A Troubling Inheritance: Experimenting With the Problematic Curriculum

• In Event: Refusal, Radical Imaginations, and World Remaking Curriculum

Abstract

Given the wreckage of centuries of archived curriculum, curriculum studies face a troubling inheritance, one many scholars might prefer to disregard. However, drawing on writing archival dilemmas, this paper considers what might be done with this troubling inheritance. Through assemblage art that engages with my own troubling inheritance, a particular archived curriculum, this project experiments with a new technique. The paper considers the implications of engaging with anarchival assemblage art with a troubling inheritance. Even with a troubling inheritance, assemblage art can subvert the inherited meaning. As we navigate the wake of a past that never passed and the field reckons with “accepting educational responsibility,” anarchival techniques can subvert the field’s own troubling inheritances.

Author

• Seth A. McCall, Teachers College, Columbia University