33.052 - New Materialist Education 1: Cultural Studies and the Power of Things

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The papers on this panel reflect on the emergent discourse of the “new materialisms” in order to query its import for educational thought and practice. They focus on the ways new materialisms can shift how we think about “things” in cultural studies (of education). For too long, the notion of the “cultural artifact” has turned to objects only to deny them any power other than as an index of human action. Instead, we grapple with how communications technologies, movies, musics, and curricula can be reconceptualized not as “passive” sites through which humans interact, but as animate and active forces in the production of culture and the power struggles animating it.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies

Chair

• Nathan Snaza, University of Richmond

Papers

• Sound Itself: The Materiality of the Sonic - Walter S. Gershon, Kent State University

• Life at Large: New Materialisms for a (Re)new(ing) Curriculum of Social Studies Education - Mark Helmsing, George Mason University

• The Ideological Weight of Popular Culture Artifacts: The Walking Dead, Batman, Professional Wrestling, and Neoliberal Education Reforms - Gabriel Stephen Huddleston, Texas Christian University

• Toward a "New" (Old) Materiality and Temporality of Education - Nathan Snaza, University of Richmond

Discussant

• Jake Burdick, Purdue University