pedagogy without bodies - .pedagogy without bodies as a concept (in deleuze and guattari’s sense)

Pedagogy Without Bodies

by

Petra Mikulan

Master of Arts (Gender and Womens Studies), University of Granada and ISH Faculty

for Postgraduate Studies Ljubljana, 2010

Bachelor of Humanities (Education), University of Ljubljana, 2007

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the

Curriculum Theory and Implementation Program

Faculty of Education

Petra Mikulan 2017

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Summer 2017

ii

Approval

Name: Petra Mikulan

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Title: Pedagogy Without Bodies

Examining Committee: Chair: Suzanne Smythe

Assistant Professor

Nathalie Sinclair

Senior Supervisor

Professor

Kieran Egan

Supervisor

Professor Emeritus

Stephen Smith

Supervisor

Professor

Kelleen Toohey

Internal Examiner

Professor

Faculty of Education

Jason J. Wallin

External Examiner

Associate Professor

Faculty of Education

University of Alberta

Date Defended/Approved: May 25, 2017

iii

Abstract

Educational theory today seems to be premised on a distributive thought; either on

students bodies perceived as unified entities, as self-maintaining and ongoing forms that

can be recognized and represented, or as with some post-humanist and new materialist

accounts, as just this one entity, emerging and interconnected among a myriad of others in

a world, understood as one organic and reproductive whole. This raises certain problems

and certain questions, the solution of which presents us with specific tasks of thinking about

curriculum planning, as well as ethics and politics in education. What is pursued is either

a universal subject and his human right to be educated and skilled well enough to live well

and to be a good and productive citizen (thus there ought to be generalizable and

standardized elements of curriculum); or, there is a notion that we can only know subjects

in their individuated and socially determined expressions, and thus curriculum is integrated

as much as possible (bestowing individual differences in ability and access according to

diverse social contexts), as is evident by the upsurge in individuated and differentiated

learning plans tailored to each individual student. I argue that a different ethics is needed

for the future of education and pedagogy if we are to think multiplicities beyond the world

of man. By understanding life as virtual, it is possible to conceive of a pedagogy without

bodies. Pedagogy without bodies as a concept (in Deleuze and Guattaris sense) would be

an orientation for educational thought where we would no longer begin with the image of

a living, active, corporeal body, but would, following Claire Colebrook (2011), consider

intensive forces that unfold life differently from that of the productive human. Pedagogy

without bodies as a concept alludes to the incorporeal and material composition of sense

which, I believe, is an important orientation for thinking philosophy of education, and

curriculum in terms of dispersed, intensive and inhuman forces and processes intricate to

any singular pedagogical event and its readability.

Keywords: vitalism; reading; irony; philosophy of education; pedagogy without

bodies

iv

Table of Contents

Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv

Chapter 1. Introduction .................................................................................................1 1.1. Pedagogy in bounds ....................................................................................................9

1.2. Outline of the dissertation .........................................................................................18

Chapter 2. Irony and reading event ............................................................................22 2.1. Colebrook, irony and the event of sense ...................................................................28

2.2. Whiteheads ontology of events and prehensions .....................................................37

2.3. Whitehead/Stengers constructivist ontology of reading ........................................45

Chapter 3. tienne Souriau and an existential ontagogy of reading .......................51 3.1. Interruption; or against business as usual .................................................................52

3.2. Instauration and tienne Souriaus passive vitalism ................................................58 3.3. Ingression; reading to-be-made.................................................................................82

Chapter 4. Constructivist pedagogy of reading .........................................................92 4.1. Life is a problem .......................................................................................................95

4.2. Reading intensively .................................................................................................106

Chapter 5. Conclusion: Pedagogy Without Bodies ..................................................120

References ...................................................................................................................136

1

Chapter 1. Introduction

At its best, this thesis is a thought experiment. At its worst, a work to-be-made gone bad.

Either way, it attests to a journey of thought passing along the lines not of a map, but of a

witchs flight, as Deleuze and Guattari would have it, zigzagging. The writing itself

indicates that this journey was not an attempt at a linear progression, nor a desire to reveal

some hidden truth about reading and pedagogy. What follows is also not an effort at

constructing a coherent whole which would give readers a sense of comfort at knowing

that perhaps there is something to understand completely or master and that they can follow

in a sequential, logical way the words they encounter on these pages.

Abrupt passages and disjointed narrative, these pages demonstrate, for a lack of a better

word, that the ideas as well as the writing at some point started to take over independently

of my intentions in a manner that felt more like weeds growing in all directions, smothering

my own voice. Perhaps this is because English is my second language and I feel somewhat

detached from it. At times the sense of detachment allowed me to sit and observe how the

ideas came together in their own rhythm, bobbin-lacing the different concepts of the

philosophers, hoping that the patterning of these concepts would yield to the readers a sense

of how I encountered texts without having to offer an explanation. Inviting readers to lace

their own sense of the work; to pin down patterns and hold them in place just until the next

concept sets in motion a different pattern; to wait for the sense to peak here and there; or

to experience some of the longer theoretical passages as pure nonsense.

As a student of linguistics in my native tongue, and later of feminist theory, I have always

been drawn to the philosophical themes of detachment, translation and indifference. The

three are sort of an undercurrent that carries the central theme of this thesis, namely a

2

pedagogy of reading. They are not articulated in these pages, neither as concepts nor as

philosophical propositions. Rather, they function as a silent limit not alluding to a beyond,

but to points of inflection where sense and nonsense fold on the line.

When I first came upon the concept of ironic consciousness as developed by Kieran Egan

for the purposes of conceiving a new educational paradigm, I knew irony was something I

wanted to explore deeper. Irony carries a lot of baggage in the realm of academia. As a

pursuit or consciousness reserved only for the keenest minds of the Western academic

tradition (most of them white men) it has come to symbolize elitism and exclusion. It has

also been employed as a way to challenge and subvert the Western grand-narrative tradition

that seeks timeless, consistent, and systemic transcendental truth. Gilles Deleuze, for

example, traces superior irony in humour, intensity and force. This irony forges forth a

point of view of descent, rather than elevation, where the subject continually becomes.

After reading a number of volumes on irony in literary studies, I stumbled upon the work

of Claire Colebrook. Her two books Irony and Irony in Work of Philosophy have not only

profoundly changed the way I approach concepts and ask questions, but raised so many

new questions that I felt propelled to read much more of what she has written. Having said

that, I believe that understanding her work on irony gave me a specific direction as to how

to read her work on questions such as sexual indifference and the Anthropocene. So when

I first read her speculative question regarding reading How would we re