Hyperreality & Phobogenic Hypervisibility (Poster 5)

• In Event: Theory-Stories and Social Studies Education

Abstract

Hyperreality

Social inquiry often involves considering contexts (e.g., institutions, practices, popular culture) and ways of knowing; however, ontological inquiries (i.e., into the nature of being and reality) are less common. This presentation considers how Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality destabilizes assumptions of reality and how such a destabilization can be helpful in social studies education. Hyperreal simulacra function like something real even though they are not. The signs of the real are substituted for the real itself: virtual reality creates realities, opinion polls mold opinions, and the news media make the news. With historical reenactments, educators need to be concerned about the nature of reality and our (in)ability to represent it. Another context for hyperreality is to look at curriculum documents (e.g., state standards and standardized tests). Often the curricular question revolves around an epistemological question: What knowledge is of the most worth? Such a question, however, assumes a one-to-one relationship between curriculum and what it (supposedly) represents. Standardized tests supposedly measure curricular outcomes, but instead they measure students’ abilities to take those tests. Test outcomes then determine curricular choices in classrooms. The effects of this hyperreality are significant for both schools (e.g., funding) and students (e.g., classroom experiences, college admission).

Phobogenic Hypervisibility

In this presentation, I endeavor to focus on the role of social studies in perpetuating the lie that continues to enclose Black men and boys. Specifically, this chapter seeks to show how the field of social studies has existed within a white-controlled regime of truth that has (mis)utilized epistemic authority to produce master narratives that, I argue, continue to function as anti-Black forms of bad faith (i.e., truth evasion) by reifying Black men and boys as an essentialized phobogenic Black imago—a stimulus to anxiety in the white imagination.

Authors

• Cathryn van Kessel, Texas Christian University

• Daniel J. Thomas, Texas A&M University