The Temperature or the Heat of War? Aesthetic Inquiry and the Pathic Dimensions of Teaching With War Photojournalism

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: Eisner in a New Era: Accountability, Knowledge, Aesthetics, and Criticism

Abstract

This paper describes an aesthetic inquiry in relationship to the exploration of teachers’ experiences integrating a museum exhibition of war photojournalism into their curriculum. Faced with the challenge of meaningfully translating the experiences of educators working with the exhibition’s images of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the researcher employed Eisner’s notion of alternative forms of data presentation and crafted an aesthetic analysis to complement and complicate the study’s more traditional reporting. This presentation centers on sharing the parallel analysis in the form of a visual/poetic collage, as well as a critical reflection on the role of arts-based inquiry in demonstrating felt and lived experiences in relationship to difficult curricular content.

Author

• Sara Clarke-Vivier, Washington College