History, ethics and education
Subtitle: learning from Freud and Levinas
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 184
Subjects: Freud, Sigmund, -- 1856-1939.; Lévinas, Emmanuel.; History -- Moral and ethical aspects.; Psychoanalysis and history.; History -- Study and teaching.
Description: This dissertation examines where ethics resides in making historical relations in education. The theoretical framework draws on the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud to understand how students arrive at particular meanings of history. Drawing on this work, I posit a theory of learning that explores the role of non-conscious dynamics in the process of coming to know. Through the proposed framework, I highlight two aspects of learning that occur in historical encounters: on the one hand, there is the ethical force of historical traces that demand something of the learner; on the other hand, these traces must pass through an unconscious constellation of affect and defense in order to be passed on. This duality, between being ethically open to and psychically implicated in historical traces makes learning a constant site of conflict: between opening the self to receive what is given and to give significance to past events.The core chapters of the work highlight three pedagogical approaches---heritage, history and the postmodern---to posit a view of history education that is itself a site of conflict. I consider the multiple and conflicting aims of existing pedagogical initiatives and offer a view of learning that is both potentially ethical and heavy with affective conflicts that can be difficult for the student to bear. My intent in these chapters is not to argue which approach is most likely to produce moral subjects, but to highlight the ethical potential of students' engagements with history, referred to as "moments of encounter." Through these encounters, I focus on the psychic processes through which ethics becomes a possibility. Of particular concern are processes of transference, identification, boredom, judgement and thinking. These concepts are important because they highlight the ways in which students are psychically implicated in constructing historical meanings. Traces of history inscribe ethical demands upon students even as these traces are vulnerable to students' psychical impressions.
Notes: Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-184)