Confluences

Intercultural Journeying in Research and Teaching

David Geoffrey Smith

• Publisher: Information Age Publishing
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781806605743
• Print ISBN:
  9781641138246
  9781641138253
• Topic: Education

In this book, Canadian scholar David Geoffrey Smith reflects on over thirty years of research and teaching in the human sciences, including education. Written between 1986 and 2018, the essays are organized around four themes: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences; The Poststructuralist Turn; Globalization and Its Discontents; East/West Encounters and the Search for Wisdom. As a historical guide through the defining discourses in the human sciences, this volume could well serve as an introductory text for graduate students in education and other cognate disciplines like nursing, recreation and cultural studies. The writing can be described as a form of meditative praxis, while the emphasis on interculturality addresses issues in literacy, pedagogy, politics, critical thinking, teacher education, and cultural healing from a geopolitical perspective, drawing on insights from both Western and Eastern traditions and the author's personal experience of being born in China and raised in Central Africa (Northern Rhodesia/Zambia).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Frontmatter
• Dedication
• Introduction
• SECTION I: ORIENTATIONS
• 1. Journeying: A Meditation on Leaving Home and Coming Home
• 2. Not Just as We Please: A Meditation on What It Means to Make a Difference
• 3. A Meditation on an Answer From Ku Shan
• SECTION II: HERMENEUTICS AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES
• 4. The Mission of the Hermeneutic Scholar
• 5. Hermeneutic Inquiry
• 6. The Hermeneutic Imagination and the Pedagogic Text
• 7. Experimental Hermeneutics: Interpreting Educational Reality
• 8. Experience and Interpretation in Global Times: The Case of Special Education
• 9. Postcolonialism and Globalization: Thoughts Toward a New Hermeneutic Pedagogy
• 10. On Being Critical About Language: The Critical Theory Tradition and Implications for Language Education
• SECTION III: THE POSTSTRUCTURALIST TURN
• 11. Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: Facing Pedagogy in the Nuclear Shadow
• 12. Teacher Education as a Form of Discourse: On the Relation of the Public to the Private in Conversations About Teaching
• 13. On Discursivity and Neurosis: Conditions of Possibility of (West) Discourse With Others
• 14. Modernism, Hyperliteracy, and the Colonization of the Word
• 15. Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Future of Pedagogy
• SECTION IV: GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
• 16. The Geography of Theory and the Pedagogy of Place
• 17. Teacher Education and Global Culture
• 18. The Problem for the South Is the North (But the Problem for the North Is the North)
• 19. The Specific Challenges of Globalization for Teaching and Vice Versa
• 20. A Few Modest Prophecies: The WTO, Globalization, and the Future of Reason
• 21. From Leo Strauss to Collapse Theory: Considering the Neoconservative Attack on Modernity and the Work of Education
• 22. Not Rocket Science: On the Limits of Conservative Pedagogy
• 23. Engaging Peter McLaren and the New Marxism in Education: An Essay Review of McLaren’s Rage+Hope
• 24. The Deep Politics of War and the Curriculum of Disillusion
• SECTION V: EAST/WEST ENCOUNTERS AND THE SEARCH FOR WISDOM
• 25. Identity, Self, and Other in the Conduct of Pedagogical Action: An East/West Inquiry
• 26. “… the Farthest West Is but the Farthest East”: The Long Way of Oriental/Occidental Engagement
• 27. Wisdom Responses to Globalization: The Pedagogic Context
• 28. Can Wisdom Trump the Market as a Basis for Education?
• 29. On Studying Confucius: Pitfalls and Possibilities in Global Times
• 30. Spiritual Cardiology and the Heart of Wisdom: A Meditation on Life Writing
• SECTION VI: SPECIAL WORDS FOR TEACHERS AND TEACHER EDUCATORS
• 31. Children and the Gods of War
• 32. Fake News and Other Conundrums in “Reading the World” at Empire’s End
• References
• About the Author