A Future Full of Pasts: Curriculum Theory in Capitalist Ruins

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-22 - Epistemological Frontiers: Disrupting Curriculum Theory

Abstract

What might a discussion of a Japanese delicacy, the matsutake mushroom, have to offer those working in the intersections of cultural studies and curriculum theory? Tsing (2015) offers a global analysis of the changing nature of capitalism in what many are referring to as the Anthropocene. In effect offering a new theory of capitalism, this analysis offers connections to the New Materialism, feminist relationality, ethnographic research methods, and a rejection of any unitary, ubiquitous understanding of global systems. Focusing on entanglements and friction, Tsing suggests that contemporary social theory itself obscures the relational interactions between forces and actors, the space for resistance at times opened up by those interactions, and even the possibilities that lie amongst the ruins of capitalism.

Authors

• Gabriel Stephen Huddleston, Texas Christian University

• Robert James Helfenbein, Loyola University Maryland