Narrative Inquiry. oral history, life story, biography, autobiography, and autoethnography: Narrative Inquiry draws upon a variety of approaches, methodologies, theoretical perspectives and disciplinary traditions. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical approaches to narrative and the analysis of narratives in human interaction. We shall examine definitions, theoretical orientations and methodologies, including oral history, life story, biography, autobiography and autoethnography.

Ethics in/and Education. What is ethical teaching? Ethical education? How is it lived, among whom, by engaging in what sorts of activities, toward what ends? This seminar examines the origins of the concepts of ethics and morality, how and why they became distinct. Specific issues include: the possibility of ethical knowledge and the relationship of that knowledge to ethical action, access to education and exclusions, censorship direct and covert, political freedom and freedom of the will, professional ethics and the professionalization of ethics, morality and ethics in a democratic polity. Texts from: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Montaigne, Pascal, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Mill, Wollstonecraft, Kant, Nietzsche, Levinas, Serres, Derrida, Hansen. 

Judith Butler and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: New Dimensions in Education - Autobiographical Methods. Reading Butler’s and Spivak's works to explore the possibilities they offer for a rethinking of autobiographical research in curriculum theory.

Michel Serres: The Diversity of Time and Education. Exploring main themes in Hermes, Rome, Conversations, Natural Contract, Troubadour of Knowledge, Atlas.

Jacques Derrida: Identity and Diversity in Education. Main issues in education and educational institutions in Jacques Derrida, Points, Right to Philosophy, Negotiations, Derrida & Education.

Curriculum Theory. Curriculum as a field of study is both complex and diverse with multiple perspectives and approaches. In this course, we examine curriculum not as a technical document, but as a social process. It introduces various theoretical discourses in the field of curriculum and the representative works of several influential curriculum theorists. It is an introduction, by no means all encompassing since, as a "moving form," the field is continually undergoing changes.

Écriture féminine as curriculum discourse.This seminar explores how écriture féminine places experience before language, and privileges the non-linear, cyclical writing so often frowned upon by Western patriarchal societies. Autobiographical narratives of learning and teaching as well as texts from Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva constitute the basis of this seminar.

Understanding education across disciplines and time. Graduate seminar based on a close readings and analysis of texts by Michel Serres

Sustained Education: At the intersection of Faith and Reason. Graduate seminar based on a close reading and analysis of texts by Derrida, Levinas, and Serres.

Derrida, Gender and Curriculum. In the current context of globalization, cosmopolitanism, socio-political conflicts, and war, rights for all to education and educating take a new dimension and urgency, and present new challenges. Recent work by French philosopher Jacques Derrida has brought to the fore questions touching on a variety of contemporary political, social, and ethical issues, as education is called upon to respond to the necessity of respecting, at the same time, the particularity of individual differences and the universality of majority law. Throughout his work, Derrida suggests that "human beings are irreducibly displaced although, in a discourse that privileges the center, women alone have been diagnosed as such" (Spivak, Feminist Interpretations, 1997, p. 45). Throughout his work and for the past 30 years, Derrida has endeavored to displace all centrisms, as well as binary oppositions and dichotomies. His concept of deconstruction as ethics of affirmation, and his understanding of aporias and antinomies can provide the paradigm to develop a greater awareness of the issues at stake, to aim for a better understanding of  what they are, to articulate more clearly the problems, and to move toward a more responsive and responsible approach to knowledge and education.
Sean Buckreis presented his final paper for this course, titled "Questioning with Derrida: Need and Responsibility," at the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain annual conference at the University of Oxford, England, April 1-3, 2005.

Beauvoir, Cixous, Irigaray and Kristeva: French Women Writers and Education. One of the major themes of feminist theory, the split between the public and the private, is the basis to explore and understand how abstraction, ideal rationality, and objectivity have traditionally been considered as the preferred content of curriculum discourse in Western epistemilogy. This seminar uses the works of Kristeva and feminist object relations theory as a point of departure, and autobiographical narratives of learning and teaching as an exploratory venue. It includes Kristeva’s and Cixous’s video taped interviews from the 1992 Oxford Amnesty Lectures Series, and texts from Kristeva, Cixous, Irigaray, and Beauvoir.

Exclusions and Education: Bourdieu, Levinas and Serres. Using innovative approaches including autobiography and study of situations of exclusions "on site," oral history, journal writing, and group work, students are asked to explore what exclusion means, what part languages play in a variety of educational contexts, and what impact teachers can and do have.

Ethics of Deconstruction and Academic Responsibility. Derrida's powerful reflection on the challenges of education and educational institutions are examined, based on detailed readings of his most recent texts (90's). His notion of deconstruction is discussed, as well as his theories of the subject, human rights, languages and nationalism, and the questions they raise in education, how they help articulate problems in today's education, and can help educators move toward an understanding of these issues which is not reduced to a dichotomized discourse (a video interview of Derrida from the 1992 Oxford Amnesty Lectures Series is used in this course).

Michel Serres and Complexity: Pluridimensions of Education. This seminar focuses on Serres's theory of time and multitemporality, on his concepts of learning, knowledge, and multidisciplinarity, and on his notion of responsibility. This course entails detailed readings of selected works, including most recent publications. Texts are made available in French and in English, with translations of texts not yet available in English

Derrida and the New World Order: A Novel Perspective on Education. This seminar on Derrida brings to the fore questions touching on a variety of burning contemporary political, social, educational, and ethical issues, including the sustained importance of a certain spirit of Marx, the conception of the new Europe, nationalities, nationalisms, eurocentrism, the economy of the gift, and questions of ethics and academic responsibilities. (this course was team-taught with David Wills, Professor, Department of French & Italian)

Derrida and Curriculum Theory: A New Vision of Education. This seminar is an introduction to Jacques Derrida as one of the major contemporary French philosophers who has contributed much to the field of education. It is based on detailed readings of Derrida's texts made available both in English and in French.

Designing and Delivering the Secondary and K-12 Curriculum. One of the three "core courses" in the Secondary/K-12 Holmes Program intended to address issues relevant to your continued growth as reflective practitioners.  Specific topics are:  language, literacy, and reading; student needs and characteristics; multicultural and global education; uses of technology; assessment and evaluation; and professional development.  The course presents an interdisciplinary perspective including all secondary/K-12 cohorts (i.e., art, English, foreign language, kinesiology, mathematics, science, and social studies).

Teaching, Schooling and Society. Study of the traditional subjects of history and philosophy of education by examining the political, social, economic, cultural and personal aspects of schooling and teaching. Designed to encourage students to integrate theory and practice as characteristic of the Holmes teacher education programs. Entails a field experience component and provides a framework within which each student can engage in reflective enquiry about what it means, as a person and as a teacher, to teach in our society, especially in a multicultural context such as Louisiana.

Principles and Practices in Secondary Education and Principles and Practices in K-12 Education. Analyses of criticism of secondary and K-12 education, and of current proposals for reform; conflicting conceptions of teaching, learning, cognition, and related approaches to curriculum, instruction and evaluation; current theoretical and research approaches; implications for educational policy and practice.