Education,Freedom, and Temporality: A Response to Biesta and Säfström's Manifesto

Since it was first published in 2011, ‘A Manifesto for Education’ by Gert Biesta and Karl Anders Säfström has received numerous enthusiastic reviews and been hailed as providing ‘an alternative vision for education’. Such enthusiasm, however, is perhaps not purely attributable to the substance of the text but also to the form that it adopts. In this regard, I attempt to explore what the authors refer to as the ironic usage of this genre of writing in relation to its message. The authors diagnose a problem in education related to the modern understanding of time, and they suggest an alternative ‘non‐temporality’ in which we ‘stay in the tension between “what is” and “what is not” ’. While I appreciate the Manifesto's attempt to offer criticism based on the link between freedom and temporality in education, I take issue with aspects of their analysis. I discuss temporality and freedom through a reading of Martin Heidegger in which the concept of time in education is understood in terms of human freedom as possibility.     

Silence as borderland: a semiotic approach to the “silent” pupil in nineteenth-century vocal education

Abstract

At the heart of the nineteenth-century educational soundscape lies a paradox. Whilst “modern” classrooms generally strived for orderly silence, the goal of its educational practices was the production of competent “citizens”. Middle-class boys in particular were expected to acquire a voice fit for business, the professions, or even (political) public speech whilst quietly listening to a teacher. This silence within the educational institution has generally been understood as an element of discipline. In this paper I want to examine the paradox of the silent classroom and the speaking citizen. I will focus specifically on those instances where the clear goal of education was vocal sound (i.e. fluent speech, civilised pronunciation, and song) and look at how silence was mobilised by educators. I will argue that the silences employed in these educational practices were not (only) tools of order and discipline, but rather means to create a “borderland” where the leap between childhood and its uncivilised noises, and adulthood and its rational speech, could be made.

I will draw upon the interpretations of silence as “in between” signs as it has been developed by semioticians to analyse a corpus of sources consisting mainly of French, German, and English pedagogical literature focusing on the development of children’s voices. Reframing the place of silence in “institutionalised” education allows us to delve deeper into the specific ways in which “discipline” (re)produced and articulated dichotomies of power.     

“资本主义必然灭亡”论断的再认识--从资本主义的现实发展说起

“资产阶级的灭亡和无产阶级的胜利是同样不可避免的”,这是马克思、恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中提出的论断,即我们常说的“资本主义必然灭亡,社会主义（或共产主义）必然胜利”的“两个必然”规律。资本主义在当代社会发展过程中呈现的新情况和新变化,同样改变不了它走向灭亡的命运。     

也谈言语研究

随着语言学研究的深入,索绪尔的言语除了说和所说还应该包括写和所写,而且内涵发展了的言语依然可以英译为speech。言语不仅可以研究而且应该在言语的语言学框架内,把社会、文化、认知等结合起来对语言使用诸因素做出联系语境,侧重动态、异质、变异的综合的研究。当前应该对国内外言语研究进行全面系统的梳理,及早建立言语的语言学的理论框架。     

A Sticky Business? Exploring the “and” in Teaching and Learning

This article takes as its focus the “and” in discourses of teaching and learning. Drawing upon the work of Deleuze and Guattari, I argue that the “and” signifies a complex, sticky relationship between teaching and learning, and that we can radicalise our conception of “and” to bring forward a range of different discourses. The argument suggests that those critiques of discourses of teaching and learning which argue for an alternative discourse of pedagogy can be supplemented by the radicalising of the “and”. I am therefore proposing the possibility for different forms of immanent and transcendental critique in relation to contemporary debates about teaching and learning. And that there is significance in the apparently insignificant?…

In real life people fumble their words and stare blankly off into space and don't listen properly to what people say. I find that kind of speech fascinating but it seems writers never write dialogue like that because it doesn't look good on the page. (Christopher Guest, Theatre Director)     

“Our Divided Society—A Challenge to Religious Education”: REA’s 1969 National Convention and the Opening Up of Brave Conversations about Race and Religion

Abstract

The Religious Education Association (REA) selected as its theme for its 1969 National Convention, “Our Divided Society—A Challenge to Religious Education,” addressing, among other topics, issues of race and racism. Previously, the REA presented a mixed legacy in addressing racial injustice, remaining largely silent on such issues during the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, unlike the National Council of Churches, which had taken a prophetic stance early on. Thus, the 1969 convention’s theme opened up brave new spaces for the REA to address issues of race and racism in American society.     

Struggles for Educational Equity in Prince Edward County,VA: Resistance,Southern Manifesto Ideologies,and School Choice

ABSTRACT

In light of contemporary school choice proposals and the 60th anniversary of the Southern Manifesto, the Prince Edward County, Virginia public schools crisis provides interesting historical discussion. Prince Edward County (PEC), a rural community in central Virginia, was one of five school districts represented in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated public schools unconstitutional. In response to this decision, PEC closed public schools from 1959–1964 rather than desegregate them. Three other Virginia locales closed public schools to resist the desegregation mandate of Brown—Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk—but none for as long as PEC. Like the 19 Senators and 82 Representatives from each of the former Confederate states who signed the Declaration of Constitutional Principles or “Southern Manifesto” and understood the Brown ruling as a violation of state’s rights, Virginia lawmakers also vowed “…to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision [Brown] which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.”     

The liberal arts‐necessary

Edward R. Murrow's documentary series See It Now's “Report on Senator McCarthy” is a telecast that stands as one of the most influential documents in American public discourse. It is also one of the least understood. The standard response has been to label the program as “flawed” because it was not “objective.” This essay argues that the text situates itself between the genre of objective news documentary and the genre of public argument through the ironic “use” of objectivity as a fabricated strategy of appeal.     

在“言”与“不言”之间:沦陷时期“万象闲话”生存的困境

在中国沦陷时期的特殊语境下,人们言说方式也具有特殊性。"万象闲话"在"言"与"不言"之间,通过隐喻、借古讽今和含沙射影等方式,寻求特殊时代可能的生存空间。其于"闲话"中所营造的"灰色世界"以及延续的"鲁迅风",打破了"民族文学"失语的现象,成为时代记忆的载体。     

“到”的词性再探析

现代汉语"到"的词性可以是动词、介词、形容词,动词"到"与介词"到"同形。在"V+到+NP"结构中,"到"的词性各有说辞。通过分析比较前人的各种观点,并根据词语词汇意义和语法特征,得出"到"字词类归属的评判标准。     

《共产党宣言》在中国传播史研究中的几个问题

在《共产党宣言》发表160周年之际,在关注《宣言》当代价值的同时,《宣言》传播史的研究仍有进一步深化的余地。首先,对《宣言》文本的翻译和解读至今存在一些并非无关宏旨的歧义。其次,对非马克思主义者传播《宣言》的贡献,应该给予更加充分的肯定和高度的评价。再次,对《宣言》译本出版之外的其它的传播方式、传播途径与传播范围的研究也应给予足够的重视。最后,《宣言》早期传播中的一些史实仍需要进一步梳理。     

经典诠释与“立德”?

文本诠释是诠释学研究的中心问题。在现代诠释学形成之前,诠释的重心是对作为“经典”的文本之理解。在现代诠释学中,诠释重心移向了一般意义上的文本。当代诠释视野中,有人甚而提出了只有“文本”而无“经典”。通过比较研究得出的结论是：在中西双重学术视野中整合诠释传统的思想资源,以创建中国诠释学是必要的,也是完全可能实现的。现代中国诠释学应以“立德”为主旨,其理论形态乃是“经典诠释学”。     

Responding to Academic Freedom

W. Richard Bond's “Zero Tolerance: A New Enemy of Academic Freedom?,” Michael Kubara's “Academic Freedom,” and Fred Wilson's “In Defence of Speech Codes” included in the Symposium published in Interchange, Volume 27, #2, 1996, deal with the role and importance of academic freedom in Canadian universities and the pressures both within and without the academy for its attenuation. Although the Bond paper begins with the recent controversy in Ontario universities over the attempted introduction of a policy of zero tolerance of harassment and discrimination, it quickly moves to a summary of the traditional position regarding academic freedom in which that right is balanced by a corresponding responsibility. As insistent as Bond on the importance of academic freedom, Kubara and Wilson both approach the topic in a more argumentative fashion. Kubara and Wilson differ, however, in the kinds of arguments they propound. Kubara defends the traditional liberal conception of the university and attacks what he regards as the trendy feminist attack on academic freedom. Wilson recognizes that along with the rights bestowed by the acceptance of the principle of academic freedom is an obligation to engage in rational debate. The mechanism in Wilson's view for ensuring such debate is a well-crafted speech code in which professionally unacceptable speech acts are unambiguously defined. The fundamental difference between these two positions is that, whereas Kubara advocates an academic discourse that is as unfettered as is permissible within the law, Wilson proposes stricter limitations. I will discuss the Bond, Kubara, and Wilson papers in turn, commenting briefly on their positions. I will then present my own position on academic freedom and speech codes.     

The Rhetorical Success of Thabo Mbeki's 1996 “I Am an African” Address

Thabo Mbeki's 1996 “I Am an African” address, delivered on the occasion of the Constitutional Assembly's passage of a new constitution for a truly democratic South Africa, was successful and memorable. Three strategies account for its success: its use of what Bakhtin termed “stylization,” which allowed the rhetor to invest the speech with the aura of John F. Kennedy; its strategic shifting from the first-person singular to the first-person plural; and, most important, its construction of a narrative history of South Africa that, modeled on Scripture, celebrates the South African people's past, present, and future.     

再论“V个VP”结构中“个”字的性质

句法分析中,“V个VP”结构常以其独特的结构特征吸引专家、学者们的注意。他们的研究视点大多聚焦在“个”的性质上,而对“VP”的重视不够,即使在论述“个”时也是说法不一。从“具体与抽象”、“指称与陈述”等方面的分析,可以看出“个”字的性质日益边缘化且在与“VP”搭配中存在“游移”这一现象。     

Practical resources for critical science education in rural Appalachia

This article argues that there is no typical Appalachian experience or community. There is more cultural diversity and global interchange in this region of the U.S. than appears in popular representations of “isolated” Appalachians, which are ironic because of the region’s having been so central to the global extractive economy for centuries. Some pedagogical resources are provided to encourage or contribute to a broader perspective on the possibilities and knowledge centered in rural communities, with Appalachian examples.     

Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism

This tropological analysis of “On the Equality of the Sexes” (1790) argues that Judith Sargent Murray deployed a series of ironic reversals, including an example of Kenneth Burke's “dialectical” irony, to make her famous case for women's capacity to reason. As such, the article elucidates this trope's peculiar rhetorical potential within the context of eighteenth-century debates on female education and investigates how it can function in conjunction with romantic irony. Significantly, Murray deployed romantic irony in order to question her era's commonplace ideas about women's intellectual capacities and conventional female education. She then employed dialectical irony in order to sidestep relativism, playing off and departing from the expanded field of possibilities that romantic irony opened up. In so doing, she cast doubt upon commonly held doubts themselves, questioning the subversiveness normally associated with learned ladies. Through this series of ironic turns, readers were invited to change their previous beliefs and then presented with a clear means of moving forward—thereby opening a path for elite European American girls to be educated in traditionally masculine domains.     

Weaponizing speech

As the notion of “information warfare” has gained public currency, some forms of communication have been redefined as acts of violence, war, and terrorism. This essay tracks the metaphor of the “information bomb” in theoretical understandings as well as public discourses of terrorism, journalism, and information leaks. The essay then analyzes the 2010 Supreme Court case of Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project, which redefined speech as having the ability to constitute “material support” for terrorism. The essay argues that trends in the “weaponization of speech” pose important challenges to the status of the First Amendment.     

CROSSING BORDERS WITHIN: STANLEY CAVELL AND THE POLITICS OF INTERPRETATION

The matter of crossing borders in the creation of democratic communities arises in ways that are pressing, both within the nation‐state and on a global scale. Tensions between tendencies toward nationalism and the cosmopolitan call for global understanding touch the heart of ideas of democracy as beginning at home—at political, psychological, and existential levels. Yet in both orientations there is a certain consolidation of what John Dewey called the “we.” In this essay Naoko Saito and Paul Standish address questions concerning the “I's” relation to the “we.” It is through an exploration of the apparently apolitical approach of Stanley Cavell, through what he calls the “politics of interpretation,” that Saito and Standish try to give substance to the critical destabilization of these terms and tensions that they believe to be necessary. Cavell's Wittgensteinian approach to skepticism and his account of the Emersonian sense of the tragic help to demonstrate the need to meet the political crisis of democracy with language of a more subtly critical kind. The antifoundationalism Cavell derives from these sources, with its concomitant notion of philosophy as translation, provides us with a language that answers to the problems of the “we.” This is, the authors conclude, a better formulation of, and a more hopeful response to, the challenge of crossing borders within. It touches despair but realizes within it the prophetic power of language. And it shows the political crisis in which democracy finds itself to be something that is not peculiar to our times but internal to the very nature of our (political) lives.     

我国高等教育重点建设政策的历程与省思

纵观新中国70余年我国高等教育重点建设政策演进,政府角色、资源配置方式、建设路径、制度运作模式等都发生了重大转变。制度自信日益凸显,但渐进式政策制定模式、政府主导的政策执行过程、效率优先的政策价值基础仍是我国高等教育重点建设政策的总体特征。由此,在政策实践过程中,呈现出关于“谁是主角、谁是配角、谁是参与者”、高等教育发展效率与公平以及制度运作的适度性等问题。未来,提高重点大学政策决策的民主与科学性,进一步明晰国家、地方政府和高校在重点大学建设中的权责,完善重点建设的制度体系与配套政策,处理好重点与特色的关系,平衡重点与非重点、公平与效率等关系问题将成为“双一流”建设推进的关键。