Toward a Badiou-Inspired Eventful English Language Arts Curriculum: A Refractive Autoethnography

• Author / Creator

  Piazza, Robert

• The purpose of my autoethnographic study is to understand more fully how my experience of educational events and their emerging truths impact my identity and my curricular and pedagogical approaches as a seasoned English Language Arts teacher. My dissertation addresses the following research questions:
  
  • In what ways does my experience of “educational events” impact my English Language Arts teacher identity, curriculum, and pedagogy?
  • What implications do my experiences of teaching eventfully have for English Language Arts teaching practice and curriculum in neoliberal times?
  In order to address these questions, I consider French philosopher Alain Badiou’s theorization of the “Event.” I articulate what I call a refractively eventful encounter as a contribution living within the traditions of Badiou’s event theory, curriculum studies, and English Language Arts curriculum. Specifically, I refractively interpret stories, memories, and artifacts from my experiences of taking four doctoral courses, in addition to my teaching of two novels, Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and Janne Teller’s Nothing, in an urban high school in Alberta. My autoethnographic interpretation of these experiences helps me articulate the ways in which neoliberal culture deeply inscribes itself into my being and how I attempt to resist such commitments. I explore the possibility of inviting students and teachers to re-cognize, or come to know again, commitments of their own. In my findings and conclusion chapters, I discuss key implications of eventful teaching in neoliberal times, namely: what it means to be a humilitant critical pedagogue and the implications of refraction for curriculum, pedagogy, and autoethnography.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Badiou
  • ELA
  • English Language Arts
  • autoethnography
  • qualitative
  • literature
  • secondary education
  • curriculum
  • pedagogy
  • philosophy
  • teaching
  • teacher identity
  • neoliberalism
  • refraction
  • high school
  • urban
  • Ishmael
  • Nothing
  • event
  • truth
  • educational event
  • subjectification
  • becoming
  • humility
  • humilitant
  • critical pedagogy

• Graduation date

  Spring 2023

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-ycpn-zz17

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.