The purpose of this article is threefold: to offer a vision of human flourishing in the academy premised upon 'living in truth', embracing lived experience and being in relation; to explore counterfactual thinking across the life-course, from the period of compulsory schooling to the end of life, with the emphasis on the latter; and to critique…

In this paper, I explore German playwright Bertolt Brecht's conception of the art of acting, and his views on the new actor's conduct towards their craft, as a pedagogical model for Brechts' broader view on how we should live our lives. Drawing on his key writings -- most importantly, his famous street scene essay -- I will show that Brecht's…

This article interlaces the story 'Comfort' by Alice Munro with Hannah Arendt's understanding of education as intergenerational passing on. Its principal aim is not to criticise Arendt or the fictional character of Lewis but to work with them towards a richer and more complex understanding of what can go wrong in education in general and teaching…

In recent years, a growing number of scholars have accused Arendt of anti-Black racism. Some of these criticisms can be traced to certain passages in her essay "On Violence" about black radicals making what she believed to be unreasonable curriculum demands, namely the establishment of Black Studies programs. The purpose of this paper is…

Just as classic Marxist writers are included among the world's top-class artists, Chinese Marxism has gradually nurtured a new tradition of modern aesthetics. This tradition serves to enlighten the people, cultivate their appreciation of artistic masterpieces, and thus establish a complete set of artistic systems that has been inspiring people to…

Unlearning is a recurrent theme in Japan. To further understanding of what this entails, we focus on the view of learning laid out by a revered 13th century Zen-inspired playwright. For Zeami, learning involved a movement from the acquisition to unlearning of skills, punctuated by an experience of "mushin," followed by creative…

Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the academy. This article seeks to explore the way in which neoliberalism is shifting the prevailing values of the academy by drawing on two illustrations: the…

Where has all the hilarity gone -- and, with it, the ethics of the dark? In this article, I engage with our metaphysical entities of darkness (in Maori, Te Po) and nothingness (Te Kore). Undermining and re-declaring (only to un-declare once again) are more than just pleasurable exercise for my own indigenous group -- Maori; they are ethical…

Putting into question its central presupposition of 'inner freedom', this paper deconstructs the 'resistance through culture' of the Paltinis School of dissident thinkers in Romania under communism in the 1970s and 80s. The philosopher Constantin Noica, and his follower Gabriel Liiceanu, argue that resistance to authoritarian repression and…

How do we encourage Heidegger's notion of originary thinking in education, and indeed how should one engage with thinking at all? In this response, I consider the challenge that Heidegger lays down for speculation that refers certainty to the unknown. In my answer to the contributors of this special issue, I highlight the fact that all of us are…

This article begins by clarifying the notion of what Stanley Cavell has called "Emersonian moral perfectionism." It goes on to explore this through close analysis of aspects of Emerson's essay "Experience," in which ideas of trying or attempting or experimenting bring out the intimate relation between perfectionism and styles…

Amongst a remarkable publishing career, Paul Smeyers, editor of the journal "Ethics and Education," has written extensively on the situation afflicting philosophy of education. A recently published editor's invited symposium in "Studies in Philosophy and Education" (Smeyers, De Ruyter, Waghid, & Strand, 2014) put forward…

"Artwork as technics" opens discussion on activating aesthetics in educational contexts by arguing that we require some fundamental revision in understanding relations between aesthetics and technology in contexts where education is primarily encountered instrumentally and technologically. The paper addresses this through the writing of…

The aim of this article is to establish--and explore--James Baldwin's significance for educational theory. Through a close reading of "Everybody's Protest Novel", I show that Baldwin's thinking is an important (if unrecognized) precursor to the work of Stanley Cavell and Cora Diamond, and is relevant to a number of…

The purpose of this article is to make a case for "The Rebel" as an important educational text. Discussing "The Rebel" in this way for the first time, the goal is to try and demonstrate that the work could have a unique contribution; in particular there might be a number of similarities between Camus and educational thinkers…