Beyond Deconstruction: Georgio Agamben's Potential for Education

• In Event: 32.082 - Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 32.082-6 - Listening, Hesitation, Space: Reconstructing Educational Relations

Abstract

In this paper, I show how contemporary Italian philosopher, Georgia Agamben, exposes deconstruction’s limitations for education and, at the same time, deposes much of Western philosophy’s metaphysical tradition and its avatars in educational theorizing. In particular, I wish to show how Agamben might address and critique calls for education to embrace the continuous “risk” (Biesta, 2014) of the incalculable and to “unlock” (Ruitenberg, 2015) open enduring, educationally undecidable futural possibilities of a world “to come.” I argue that when we focus primarily on the risk of possibility and the unknown, indeterminate event to come, the real risk is losing site of what is before our gaze.

Author

• Harvey Shapiro, Northeastern University