Performative Curriculum History as a Reparative Writing of the Cruel Optimism of Education Reform

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Power, Politics, and Reparative Writing

Abstract

In an era of Reform, which I capitalize to highlight the reform is looping back to itself, what could curriculum theorists and historian do? Do we, or can we, simply run away from the reformania to make a difference? How can we make a rupture of the formula without reinscribing a moment of crisis? This articles propose performative curriculum history as a reparative approach to the cruel optimism of curriculum. Performative curriculum history is concerned with what knowledge does, what the world does, and what history does. It is reparative in terms of detaching what is seemingly undetachable, relating what is seemingly unrelated, and re-accounting for how accountability is unevenly distributed.

Author

• Lei Zheng, Peking University