Posthumanist Pitfalls and Possibilities: Too Often Throwing Out the Human With the Bathwater of Anthropocentrism

• In Event: 31.091 - Fairmont Royal York Roundtable Session Five
  In Roundtable Session: 31.091-4 - Eco-Critical Education Research and Radical Environmental Education in Teacher Education

Abstract

This paper examines themes of the films Mother, The Shape of Water, and Okja as they work to disrupt and trouble notions of being human. However, these films, like many of the pedagogical projects troubling anthropocentrism in both EE research and the teacher education classroom—as well as in education research more broadly—also have pitfalls and tensions around class, gender, sexuality, ability and race. The presenters of this paper take the position that all too often the complex intersections of social and ecological justice are ignored or omitted from posthumanist and critical animal studies critiques of anthropocentrism. The researchers here will share findings from a critical discourse analysis of the three films applying a “critical scrutiny of the messy knowledge forms and action moves (or lack thereof)” (Pederson, 2011, p. 67) in the films. Responding to the questions posed by the AESA conference call, this paper not only shares critical posthumanist themes in the films related to teaching social foundations, the authors address complex tensions that emerge too often from anti-anthropocentric work (for example pervasive anti-blackness and ableism). Furthermore, the authors will share how they work with/in teacher education in connection with radical environmental education research to address these tensions in the classroom and in their research. The paper concludes with pedagogical examples of how the authors envision the films as part of radical environmental education and ecocritical teacher education curriculum.

Authors

• Jonathan Torres

• John Joseph Lupinacci, Washington State University - Pullman