Engaging the Abject as Educational Technology

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Transmigration: The Surveillance and Resistance of Bodies and Souls

Abstract

While scholars have written about the role of affect in learning (see Jaber & Hammer 2016; Pintrich, 1999), this body of literature ignores how historical forces regulate the appropriateness of different forms of affect within learning environments (Zembylas, 2011). In this paper, I challenge existing borders of appropriateness by asking how educators might intentionally use abjection, or the affective response to that which sits outside the symbolic order (Kristeva, 1982), in their pedagogy. After critically examining extant literature on abjection, I turn to Freire (1973) and Rancière (2013) to provide a framework for utilizing abjection within aesthetic education. In doing so, I provide a means towards a liberatory praxis through abjection that challenges oppressive borders formed by dominant institutions.

Author

• Peter Jacob Woods, Massachusetts Institute of Technology