Contemplating Educational Crisis: Engaging the Novel Ishmael Through Levinas's Astonishment and Badiou's Event

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Curriculum and Culture With(in) Literacy and Language

Abstract

Fake news, alternative facts, the rise of populism, climate change; these terms conjure feelings of chaos, despair, and desperation. As educators and curriculum theorists, we wonder how to navigate this climate of confusion. In this paper, we consider Daniel Quinn’s (1992) novel Ishmael as an invitation to resist anthropocenic investments and explore alternative construal(s). We aim to achieve a deeper understanding of the potential for transformative education within our current socio-political and “post-traumatic” (Felman & Laub, 1992, p. 5) educational context. However, negotiating transformation during these crises is not easy; we therefore consider possibilities for engaging Ishmael through the writings of philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Alain Badiou, specifically Levinas’ notion of “traumatism of astonishment” and Badiou’s notion of “event”.

Authors

• Robert Piazza, University of Alberta

• Claudia Eppert, University of Alberta