Greetings PEN-Lers,
As Dan Scanlan pointed out, Ralph Nader is doing it, how are you? http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/19 By "it," I'm talking about art. Doug has a great radio show and the rest of you are very very sharp and funny writers. Might one of you be interested in this? I am editing a special edition of the international, peer-reviewed journal, Policy Futures in Education with the theme, "The Art of Public Pedagogy: Should the 'Truth' Dazzle gradually or Thunder Mightily?" If you are interested in writing on this topic please send me a 500 word abstract of your idea. To learn more about the theme, see description at end of message below. To learn more about the journal, see: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/ DEADLINE for proposals: October 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance: October 22, 2009 First Draft Due: January 10, 2010 Review Completed: February 20, 2010 Final Article Due: April 15, 2010 Brief Background: The Handbook of Public Pedagogy Critical Pedagogy theorists are doing groundbreaking work on the theme of "public intellectual," including "public anthropology." This coming December 2009 Routledge will release this state of the art publication, “The Handbook of Public Pedagogy. To learn more, review the contents. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:BWLK8wZaOqsJ:www.routledgeeducation.com/books/Handbook-of-Public-Pedagogy-isbn9780415801263+Critical+Public+Pedagogy&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Brief Background: The Handbook of Public Pedagogy Critical Pedagogy theorists are doing groundbreaking work on the theme of "public intellectual," including "public anthropology." This coming December 2009 Routledge will release this state of the art publication, “The Handbook of Public Pedagogy. To learn more, review the contents. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:BWLK8wZaOqsJ:www.routledgeeducation.com/books/Handbook-of-Public-Pedagogy-isbn9780415801263+Critical+Public+Pedagogy&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Best, Brian McKenna, Ph.D. University of Michigan-Dearborn Description of theme: "The Art of Public Pedagogy: Should the 'Truth' Dazzle Gradually or Thund er Mightily?"Tactics, Risks and Possibilities In this special edition of Policy Futures in Education, we invite scholars, social scientists, artists, journalists and/or self-described critical pedagogues to submit a 500 word abstract describing the place of art in your public pedagogy work. All communication is art in the broadest conception of the term. “Art” is open to your interpretation, but you must cite the literature to defend your use of the concept as you apply it. The article must also discuss the form of your intervention (radio, film, journalism, community partnership, civic engagement, music, drama, agitprop and so on), how your intervention is or was artistic, the reasons why you employed “art,” the culture, resources and power dimensions of your expression and any conflicts you experienced. “Art is not a mirror held up to reality,=2 0but a hammer with which to shape it.” So wrote dramatist Bertolt Brecht in the 1930s. The Weavers’ folk group lyricist Lee Hayes took that hammer in the 1950s and imagined (along with Pete Seeger) what that world would look like “If I had a hammer. . .” How do you use art? As a hammer? As a mirror? As a device to dramatize reality to grab the reader's attention? How does art help us with our counter-education to the dominant hegemony? Today, amidst the increasing corporate takeover of higher education, journalism and entertainment – and the growing exclusion of critical voices – social change activists, artists -- and increasingly, academics – are wrestling with how to resist the “terror of neoliberalism,” which has become the culture’s dominant public pedagogy. In response, a growing critical public pedagogy movement – influenced by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (see his Pedagogy of the Oppressed 1970) is working to empower citizens by addressing “the relationship between politics and agency, knowledge and power, subject positions and values, and learning and social change” (Giroux 2010), and by taking their pedagogy directly to the public through a wide variety of forms. Unsatisfied with simply communicating critical understandings, the public pedagogy movement seeks to “expose human misery and eliminate the conditions that produce it (Giroux 2010).” There is growing recognition that we must take subaltern messages directly to the public, using the forms, tactics, referential contexts and yes, artistry, of good communicators. Some would say that art is a form of resistance since it seeks to reinterpret reality, engage it in controversy. It is not only a tool used as a critique, but should also be future oriented, giving us a hopeful sense of what can be. It speaks to the “not yet.” The art of public pedagogy may include a vision of the future, a vision of a reorganized political economy, and a model for democratizing and liberating discourse. Public education often is a performance in the sense that participants are allowed to change roles and act as if they had power and in this sense it is performance. In the process of acting/performance people may become empowered and see their performance as the possibility of power. &nbs p; It is important to define how neoliberalism is educative and how it terrorizes people. Neoliberalism is capitalism with the gloves off. It is a perilous geography in which the social state has been carved out in deference to the military state. It is an attack on everything public and collective. Neoliberal hegemony tends to exclude, ignore or suppress frank discussions of capitalism and/or domination. Neoliberalism celebrates cruelty and dismisses compassion. As a result, democracy, as an ideal and a practice, is in great peril. How frank should one be about issues of capitalism, revolution, class analysis ? This fundamental issue has a great deal of influence on one’s use of aesthetics. For example, Village Voice writer Jack Newfield was of the opinion that in educating the public a writer must “Let the truth dazzle gradually.” One must draw them in slowly and not hammer them over the head, he believed. Similarly, Mary Beth Doyle, an environmental activist and agitprop practitioner with Ann Arbor’s Ecology Center noted that, “It’s less important to tell the truth than to have the truth be heard.” Anthropologist and novelist Kurt Vonnegut agreed, viewing a writing project as little more than a belabored “one liner.” Pull them in first and then catch them at the end. The populist filmmaker Michael Moore, in his soon to be released film "Capitalism: A Love Story” will use humor as an artistic device to make some direct charges against the neoliberal establishment, a strategy from which many can learn. Still, Moore’s intervention will only be effective public pedagogy if it can inspire citizens to critical action. Like Moore contributors must describe how their work publicly challenges domination. In addition to that (and unlike Moore) you are asked to carefully reflect on your theories and uses of art in your public pedagogy. And then you are asked to explicitly share that critical reflection as a scholar. Thank you.
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
