Adolescent Literature, Preservice English Teachers, and Badiou's "Procedures of Truth"

• In Event: 28.072 - Literary Study as Transformative Practice in a Post-Truth Age

Abstract

Purposes: We demonstrate the significance of Badiou's (2003) "procedures of truth" for theorizing transformative human thought and action both for characters in young adult novels and for preservice English teachers encountering these texts. We introduce Badiou's concepts through an analysis of Ness's (2011) novel A Monster Calls and then explore the emergence of two preservice English teachers in a program dedicated to social justice as they newly affirm the equality of LGBTQ people through reading literature.

Theoretical Framework: Alain Badiou's (2003, 2005, 2009) philosophical work focuses on how subjects of a truth emerge through a series of thoughts and actions within complex situations through a commitment of fidelity to procedures of truth. Badiou argues that "For the process of a truth to begin, something must happen" (Badiou, 2003, p. 62). We explore what Badiou calls "events" (world-shaking happenings), both though literary and classroom examples, focusing our inquiry on what he calls "faithful," "reactive," and "obscure" subjects to a truth (such as justice), which "seizes and traverses the human animal" and is an axiom for action in the world (2003, pp. 60-76).

Mode of Inquiry: Ours is an ongoing four-year, interpretivist inquiry calling upon a combination of humanizing and posthuman research methods (see Jackson & Mazzei, 2012; Jones, et al., 2016; Lather, 2007; Lather & St. Pierre, 2013; Paris & Winn, 2013; Patel, xxxx; St. Pierre, 2011), enabling us to focus on how transformations in fictional and actual worlds unfold through material-discursive practices that leave marks on bodies. In this poster, we take up Jackson and Mazzei 's (2012) call to "use data to think with theory" (p. vi) for the purposes of equality.

Data Production: Focal data were produced across three transformational events during three different years of the study. Each event involves English teachers engaging with young adult literature in an arts-informed, social justice-oriented teacher education program. We collected: a) audio tapes of small group discussions; b) visual-verbal journals and other course artifacts (e.g. paintings, essays); c) audio tapes of all whole discussions; d) notes from our participation in the unfolding events.

Results: Using Badiou's truth procedures to analyze events in A Monster Calls produced a creative reading with explanatory power over how truth and transformation operate in the text. Next we used Badiou to think through empirical examples of transformation toward justice from our class. The two examples we focus on in the poster deal with the YAL novels Will Grayson, Will Grayson (Green & Levithan, 2010) and Aristotle and Dante (Saenz, 2012), novels with gay characters. Badiou's truth procedures explain how the Christian young women we focus on became "faithful subjects" (Badiou, 2003) to a political truth that equality requires justice for all, including people identifying as LGBTQ.

Scholarly Significance: Alain Badiou's unique contributions to French philosophy are useful in discussing the operations of truths in the world. The major contributions of this poster are answers to questions 1 and 2 of this session, plus we show how a seemingly abstract concept like "justice" is materialized within human thought and action.

Authors

• Briana Kidd, University of Alabama

• Aaron Tinker, University of Alabama