In this article, we address the issue of how we can give an educational answer to the current global environmental crisis. We believe that Arendt's definition of the 'essence of education' is still highly relevant because of its attention to the possibility of the world's future renewal. Therefore, we read Arendt together with Bruno Latour, who…

This paper primarily aims at conceptualizing a new philosophical approach to literature education, one that we--in the vein of certain pedagogical trends--propose to call "thing-centered". Point of departure is the ongoing confrontation with a two-sided educational problem: on the one hand, the confrontation with the steady decline of…

In this article we focus on note taking as a practice that is fundamental to (higher) education. We argue that note-taking should not primarily be regarded as a method that supports effective learning, but as formative of the student herself (making her attentive and granting possibilities for self-transformation). Hence it is a practice that has…

In this contribution to the Special Issue on the instrumentalisation of education, we focus on the relation between politics and education, as today there is a dominant discourse on rendering education subservient to the realisation of political aims. Rather than analysing the many ways in which such instrumentalisation takes place, we propose to…

In this article we develop the idea that there exists a unique educational love and that it moreover can be identified as essential to education. First, developing Arendt's claim that education is about the existing generation introducing newcomers to the world, we argue that the object-side of educational love is not the student, but first and…

In this paper we explore the possibility of rethinking the concept of emotional intelligence within the context of education. By developing a pedagogical dialogue with Michel Henry's phenomenology of incarnation, we try to move beyond existing models of emotional intelligence by shifting the emphasis from the intellectual significance "of…

In this article, we argue that it is possible to approach teaching from a fully affirmative perspective: as an educational practice that has its own internal logic and intrinsic value. By analysing a fragment from one of the Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts presented in this article as a teaching event, we show that when starting from…

In this article, I critically engage with a vital assumption behind the work of Paulo Freire, and more generally behind any critical pedagogy, viz. the belief that education is fundamentally about "emancipation." My main goal is to conceive of a contemporary critical pedagogy which stays true to the original inspiration of Freire's work,…

In this article, we read together the work of two philosophers, Alain Badiou and Giorgio Agamben, as profound educational thinkers. This means that their philosophical approaches help us to articulate what is at stake in education today. As a starting point for this discussion we take their work on Saint Paul. This is because, throughout his…

In this article, we take a concrete case study as a starting point for a reflection on preventive family support. More specifically, we conducted fieldwork in the setting of a waiting room of a childcare consultation office for parents with young children. The writings of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben allowed us to come to an alternative…

This article discusses, from a theoretical and philosophical perspective, the meaning and the importance of "basic literacy training" for education in an age in which digital technologies have become ubiquitous. I discuss some arguments, which I draw from the so-called literacy hypothesis approach (McLuhan, Goody, Havelock, Ong), in…

In this article, I am concerned with the position and role of the human body in the realm of education--more precisely, in relation to the issues of social emancipation and equality. As a rule, educational research has not paid much attention to the body, typically dealing with corporeality in a merely instrumental way. In recent times, the body…

In this article, I deal with the transition from traditional "school" forms of instruction to educational processes that are fully mediated by digital technologies. Against the background of the idea the very institution "school" is closely linked to the invention of the alphabetic writing system and to the need of initiating…

In this article I try to conceive a new approach towards laughter in the context of formal schooling. I focus on laughter in so far as it is a bodily response during which we are entirely delivered to uncontrollable, spasmodic reactions. To see the educational relevance of this particular kind of laughter, as well as to understand why laughter is…

In this paper we explore a new way to deal with social inequality and injustice in an educational way. We do so by offering a particular reading of a scene taken from Minnelli's film "The Band Wagon" which is often regarded as overly western-centred and racist. We argue, however, that the way in which words and movements in this…