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Denise Egéa-Kuehne
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TABLE OF CONTENTS I CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS I REVIEWS I PES 2005 PANEL I PESGB 2005 PANEL
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Jewish scholar born in Lithuania in 1906 and naturalized French in 1930,
Emmanuel Levinas, the French Jewish thinker who died in 1995, has profoundly
marked contemporary thought. Alongside Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger,
Merleau-Ponti and Sartre, he is widely recognized today as one of the most
significant Continental philosophers of the twentieth century. For example,
in its last chapter, a prominent recent history of twentieth century French
thought presents him at the cutting edge (Gutting 2001). Although his texts
are deemed difficult, "resist[ing] any quick or facile understanding" (Peperzak
1993, ix), requiring careful and thoughtful reading and a knowledge of
the authors whose writings he analyzes and refers to, Levinas's works have
been the object of increasing attention on the part of Anglophone intellectuals,
especially as more of his texts are being translated. In this collection,
not only do the authors help us make sense of Levinas's writings, but they
also show how powerfully Levinas's thought can help educators understand
the contemporary problems they face. Most importantly, his work can guide
educators away from standard solutions, towards reframing their understanding
of the problems. Yet his writings have barely been explored in the context
of education.
The proposed book is on the one hand meant to provide an introduction for educators, curriculum theorists, and philosophers of education into the work of Levinas, with special attention to the ethico political aspects of his writings as extremely relevant to the context of education. For this reason, the first three chapters of the book are of a more introductory nature (a unique introduction of Levinas as a "schoolmaster" then as a pedagogue through his work with the École Normale Israélite Orientale; and an overview of Levinas's thought). The book is further meant to provide an exploration of the meaning and relevance of Levinas's philosophy of ethics and justice for the theory and practice of education. For this reason, the book contains chapters which discuss a variety of educational issues, from a more direct engagement perspective (e.g., learning from a teacher; literature education; teaching and technology; indigenous peoples), from a more theoretical or philosophical point of view (e.g., the relevance of Levinas's philosophy for the philosophy of education; forgiveness and education; ethics and spirituality; educational ethics; teachers learning about hope; ethical obligation and avoiding self-sacrifice); from a more ethico-political concern (e.g., autonomy and heteronomy; movement to the other and pedagogical communication; identity politics and social conscience; educating for participatory citizenship; the ethico-pedagogical structure of hospitality; peace as being taught). The essays brought together in this book are for the most part new texts specifically written for this collection, except for four of them. Two had a shorter version presented at a conference, one was published in France in a limited edition monograph, one is a slightly modified version of a chapter published in a collection of texts on Continental philosophy. These essays differ from previous writings on Levinas in that they focus more explicitly on the ethico-political potential of his oeuvre, especially in the context of education, and educational institutions and policies. As Levinas stressed many times, it is not his "purpose to moralize or to improve the conduct of our generation." He does not believe that philosophy should develop a program, and what his texts have to offer is not a set of guidelines, rules, or prescriptions which can be applied to education to fix whatever problems arise. In fact, any attempt to summarize his arguments or his concepts in order to try and draw some specific implications to be applied to education would not do justice to his work, and might even lead to a mis-reading of his texts. Reading Levinas in the context of education needs what Derrida suggested when referring to his own texts, i.e., an attentive and respectful reading "through work which actually requires time, discipline, and patience, work that requires several readings, new types of reading, too, in a variety of different fields" (Derrida 1995: 401). A thoughtful reading of Levinas can engage in some powerful re-thinking of education and in an analysis of "all the assumptions, the hidden assumptions which are implied in the philosophical, or the ethical, or the juridical, or the political" issues (Derrida, in Biesta and Egéa-Kuehne, Derrida & Education, Routledge, 2001). This volume, the first book length collection specifically on Levinas and education, gathers chapters written by an international group of scholars from nine different countries (Canada, Cyprus, England, France, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, Slovenia and the United States) who are well known for their work in educational theory, and their work on Levinas and education. Obviously, it is not a comprehensive overview of the work done on Levinas and education, and it claims only to offer a limited sample of some of the reflection Levinas's work has prompted or inspired on educational issues. Yet the way in which the authors in this volume engage with Levinas's writings, and also the way in which Levinas's ideas come to the fore, do reveal a shared questioning and shared concerns which should engage the readers in a dialogue and a quest of their own, and perhaps uncover shared directions. At least, the suggestion of possible directions, in that these authors all announce in their own distinctive way the necessity and the possibility of education and of thinking anew in terms of ethics, justice, responsibility, hope and faith.  |
| PREFACE
Denise Egéa-Kuehne INTRODUCTION
QUESTIONING
EDUCATION
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FIRST
PHILOSOPHY
9. The Priority of ethics over ontology, the issue of forgiveness and education: Levinas's face-to-face ethics Marianna Papastephanou 10. Thinking educational ethics with Levinas and Jonas Eirick Prairat 11. Welcoming and difficult learning: Reading Levinas with education Sharon Todd 12. Autonomy and heteronomy: Kant and Levinas Zdenko Kodelja 13. Pedagogy with empty hands: Levinas, education, and the question of being human Gert J. J. Biesta BETWEEN
ETHICS AND POLITICS
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| CONTRIBUTING
AUTHORS
Heesoon Bai, Simon Fraser University, Canada. hbai@sfu.ca. http://www.educ.sfu.ca/people/faculty/HBai/ Gert J.J. Biesta, University of Sterling, Scotland, UK, G.Biesta@exeter.ac.uk Ann Chinnery, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. ahc224@mail.usask.ca Jeffrey Dudiak, The King’s University College, Canada. jeffrey.dudiak@kingsu.ca Julian Miles Edgoose, University of Pudget Sound, USA. jedgoose@ups.edu Claudia Eppert, University of Alberta, Canada. eppert@ualberta.ca. Jim Garrison, Virginia Tech, USA. wesley@vt.edu Zelia Gregoriou, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus. gregoriou@ucy.ac.cy Clarence Joldersma, Calvin College, USA. cjolders@calvin.edu Zdenko Kodelja, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. zdenko.kodelja@guest.arnes.si Betsan Martin, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Betsan@paradise.net.nz Ian McPherson, University of Dundee, Scotland. i.n.mcpherson@dundee.ac.uk Marianna Papastephanou, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus, edmari@ucy.ac.cy Erick Prairat, Université de Nancy 2, France. Eirick.Prairat@univ-nancy2.fr, eirick.prairat@wanadoo.fr Paul Standish, Institute of Education, London University, London, UK. p.standish@ioe.ac.uk Sharon Todd, Stockholm Institute of Education, Sweden. stodd@edu.yorku.ca Michael Wimmer, Martin-Luther-Univertät Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. wimmer@paedagogik.uni-halle.de, MiWimmer@aol.com "The various papers are at a high academic standard, opening up original research trajectories through the in-depth exploration of one specialist aspect of the philosophy of Levinas. / The proposed book is probably riding the crest of an emergent academic wave. / There will almost certainly be considerable interest amongst academic and doctoral level research students. / I have no doubts as to the international appeal of the book: primarily in North America and Europe, but also in universities in South America, Australasia, and the Far East. Interest in Levinas is widespread across the international academic community. / The proposal offers a significant, timely and long anticipated contribution to scholarship as an academic monograph. Its strength lies not just in the fact that it promises to break relatively new ground in Levinas research, but equally significantly by virtue of the quality of the draft papers I have had access to. / There are probably three major strengths of the proposal: a) the focus on an area of Levinas's work that is clearly under-represented in publisher's lists; b) the quality and originality of many of the contributions; c) the timing of the proposed publication, which coincides with an increasing interest both in Levinas himself and in the implications of his work for education. / There appears to be a coherence in the collection that is not always present in collections of this kind. / The proposed text would make an excellent companion volume to the Derrida collection [edited by D. Egéa-Kuehne with G.J.J. Biesta]. The high quality of the proposal itself also provides grounds for confidence in the final product. / There are a number of established and well-respected scholars contributing to the book. These better known names will certainly catch the eye of browsing academics. / Without the slightest hesitation or reservation. I commend it to the review panel, and urge them to do all they can to facilitate its early publication. / I would highly recommend this book. I wish it were available to me for spring 2005." |
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