related disciplines with similar methodologies cooperate without coordinating (Jantsch, 1970, p. 410). For instance, math and physics might be grouped together to enhance the relationship between them, but they would retain their discrete disciplinary boundaries. Interdisciplinarity has strong parallels with transdisciplinarity in that it mobilizes “persons trained in different fields of knowledge … into a common effort on a common problem with continuous intercommunication among the participants from the different disciplines” (Centre for Research and Innovation, 1972, cited in Swora & Morrison, 1974, pp. 25-26). Interdisciplinarity might also be said to imply “collegiality, flexibility, collaboration, and scholarly breadth” (Rauch et al., 1996, p.272). However, although interdisciplinarity fosters the exchange of concepts, methodologies, and epistemologies, in these frameworks problem-solving and team-working remain constrained by the horizons of participating disciplines (Palaiologou, 2010). For interdisciplinarity the objective is mutual enrichment, not to open up boundaries or create new lenses of construal. Finally, indisciplinarity fuses the methodological violence of cross-disciplinarity with an “anarchic, antidisciplinary formation, through which fundamental representational tendencies can be glimpsed as they are rethought” (Bohrer, 1997, p. 559). In contrast with inter- and transdisciplinary frameworks, indisciplinarity attempts to retain disciplinary boundaries while new areas of inquiry are scrutinized and plundered. Here the emphasis is on monodisciplinary principled eclecticism, and no effort is made to achieve integral understandings or reciprocity. Given the proper context, each of these six alternatives to transdisciplinarity can have operational legitimacy; however, it is important to note that resolutions to complex problems are typically more integral when achieved by way of transdisciplinarity’s synergistic approach.

In conclusion, transdisciplinarity can be broadly characterized by what it sets out to accomplish, how it achieves results, and how it accommodates difference. In contrast with other disciplinary modalities transdisciplinarity distinguishes itself in its use of shared axiologies, its integral approach to solving problems, and its pursuit of understanding through complementarity. On the basis of these particularities it should be clear that transdisciplinarity has great practical relevance. Indeed, with so many seemingly intractable problems plaguing humanity, transdisciplinarity may increasingly establish itself as normative mode of inquiry. If so, transdisciplinary experiments like CCFI may be vital links in the development of sustainable futures. Hopefully UBC’s administrators will realize what a gem they have.

References:
Bohrer, F. (1997). Reviewed work(s): Picture theory: Essays on verbal and visual representation by W.J.T. Mitchell. The Art Bulletin, 79(3), 559-561.

CCFI: Welcome. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20, 2010 from http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/

Charter of Transdisciplinarity. (1994). Trans. from French, adopted by the First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, Converto da Arrabia, Portugal, November 2-6. Available online from http://basarab.nicolescu.perso.sfr.fr/ciret/english/charten.htm

Dölling, I. & Sabine, H. (2000). She who speaks shadow speaks truth: Transdisciplinarity in Women’s and Gender Studies. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 25(4), 1195-1198.

Dronkers, J. & de Vries, I. (1999). Integrated coastal management: The challenge of transdisciplinarity. Journal of Coastal Conservation, 5(2), 97-102.

Flinterman, J., Teclemariam-Mesbah, R., Broerse, J., & Bunders, J. (2001). Transdisciplinarity: The new challenge for biomedical research. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 21(4), 253-266.

Jantsch, E. (1970). Inter- and transdisciplinary university: A systems approach to education and innovation. Policy Sciences, 1(1), 403-428.

Palaiologou, I. (2010). The death of a discipline or the birth of a transdiscipline: Subverting questions of disciplinarity within Education Studies undergraduate courses. Educational Studies, 36(3), 269-282.

Post, R. (2009). Debating disciplinarity. Critical Inquiry, 35(4), 749-770.

Rauch, A., Blau, H., Yudice, G., van Den Berg, S., Robinson, L., Henkel, J., Murray, T., Schoenfield, M., Traub, V., & de Marco Torgovnick, M. (1996). Defining disciplinarity. PMLA, 111(2), 271-282.

Swora, T. & Morrison, J. (1974). Interdisciplinarity and higher education. Journal of General Education, 26(1), 45-52.

Scholars of modern feminist theory, particularly of perspectives on science (notably biology) and how they relate to perceptions of human culture, will appreciate these 10 essays by science historian Haraway ( Primate Visions ), adapted from articles published between 1978 and 1989. They chart a shift in her standpoint during this period: the earliest works reflect a Marxist analytical influence (as befits “a proper, US socialist-feminist” of the ’70s), while the later ones also show the influence of post-modernism. “Animal Sociology and a Natural Economy of the Body Politic” surveys primatology research of the 1930s and ’40s to explore how the “principle of domination” is embedded in some scientific thought. “Gender for a Marxist Dictionary,” in which Haraway develops a definition for the word “gender,” highlights the difficulty of reducing complex concepts to keywords. “The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies” views the “biomedical, biotechnical” self, incorporating modern discourse on the immunological system; bodies, like gender, she contends, “are not born; they are made” as biomedical constructs. – (Amazon)

Google Books version

This book summarizes the body of knowledge about sociology of education and cultural studies as it informs educational research and critical pedagogy. It synthesizes the most relevant work in social and cultural reproduction published in the last three decades in English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. The authors document and critique the theoretical discussion in developments in both advanced societies and peripheral ones, and link macro-sociological issues with social psychological ones. The book introduces theories of the state to underscore a political sociology of education, and highlights an agenda for theory building, research, and practice in sociology of education. – (Suny Press)

Fifteen years ago, psychologist and educator Howard Gardner introduced the idea of multiple intelligences, challenging the presumption that intelligence consists of verbal or analytic abilities only—those intelligences that schools tend to measure. He argued for a broader understanding of the intelligent mind, one that embraces creation in the arts and music, spatial reasoning, and the ability to understand ourselves and others.Today, Gardner’s ideas have become widely accepted—indeed, they have changed how we think about intelligence, genius, creativity, and even leadership, and he is widely regarded as one of the most important voices writing on these subjects.Now, in Extraordinary Minds, a book as riveting as it is new, Gardner poses an important question: Is there a set of traits shared by all truly great achievers—those we deem extraordinary—no matter their field or the time period within which they did their important work?In an attempt to answer this question, Gardner first examines how most of us mature into more or less competent adults. He then examines closely four persons who lived unquestionably extraordinary lives—Mozart, Freud, Woolf, and Gandhi—using each as an exemplar of a different kind of extraordinariness: Mozart as the master of a discipline, Freud as the innovative founder of a new discipline, Woolf as the great introspector, and Gandhi as the influencer.What can we learn about ourselves from the experiences of the extraordinary? Interestingly, Gardner finds that an excess of raw power is not the most impressive characteristic shared by superachievers; rather, these extraordinary individuals all have had a special talent for identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, for accurately analyzing the events of their own lives, and for converting into future successes those inevitable setbacks that mark every life.Gardner provides answers to a number of provocative questions, among them: How do we explain extraordinary times—Athens in the fifth century B.C., the T’ang Dynasty in the eighth century, Islamic Society in the late Middle Ages, and New York at the middle of the century? What is the relation among genius, creativity, fame, success, and moral extraordinariness? Does extraordinariness make for a happier, more fulfilling life, or does it simply create a special onus? – (Amazon)

This curriculum resource models for teachers how to frame critical questions that engage students in thinking deeply about 20th century Canadian history. The challenges are built around various featured topics in 20th century Canadian history, but teachers can adapt the lessons to engage students in thinking about a wide range of historical events and people. Published as part of The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC2)’s Critical Challenges Across the Curriculum series, the resources in this collection build on a conception of historical thinking articulated by Peter Seixas of the University of British Columbia. This conception, which is developed in detail in the TC2 publication Teaching About Historical Thinking, is built around six concepts: 1) historical significance; 2) cause and consequence; 3) continuity and change; 4) evidence and interpretation; 5) historical perspective-taking; and 6) moral judgment. – (Then Hier)

Creative genius can at times be connected to crisis. Some of the most pathfinding literature and philosophy of the 20th century emerged from disaster. The most insightful work of Achebe, Adorno, Arendt, Benjamin, Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn would not exist were it not for the debris of massacres. No one reading this new book about “apocalyptic religion and the death of Utopia” can be under any illusion but that this is also a time of crisis. Indeed, one of John Gray’s supreme qualities as a thinker is that he is bereft of illusions.

Stripping away the meaningless verbiage which swaddles so much analysis, Gray discerns an underlying structure of thought (or lack of thought) in the political landscape. This is the refuge in fantasies which derive either from apocalyptic religion or from secularist utopianism. Such fantasies, he shows, drive the neo-conservative agenda and are the true origins of the crisis faced today.

At first, this analysis may not appear original. Gray is hardly alone in drawing attention to the influence of the apocalyptic Christian right in America. The most disturbing instance came in October 2003, when under-secretary of defence William Boykin declared that the enemy in the “war on terror” was “a guy called Satan”. As Gray notes, instead of this remark heralding the end of Boykin’s career, he continues to work at the Pentagon.

Gray’s importance, however, lies in tracing the connections of thought rather than in outlining the detail of politics. Black Mass shows the intellectual linkage between today’s religious rhetoric and movements as diverse as the Bolsheviks, the Jacobins and the Nazis. His deep insight is that the underlying structure of modern politics derives from Christianity, and that the return of overt religious language to politics is merely the renewal of a latent characteristic. – (Independent.co.uk)

In this bestseller, thirty-six Canadian war brides recount their early lives, their involvement in wartime duties, the magical/funny moments when they met their Canadian husbands-to-be and their journeys from Britain to Canada. The stories convey courage and humour: qualities that carried the war brides through the difficult war years and that contribute to lively reading today. Includes fifty photos. – (Amazon)

How does a person develop a sense of identity? In what ways might identity change over the years? This volume explores these and other questions from the perspectives of psychology, psychoanalysis, history and literature. The book demonstrates both how these different disciplines can inform one another and how they can enrich our understanding of identity and development. – (Filedby)

From identity crisis and identity politics to national identities, diaspora, and sexual identities, this new terminology of recent years has been the focus of key debates related to identity in cultural studies. Identity and Difference examines the challenge of these debates and outlines their application to central questions of gender, sexuality, embodiment, health, race, and nationality. The importance of identity and difference in the contemporary world is illustrated at multiple levelsùglobal, local, and personal. The contributors demonstrate the ways in which identities are constructed for and by individuals and question notions of the fixity of identity and difference. Explanations from essentialist, social constructionist, psychoanalytic, feminist, and discursive approaches are explored as well as the complexity of contemporary identities including popular discourses of motherhood, health, and the body. Identity and Difference combines theory with in-depth discussion of the most common areas of contested identities. Providing activities and selected readings, it will be essential for students and researchers in cultural studies, popular culture, and social theory. – (Sage)

• Bonnett, M. (2009) Education and selfhood: A phenomenological investigation. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(3), 357-370.

• Cage, J. (1994). On stillness and intention. In M. Perloff & c. Junkerman (Eds.), John Cage: Composed in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Carter, L. (200x). Recovering traditional ecological knowledge (TEK): Is it always what it seems? Transnational Curriculum Inquiry: The Journal of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, 1(1).

• Chambers, C. (2008). “As Canadian as Possible Under the Circumstances”: A View of Contemporary Curriculum Discourses in Canada, In W. F. Pinar (Ed.)., International Handbook of Curriculum Research (pp. 221-252). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• Davis, B. & Sumara, D. (2001). Complexity as a theory of education. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry. 5(2).

• Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). Introduction: Rhizome. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.) (pp. 3-25). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1980).

• Dronkers, J. & de Vries, I. (1999). Integrated coastal management: the challenge of transdisciplinarity. Journal of Coastal Conservation, 5, 97-102.

• Dölling, I. & Sabine, H. (2000). She who speaks shadow speaks truth: Transdisciplinarity in Women’s and Gender Studies. Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 25(4).

• Fatemi, S. (2008). Questioning the mastery of signs/Celebrating the mastery of symbols. Educational Insights, 12(1).

• Flinterman, J. et al. (2001). Transdisciplinarity: The new challenge for biomedical research. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 21(4), 253-266.

• Foucault, M. (1984). Nietzsche, geneaology, history. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault Reader (pp. 76-100). New York, NY: Pantheon Books. (Original work published 1971).

• Gadamer, H. G. (1989). The elevation of the historicity of understanding to the status of a hermeneutic principle. Truth and method (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans., pp. 265-307). New York, NY: Crossroad. (Original work published 1960).

• Garner, J. (2010). Reviewed work: Giorgio Agamben: The signature of all things: On method, Luca D’Isanto with Kevin Attell (tr.) Continental Philosophy Review, 43(3).

• Ginzburg, C. et al. (1995). A range of critical perspectives: Inter/disciplinarity. Art Bulletin, 77(4).

• Gough, N. (2004). Editorial: A vision for transnational curriculum inquiry. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry: The Journal of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, 1(1).

• Gough, N. (2003). RhizomANTically becoming-cyborg: Performing posthuman pedagogies. Paper presented at Body Modification: Changing bodies, Changing selves. Macquarie University, Sydney, AU, April 24-26.

• Hollingworth, L. (2009). Complicated conversations: Exploring race and ideology in an elementary classroom. Urban Education, 44(1).
Mackey, S. (2009). Towards an ontological theory of wellness: a discussion of conceptual foundations and implications for nursing. Nursing Philosophy, 10.

• Igo, L. et al. (2006). How should middle-school students with LD approach online note taking? A mixed-methods study. Learning Disability Quarterly, 29.

• Jantsch, E. (1970). Inter- and transdisciplinary university: A systems approach to education and innovation. Policy Sciences, 1, 403-428.

• Kincaid, J. (1991). On seeing England for the first time. Transition, 51.

• Langewand, A. (2001). Children’s rights and education: A hermeneutic approach. In F. Heyting, D. Lenzen, & J. White (Eds.), Methods in philosophy of education (pp. 144-159). New York, NY: Routledge.

• Laverty, S. (2003). Hermeneutic phenomenology and phenomenology: A comparison of historical and methodological considerations. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2(3).

• Lélé, S. & Norgaard, R. (2005). Practicing interdisciplinarity. Bioscience, 55(11).

• Matus, C. & McCarthy, C. (2003). The triumph of multiplicity and the carnival of difference: Curriculum dilemmas in the age of postcolonialism and globalization. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.), International Handbook of Curriculum Research (pp. 73-82). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• Merleau-Ponty, M. (2007). What is phenomenology? In T. Toadvine & L. Lawlor (Eds.), The Merleau-Ponty Reader (pp. 55-68). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

• Palaiologou, I. (2010). The death of a discipline or the birth of a transdiscipline: Subverting questions of disciplinarity within Education Studies undergraduate courses. Educational Studies, 36(3), 269-282.

• Papadopoulou, M. & Birch, R. (2009). ‘Being in the world’: The event of learning. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(3).

• Post, R. (2009). Debating disciplinarity. Critical Inquiry, 35(4).

• Ruitenberg, C. (2009). Distance and defamiliarization: Translation as philosophical method. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(3), 421-435.

• Ruitenberg, C. (2009). Introduction: The question of method in philosophy of education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(3).

• Scheurich, J. (1994). Policy archaeology: A new policy studies methodology. Journal of Education Policy, 9(4), 297-316.

• Sheffield, E. (2004). Beyond abstraction: Philosophy as a practical qualitative research method. The Qualitative Report, 9(4).

• Sherman, L. & Strang, H. (2004). Experimental ethnography: The marriage of qualitative and quantitative research. The Annals of the American Academy, 595.

• Smith, S. (2007). The first rush of movement: A phenomenological preface to movement education. Phenomenology & Practice, 1(1), 47-75.

• Smith, (2008). To school with the poets: Philosophy, method and clarity. Paedagogica Historica, 44(6), 633-643.

• Swora, T. & Morrison, J. (1974). Interdisciplinarity and higher education. Journal of General Education, 26(1), 45-52.

• Van Manen, M. & Adams, C. (2009). The phenomenology of space in writing online. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(1), 10-21.

• Vizenor, G. (Ed.). (1993). A postmodern introduction. In Narrative chance: Postmodern discourse on Native American Indian literatures (pp. 3-16). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Regardless of disciplinary emphasis, spatial particularity, or cultural context, the processes of teaching and learning are openly – but not uncontentiously – predicated on changing minds. Within British Columbia’s public schools, for example, over the course of 10+ years students are compelled to achieve a series of prescribed learning outcomes which attempt to normalize conceptual, social, and intrapersonal development. Consequently, divergences in the mandated and embodied understandings of students become a central preoccupation for teachers, administrators, bureaucrats, scholars and the public. Within this context, learning can be said to occur when students acquire and apply the understandings imposed by curricular standards. As designated facilitators of the learning process, many teachers endeavour to acquire a battery of strategies for changing minds, challenging values, and redirecting perspectives. Among pedagogic strategies explicitly suited to this purpose, I have found none that are more adaptable or reliable than the dialectic method. 

The dialectic method’s historical roots trace back to Plato’s mythologization of Socrates. Variously denoted as the ‘Socratic Method’, the ‘Socratic elenchus’, or simply ‘the dialectic’, the strategy was wielded by Socrates in his attempts to consider the relative merits of competing worldviews. The dialectic provides a “means [of] examining a person with regard to a statement he [sic] has made, by putting to him [sic] questions calling for further statements, in the hope that they will determine the meaning and the truth-value of his [sic] first statement” (Robinson, 1953, p. 7). Socrates uses the dialectic to challenge conceptualizations of values like justice, piety, and civic duty (Plato, 327-354 BCE), but it can be applied in any domain where knowledge or truth are claimed – or sought. “Conceptual schemes are candidates for dialectical assessment when they represent alternative ways of conceiving and pursuing similar objectives regarding the same domain of human experience” (Vokey, 2009, p. 340). Contemporary society suffers from no lack of ‘alternative ways of conceiving’, so methods of bridging conceptual divergences can be both pragmatic and constructive.

Schools make ideal landscapes for practicing the dialectic. Students do not enter classrooms as blank slates but come equipped with individualized contexts, prejudices, and internalized truths; and the dialectic can be an especially effective means of destabilizing and reorienting these understandings. When engaging this strategy teachers essentially attempt to illustrate misplaced certainties. Once students’ certainties have been perturbed, alternative conceptual maps can be proposed, measured, and vindicated. Even within the relatively safe confines of the classroom, however, this process can be unsettling and de-centering. But if embodied understandings are to be aligned with prescribed understandings, such a de-centering may be a necessary first step. Furthermore, schools are inherently relational communities where students are inundated with competing viewpoints. During social interaction and academic instruction students are confronted by the Other and compelled into authoring inclusive worldviews. By learning to apply the dialectic, students can make this process more explicit and coherent. Lastly, modern education generally privileges the written word and as a result many of the competing viewpoints students encounter are by way of texts. If D. W. Hamlyn is correct and “argument and counter-argument in books and journals is the modern version of dialectic” (as cited in Gould, 1995, p. 13), then teachers can encourage students to be active participants in this process by using the dialectic to trace and evaluate arguments for themselves. For these reasons and more, it becomes apparent that schools make ideal sites for discriminating among competing values – a task for which the dialectic is well-suited.

In schools and beyond, applying the dialectic can be effective and beneficial in a wide range of contexts. This is because the simplicity of the method makes it flexible enough to be unproblematically applied in a diverse range of situations. After any claim to knowledge or truth is made, the dialectic can be implemented. This means that it can just as easily be used in math or English class, on the playground, or anywhere viewpoints come into conflict. And since the dialectic is relational – i.e., it necessarily entails at least two competing viewpoints – it offers the chance for collaborative discovery among participants. By that I mean that if it is employed effectively, understanding can be enhanced for all participants of a dialectic encounter. Finally, the principled questioning of values and truths is entirely consistent with participatory citizenship. This is relevant because encouraging active democratic citizenship is often considered a primary function of compulsory schooling (see, for e.g., Mitchell, 2010). Although it seems unlikely that apathy could be arrested or a global revolution could be sparked by emphasizing the dialectic in classrooms, it does seem reasonable to think that many of the apparently ‘unresolvable’ crises of modernity (e.g., poverty, scarcity, ‘human nature’) are deeply corrupted by misplaced certainties and could benefit from methodical critique. If so, the dialectic could be used in these situations to highlight assumptions and interpolations. Taken in conjunction, the participatory politics, flexibility, and robustness of the dialectic make it an effective discursive strategy in schools and a wide array of social settings.

In spite of its efficacy and usefulness, the dialectic should not be applied haphazardly. In classrooms, for instance, the dialectic can contribute to competitiveness, a semiotic of accusation, or confusion. According to Alfie Kohn (1992) and Dan Pink  (2009) competition can negate intrinsic motivation, sabotage self esteem, and destroy relationships. Consequently, instances where competition emerge in schools should be problematized and responsibly moderated. Since the dialectic necessarily entails “some sort of opposition or contrariety between the various thinkers engaged in the process” (Baggini, 2003, p. 44), it is critical that competitiveness is abstracted and directed towards ideas and not peers. Occasionally competitiveness among interlocutors can lead to the semiotic of accusation – instances where deconstruction becomes oppositional and “transformed into an expression of blatant accusations” (Motzkau, 2009, p. 141). When the dialectic decays into accusation, it is far more likely to facilitate confusion and antipathy than understanding. Moreover, it is important to note that the dialectic does not necessarily lead to truth or coherence. To sketch an example that can be broadly generalized, a lawyer could injudiciously defend a murderous client by employing the dialectic to convince a jury of the accused’s innocence. Similarly, a teacher could just as easily use the dialectic to subvert students into thinking Earth is flat or round. These concerns are ultimately irresolvable. Nevertheless, practicing the dialectic in schools – with the guidance of teachers and supportive adults – is essential if students are to see the relevance of integrating the strategy within their lives.

For teachers interested in effectively accommodating the dialectic within their pedagogic repertoire, it can be useful to combine repetitive practice with reflections on achieved and intended results. When I use the dialectic in my teaching practice I usually have some idea of what I think a ‘successful outcome’ might entail. Sometimes a ‘success’ is when I can get someone to entertain the plausibility of an idea they previously [would have] rejected. Other times a ‘success’ occurs when I can reframe priorities – like when I use the dialectic to deflate tempers and avert fights. And other times I consider myself ‘successful’ when I am able to plant a seed of dissonance that might possibly erupt into a full-blown crisis of values. I would be foolish to think myself capable of catalyzing a fundamental realignment of every student’s worldview, but with some cleverness I can get a few of them to doubt. In an age characterized by narcissism and entitlement (Twenge & Campbell, 2009), sometimes that is the best we can hope for.

Having affirmed and qualified the dialectic’s usefulness for schools and society, additional qualitative research might help make it more broadly accessible. For instance, following the sociolinguistic analyses of Deborah Tannen (1986, 1990, 1994) men and women’s conversational styles are said to have structural incongruities. How might these ‘predilections’ get filtered through the dialectic? When different genders engage the dialectic, might there be a gender-bias towards a semiotic of accusation? Also, what – if any! – psycho-social effects can we link with the dialectic? If teachers use it more, does it have an impact on students’ confidence or self-esteem? If its use were more prevalent in the public sphere, what impact might it have on politics? If someone’s cognition was riddled with misplaced and maladaptive certainties, could the dialectic be used for therapeutic intervention? Clearly, even after more than two thousand years’ use Plato’s dialectic still has truths to uncover.

Baggini, J. & Fosl, P. S. (2003). Dialectic. The Philosopher’s Tookit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods (pp. 43-45). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Gould, J. (Ed.). (1995). Classic Philosophical Questions (9th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Kohn, A. (1992). No Contest: The Case Against Competition. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

Mitchell, R. (2010). Who’s afraid now? Reconstructing Canadian citizenship education through transdisciplinarity. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 32(1), 37-65.

Motzkau, J. (2009). The semiotic of accusation: Thinking about deconstruction, development, the critique of practice, and the practice of critique. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 6(1-2), 129-152.

Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.

Plato. (327-354 BCE). The Republic (F. M. Cornford, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Robinson, R. (1953). Plato’s Earlier Earlier Dialectic. Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press.

Tannen, D. (1986). That’s Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Styles Make or Break Relationships. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.

Tannen, D. (1990). You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.

Tannen, D. (1994). Talking from 9 to 5: How Women’s and Men’s Conversational Styles Affect Who Gets Heard, Who Gets Credit, and What Gets Done at Work. New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Twenge, J. & Campbell, K. (2009). The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. New York, NY: Free Press.

Vokey, D. (2009). ‘Anything you can do I can do I can do better’: Dialectical argument in philosophy of education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(3), 339-355.

“I think the alchemists were less concerned with standing above the material world and ordering it into some kind of prearranged scheme that they had in mind. In that sense they weren’t really technologists such as we find in science today. Rather, they were concerned with taking nature within their flasks or whatever and learning from what happened within some natural process. They didn’t perform a distillation to get an end product but to experience the process of distilation, seeing how the substance they put in the flask ascended into the upper part of the flask and began to run down as drops and then perceiving the essence. That was their stance: they wanted to use experimentation as a process of learning or experiencing something about nature, and they had great reverence for natural processes.

Magic really emerged out of various streams of philosophy connected with Kabbalah, Judaism, etc., and many of these early magicians were using the magical process as a way of listening to the spirit world.

As time goes on we find that magic begins to change and wants to manipulate, wants to rule, so we begin to get the emergence, particularly in the 17th century, of many magical documents involving magicians commanding the spiritual realm. This is a change from the earlier stream which had much more reverence for the hidden world and wanted to communicate with it through prayer and using certain symbols – a kind of mystical process. This process of manipulation and control slowly emerged, and this is what magic really seems to consist of today, simply derived from that aspect of setting up a ritual to control and manipulate spiritual force.

Now, I don’t think that this is the way that all magicians do act, but certainly the alchemists stood on the side of listening, of experiencing what went on in the natural world rather than trying to change it in some magical way. To find the tincture for them was a blessing, it wasn’t a triumph of their creating something to thwart nature. It was that nature had, in a sense, given them one of its hidden secrets.” – Adam McLean, “Unlocking Alchemy’s Secrets”

Meditations on First Philosophy (subtitled In which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated) is a philosophical treatise written by René Descartes and first published in 1641 (in Latin). The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things which are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure. The meditations were written as if he were meditating for 6 days: each meditation refers to the last one as “yesterday”. The Meditations consist of the presentation of Descartes’ metaphysical system in its most detailed level. – (Wiki)

“The map is not the territory.” That was my first introduction to the work of Count Alfred O. Korzybski. I heard those words in a Bandler and Grinder1 Seminar in 1977 and borrowed a copy of this landmark book, his major opus, first published in 1933 from my friend Brian Kelley. He had been directed to it by our mutual metaphysics teacher, Alex Keller, some years earlier. I dug into the text of this 806 page book which had 657 references and 90 pages of Preface and Introductions. Suddenly the basis for the works of Samuel Bois, Kenneth S. Keyes, and S. I. Hayakawa began to make new sense for me – all these writers had studied under Korzybski. – (continued @ Southern Cross Review)

Rhizoanalysis: If this term is unfamiliar, don’t resist it; it concerns an important and accessible concept. A common metaphor for analysis is that of a tree: a central stem, roots at one end, and branches at the other, and by tracing the branches and/or digging at the roots, the analyst gets to the heart of the matter. The tree metaphor has served modernist science for several centuries. However, postmodernist inquiries of analysis suggest that there are problems with seeing the wood for the forests. Alongside the development of increasingly complicated information/communication/knowledge regimes and technologies, specific understandings are being recognised as chaotically and complexly involved in ways that are resisting structural analysis. Poststructuralist interpretative metaphors are needed. Rhizome is such a metaphor, as its chaotic and complex form is poststructurally appropriate and generative. Rhizome is to a tree, as the Internet is to a letter. The chaotically complex networkings of stems interconnecting the upshoots of some grasses are rhizomes – nodal networkings that echo the hyper-connectivity of the Internet – whereas a tree, like a letter, is a relatively simple linear connection between two poles. – (Learning Change)

This novel and important book brings together insights from cultural studies and critical discourse analysis to examine the fruitful links between the two. Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis shows that critical discourse analysis is able to provide the analytic context, skills and tools by which we can study how language constructs, constitutes and shapes the social world and demonstrates in detail how the methodological approach of critical discourse analysis can enhance cultural studies. In a richly argued discussion, the authors show how marrying the methodology of critical discourse analysis with cultural studies enlarges our understanding of gender and ethnicity. Imaginative, timely and inspiring, the book outlines a new direction for cultural research and debate. It seeks to unify the sometimes wrenching gap between theory and practice in ways that lecturers and practitioners will find to be helpful and profitable. – (Amazon)

Inspired by the work of John Dewey, contributors challenge the guiding vision that has dominated Western educational thought for the past four centuries and encourage educators to reevaluate their philosophical positions on curriculum and the nature of human beings, society, and civilizations. – (Borders) / See here for a thorough review.

The poststructuralist critique of subject-centered reason is investigated, both historically and theoretically, against the background of the modernity/postmodernity and “information society” debates. Peters criticizes neoliberal constructions of the subject in education that rest heavily on the assumption of “economic man.” He searches for viable contemporary political forms by investigating the role of intellectuals and education in postmodern culture; the neoliberal doctrine of the self-limiting state; and its construction of “market” subjects such as education and the politics of space, ethics after Auschwitz, science and technology, the critical role of mass media, cybernetics and cyberspace, democracy and the politics of difference. – (Greenwood)

Perdurabo traces Aleister Crowley’s remarkable journey from his birth as the only son of a wealthy lay preacher to his death in a boarding house as the world’s foremost authority on magick. Along the way, he rebels against his conservative religious upbringing; befriends famous artists, writers, and philosophers (and becomes a poet himself); is attacked for his practice of “the black arts”; and teaches that science and magick can work together. A tireless magician, prophet, poet, and adventurer, Crowley has inspired generations of social and spiritual truth-seekers and has shaped modern popular culture through his philosophy of “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” making him one of the most colorful and fascinating characters of the twentieth century. Taking an evenhanded and accessible approach to an extremely controversial figure, author Richard Kaczynski draws from his extensive academic and personal expertise with the subject matter, including over twenty years of research, to present Crowley’s story in a way that is unmatched by any other biographer. Featuring over 150 pages of new material–including previously unpublished biographical details and rare never-before-seen photographs–this revised and expanded edition paints an illuminating and memorable biography of the man who inspired the counterculture and influenced generations of artists, punks, wiccans, and other denizens of the demimonde. – (Richard Kacznski)

• Baggini, J. & Fosl, P.S. (2003). Dialectic. The philosopher’s toolkit: A compendium of philosophical concepts and methods.

• Baggini, J. & Fosl, P. S. (2003). Necessary/sufficient. The philosopher’s toolkit: A compendium of philosophical concepts and methods.

• Barrow, R. (1994). Philosophy of education: Analytic tradition. In T. Husen & T. N. Postlethwaite (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of education (2nd ed.).

• Hamre, B. & Pianta, R. (2005). Can instructional and emotional support in the first-grade classroom make a difference for children at risk of school failure? Child Development, 76(5).

• Hand, M. (2007). The concept of intelligence. London Review of Education, 5(1).

• McKenzie, M. (2004). The ‘willful contradiction’ of poststructural socio-ecological education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 9.

• Motzkau, J. (2009). The semiotic of accusation: Thinking about deconstruction, development, the critique of practice, and the practice of critique. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 6.

• Moulton, J. (1983). A paradigm of philosophy: The adversary methdo. In S. Harding & M. B. Hintikka (Eds.), Discovering reality: Feminist perspectives on epistemology metaphysics, methodology, and philosophy of science.

• Plato. Book I. The Republic.

• Vokey, D. (2009). ‘Anything you can do I can do better’: Dialectical argument in philosophy of education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(3).

• Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83(4).

• Newman, L. (2005). Descartes’ epistemology. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

• Sherman, L. & Strang, H. (2004). Experimental ethnography: The marriage of qualitative and quantitative research. The Annals of the American Academy, 595(1).

• White, J. P. (1967). Indoctrination. In R. S. Peters (Ed.), The concept of education.

• Wolcott, H. (1983). Adequate schools and inadequate education: The life history of a sneaky kid. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 14(1).

“Most of the artists associated with Industrialism had long-standing interests in the occult sciences; however, the industrial music milieu was savagely opposed to any expression of ‘otherworldly’ interests. Finally about 1981, the dam broke. Psychic TV [TPB] came out with their first album, ‘Force the Hand of Chance’, which contained direct references to Aleister Crowley and the practice of Magick. One song on the album was even intended to be used as background for a guided pathworking! The long-suppressed interest in the magical that had functioned for most of these artists could now come safely to the surface. Almost overnight, a whole movement of ‘Post-Industrial’ music, oriented toward ritual and magic, sprang up. In a very real sense, this could be seen as a logical extension of the Industrial fascination with death taken to its extreme limit: entry to the land of the ‘dead’ – the Inner Planes – via the magical path. The Post-Industrialists found in magic (and Crowley’s conception of ‘Magick’) both a powerful image for the invocation of long forgotten and suppressed forces within Western Culture and a doorway into perspectives not bound by rational constraint. Where late 1970′s and 1980′s (sic) Heavy Metal music took occultism as a tribal image whose value was found in a shallow marketing appeal, the Post-Industrialists, outside of the inevitable poseurs and dilletantes, took the magical arts with a relatively high degree of intelligence and care. Their attempt to inject the virus of ecstatic magical experience into the decaying corpse of the West has not had wide-spread influence yet, and many of the problems of attempting to ahieve altered states of awareness in an artistic context remain to be worked out[.]” – Tim O’Neill, “The Invocation of the Black Sun”

“There is no denying that the spirit of Gnosticism is predominantly libertarian. The Gnostic mythos has as its central theme the liberation of the incarcerated divine spirit from all bonds imposed upon it by the false cosmos and its rulers. (Incidentally, let us recall that it is the false cosmos ruled by tyrant gods of the ilk of Yahweh and Allah that is evil rather than matter and the body which are merely part of nature.) The most recent scholarly disclosures based o the Nag Hammadi writings clearly indicate that libertarianism rather than dualism was the most prominent feature of ancient Gnosticism. Gnosis has always been a personal vision of reality unrestricted by any authority, religious or secular. St. Paul’s bold statement: ‘All things are permissible unto me’ as well as St. Augustine’s adage: ‘Love God and then do as you please’ are both Christian echoes of Gnostic attitudes.” – Stephan A. Hoeller, “Politics and the Gnostic Tradition”

“Alexander Seton was a Scottish researcher who travelled around the European continent for several years after 1602, giving public demonstrations in many major cities. At these open events, he performed transmutations of base metals to gold, usually in the presence of many observers. He even directed the operations to be done entirely by scientific notables in each city, so that Seton himself never touched the crucible or the base materials used. He took it upon himself to proselytize for the Great Art, and his erudition and demonstrations thus convinced some of the most famous skeptics that transmutations did indeed take place, and to go on record as having witnessed such transmutations. These records exist to this day, as do the earlier writings against alchemy of these later witnesses of it. Something must have changed their minds.

Naturally, Seton attracted much attention in his travels. One of those whose interest was aroused was the Elector of Saxony, Christian II. When Seton refused to divulge the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone, Christian had him imprisoned and tortured. Seton still refused to talk, and he eventually escaped; but he died soon after from the injuries that had been inflicted upon him.” – Jim Melodini, “The Age of Gold”

“If true wisdom is your object and you are sincere, you will have work to do on yourself. You will have to overcome many unhealthy cravings and knee-jerk reactions. You will have to reconsider whom you associate with.

Nothing truly stops you. Nothing holds you back, for your own will is always within your control.

Follow through on all your generous impulses. Do not reconsider them, especially if a friend needs you; act on his or her behalf. Do not hesitate!” – Epictetus – A Manual for Living

“The symbols, rituals and meetings of a group, when repeated over time, develop an egregore or group mind which binds the members together, harmonizes, motivates and stimulates them to realise (sic) the aims of the group, and enables the individual members to make more spiritual progress than if they worked alone. An egregore can be disturbed if people who are not sympathetic to its aims think negatively about the elements which make and sustain it. Therefore, esoteric groups try to protect themselves not so much against exposure of doutbful activities but to ensure that peoples’ negative thoughts do not disturb the group mind or egregore.” – Gaetan Delaforge, “The Templar Tradition Yesterday and Today”

On this day the first of four “great debates” between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon was broadcast across the country, breaking new ground in presidential campaigning. (Wiki)

“Sociologist and philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, discusses politeness and civility in the function of contemporary ideology. Dr. Žižek spoke at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon, as part of the speaker tour for his … book, Violence.”

The Triumph of Death

“Petrarch himself survived one of the watershed events of European history, an event which I believe left its mark on the Tarot: the Back Death. Between the years 1347-51, most areas suffered one or more outbreaks of bubonic plague, a fast-acting bacterial disease spread by flea bites, droplets of saliva from infected persons, and in some cases direct contact between mucous membranes and contaminated body parts such as fingers. Its nickname came from the purplish-black appearance of many victims after their deaths from respiratory failure.

Unable to understand where the plague came from or how it spread, Europeans frequently reacted in one of two ways. They either became convinced that it was God’s punishment for their sins, or they decided that since life was increasingly uncertain, they would enjoy themselves while they could. The first reaction produced a new kind of religious theater, while the second would have encouraged gambling and other pleasures.

In her history of the fourteenth century, A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman notes that under the influence of recurring waves of bubonic plague, a ‘street sermon’ was developed on the theme of Death the Leveler. Groups of the faithful would enact the ‘danse macabre’ (also used as the theme for woodcuts and paintings) showing Death leading away representatives of all classes of society: sturdy farmers, young mothers, proud knights, humble monks, wealthy bishops, and so on. Presentations might also include urging repentance. The plague time 600 years ago gave us the image of Death as a grinning skeleton, wielding his scythe to ‘harvest’ a field of body parts, the image seen on the thirteenth trump card of most traditional Tarot decks.” – Chas S. Clifton, “The Unexamined Tarot”

“For twenty-five years I have been in touch with the literature of pyschical research, and have had acquaintance with numerous ‘researchers.’ I have also spent a good many hours … in witnessing (or trying to witness) phenomena. Yet I am theoretically no ‘further’ than I was at the beginning; and I confess that at times I have been tempted to believe that the Creator has eternally intended this department of nature to remain baffling, to prompt our curiosities and hopes and suspicions all in equal measure, so that, although ghosts and clairvoyances, and raps and messages from spirits, are always seeming to exist and can never be fully explained away, they also can never be susceptible of full corroboration.” – William James, “The final impressions of a psychical researcher”