Posts Tagged ‘rhizomatic learning’
Nomadic Education – Variations on a Theme by Deleuze and Guattari
This comprehensive and thoughtful volume is the first book to investigate, assess and apply a philosophy of education drawn from the great French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. It contains powerful and beautiful essays by some of the most influential Deleuze and Guattari commentators (the chapters by Bogue, Colebrook, May and Semetsky, and Genosko are particularly rewarding). The book provides very useful situations within the philosophy of education and some interesting experimental developments of Deleuze’s work, notably in terms of new technologies and original methods. This is then an indispensable work on Deleuze and education. It covers the historical background and begins shaping debates for future research in this exciting and growing area. Professor James Williams, Professor of European Philosophy, School of Humanities, University of Dundee, author of Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide and The Transversal Thought of Gilles Deleuze: Encounters and Influences. Deleuze always said that education was an erotic, voluptuous experience, perhaps the most important experience we can have. This collection captures that excitement and challenges what we think about how Deleuze should be taught and just as importantly what he taught. Ian Buchanan, Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University, author of Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus and founding editor of Deleuze Studies. Here are thirteen encounters with Deleuzes work that not only testify of the creativity and newness of Deleuzes own writing but that, by taking these ideas into the field of education, raise new questions, signal new problems, and provide genuinely new ways of educational thinking and being. A rich source of inspiration for anyone who believes that education should not be about the reproduction of what already exists but should be committed to what is to become. Gert Biesta, University of Stirling, author of Beyond Learning: Democratic Education for a Human Future; co-editor of Derrida & Education.
Deleuze, education and becoming
This wonderful, highly readable book breaks new ground in revealing commonalities between Gilles Deleuze‘s nomadic method of inquiry and the pragmatic method of John Dewey. It should be of great interest to both philosophers and educators. Nel Noddings, Stanford University, author of Happiness and Education. . . few have placed the thinking of Dewey into effective dialogue with other forms of philosophy. This is particularly the case regarding contemporary European philosophy. Inna Semetsky‘s exciting new book bridges this gap for the first time by putting the brilliant poststructuralist work of Gilles Deleuze into critical and creative dialogue with that of Dewey. . The publication of this work announces the appearance of a remarkable line of thinking that scholars around the world will soon come to appreciate. Jim Garrison, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, author of Dewey and Eros . . . In this subtle and graceful study, Inna Semetsky brings together cultural and philosophical traditions long in need of connection. This is a significant and powerful work that is sure to invigorate discussions of educational theory for years to come. Ronal Bogue, University of Georgia, author of Deleuze’s Wake: Tribute and Tributaries.
Imagining a Self-Organised Classroom – Some Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualisations
This paper uses complexity theory as a means towards clarifying some of Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualisations in communication and the philosophy of language. His neologisms and post-structuralist tropes are often complicated and appear to be merely metaphorical. However their meanings may be clarified and enriched provided they are grounded in the science of complexity and self-organising dynamics. Reconceptualizing communication in a manner consistent with Deleuze’s philosophy enriches our understanding of the complexity involved in the process of learning and the whole of educational experience. The paper explores education as “becoming,” that is, a process of growth and becoming-other enabled by creative communication. While the mathematics of complexity is beyond the scope of this paper, some of its conjunctions with Deleuze’s philosophy will be examined for the purpose of addressing such problematic areas in education as, for example, specialisation and the breadth of curriculum. Finally, the paper moves to a practical level so as to construct an image of a self-organised classroom. Self-organising dynamics are posited as consistent with what Noddings called an excellent system of education. Education proceeds without any reference to an external aim. Rather, the “aim” is implicit in the experiential process of self-organisation and, as such, is conducive to students’ learning, creation of meanings, and eliciting broad curricula.
Circling the Text: Nomadic Writing Practices
The sixth moment of qualitative inquiry demands that researchers rethink traditional definitions of ethical research practices. In addition, the crisis of representation demands that researchers rethink the function of writing in qualitative research. In this article, the author illustrates how she used Deleuze’s ethical principles as well as Deleuze and Guattari’s figurations of the rhizome, the fold, the nomad, and haecceity to address both of these issues in her study of the construction of subjectivity of a group of older, White southern women in her hometown. Mapping how her understanding of subjectivity has shifted as she has employed these figurations in her writing, she suggests that texts can be the site of ethical work as researchers use writing to help them think differently – an ethical practice of postfoundational inquiry – about both the topic of their studies and the methodology.
Rhizo-semiotic Play and the Generativity of Fiction
In this brief essay, I share some experiences of writing ‘to find something out’ by focusing on a process that I have deployed in three narrative experiments inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s figuration of the rhizome—a process that I characterize as rhizosemiotic play. My ‘reports’ of these experiments are available elsewhere, and my intention here is simply to demonstrate some textual strategies that I use in performing such experiments, with particular reference to the generativity of intertextual readings of selected fictions in catalyzing them.
A Rhizo-Poiesis – Children’s Play(ing) of Games
What follows is my rhizopoiesis, a conjoining of Trueit’s Play which is more than play and my ideas, nomadically-rhizomatically generating a further disruption of ideas about play as presented in the early childhood literature. My reading-writing-thinking can be perceived, both abstractly and with/in the actual, as a “vertical dimension of intensities” (Foucault). To disrupt a conventional interpretation of Trueit’s article, I transpose selections of her rather lyrical text into a poietic format, as a way of opening (her) ideas to a rhizomatic understanding of children’s play. Centering the text disturbs any regression into a linearly focussed reading. By virtue of what I have included and what I have left out, the re-presentation inevitably reflects my subjective partiality of my understandings of her text, and associated limitations—“Are we not subject to our own limited “understandings” as we impose our interpretations on others?”
Une vision nouvelle de l’engagement pédagogique
La réflexion proposée par Yves Amyot est issue d’une expérience pratique ayant eu lieu dans des écoles complétée par une démarche universitaire et théorique. L’auteur se définit lui-même comme un marcheur-pédagogue nomade en enseignement des arts. En effet, il a choisi de susciter des projets artistiques dans différentes écoles, ce qui lui a permis de connaître plusieurs réalités scolaires. Le double ancrage théorique et pratique a donné naissance à cette publication où Amyot traite de notions nouvelles, celles de réseau et de rhizome, appliquées à l’enseignement des arts. Le livre comprend quatre chapitres: les deux premiers définissent les notions clés de réseau et de rhizome, le troisième chapitre applique ces notions à une pédagogie rhizomatique et le quatrième présente trois exemples de d’activités pédagogiques analysées à partir d’une pédagogie rhizomatique.
Le marcheur pédagogique: Amorce d’une Pédagogie Rhizomatique
L’auteur met en couvre une approche pédagogique s’appuyant sur les notions de réseau et de rhizome, dans le but de contrer le problème d’Isolement dans le milieu scolaire. Pour déployer cette pédagogie il parcourt une généalogie allant du filet de pêche jusqu’au cyberespace de Pierre Lévy, en passant par la pensée saint-simonienne. Puis, il examine la diversité de son appropriation a travers la théorie de Illich, les expériences éducatives en France durant les années 70-80 et l’approche américaine. Il revisite le concept de rhizome tel qu’énoncé par Deleuze et Guattari dans une perspective pédagogique. Par la suite, il présente la Façon dont celui-ci fut adapté en éducation par des chercheurs québécois, Ce parcours lui permet d’établir les fondements d’une pédagogie rhizomatique où l’éducateur et l’élève sont ‘des marcheurs-pédagogues. Propulsés par la circulation du désir, ils tissent des connexions hétérogènes et brisent ainsi leur isolement.
Deleuze pédagogue: la fonction transcendantale de l’apprentissage et du problème
” Deleuze pédagogue ” : pourquoi ce titre ? S’agit-il de rallier un grand philosophe, malgré lui, aux causes du pédagogisme ? Loin de ces stériles débats, hors des alternatives malheureuses, cette enquête sur Deleuze espère faire fonctionner un pan essentiel de son oeuvre concernant la dimension intrinsèquement problématique de la pensée, et voir que cet Apprentissage essentiel en la pensée, qui est la pensée elle-même, conduit à des perspectives riches sur la question de l’enseignement. Lorsque Deleuze est interpellé sur le terme ” professeur ” dans l’Abécédaire, celui-ci remarque en premier lieu : ” J’ai aimé profondément faire cours. ” Pendant les minutes qui suivent, on réalise que Deleuze est riche d’une grande réflexion concernant l’enseignement de la philosophie. D’ailleurs, ses talents de professeur sont connus et reconnus ; mais, au-delà de ce constat sur la personne, les concepts de Deleuze – et Guattari – peuvent-ils fonctionner pour l’enseignement comme tel ? Cela ne semble pas aller de soi, puisqu’on entend parfois dire qu’ils seraient élitistes, irréalistes, en tout cas inutiles pour toute réflexion sur l’enseignement de la philosophie, à cause de la définition ” héroïque ” ou ” artistique ” de la philosophie comme création de concepts… Face à l’apparent manque d’efficience de certaines positions de Deleuze, ce livre essaie d’expliciter au maximum le caractère sensé de concepts qui s’opposent frontalement au bon sens pédagogique. Le souci de faire comprendre et de dédramatiser une philosophie déjà dramatique dans son essence incite à parcourir l’écart fécond entre l’aspect a priori contre-intuitif de ses thèses pour l’enseignement et le fond proprement pédagogique de toute sa philosophie.
Developing a Rhizomatic Methodology
Overview of the research project
- Overview of rhizomatic methodologies using Deleuze and Guattari’s thinking about rhizomes
- Applying rhizotextual analytic techniques to data
- What does an educational methodology look like using rhizomatics
