Confluences
Intercultural Journeying in Research and Teaching
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In this book, Canadian scholar David Geoffrey Smith reflects on over thirty years of research and teaching in the human sciences, including education. Written between 1986 and 2018, the essays are organized around four themes: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences; The Poststructuralist Turn; Globalization and Its Discontents; East/West Encounters and the Search for Wisdom. As a historical guide through the defining discourses in the human sciences, this volume could well serve as an introductory text for graduate students in education and other cognate disciplines like nursing, recreation and cultural studies. The writing can be described as a form of meditative praxis, while the emphasis on interculturality addresses issues in literacy, pedagogy, politics, critical thinking, teacher education, and cultural healing from a geopolitical perspective, drawing on insights from both Western and Eastern traditions and the author’s personal experience of being born in China and raised in Central Africa (Northern Rhodesia/Zambia).
Introduction.
Section I. Orientations.
Chapter 1. Journeying: A Meditation on Leaving Home and Coming Home.
Chapter 2. Not Just as We Please: A Meditation on What It Means to Make a Difference.
Chapter 3. A Meditation on an Answer From Ku Shan.
Section II. Hermeneutics And The Human Sciences.
Chapter 4. The Mission of the Hermeneutic Scholar.
Chapter 5. Hermeneutic Inquiry.
Chapter 6. The Hermeneutic Imagination and the Pedagogic Text.
Chapter 7. Experimental Hermeneutics: Interpreting Educational Reality.
Chapter 8. Experience and Interpretation in Global Times: The Case of Special Education.
Chapter 9. Postcolonialism and Globalization: Thoughts Toward a New Hermeneutic Pedagogy.
Chapter 10. On Being Critical About Language: The Critical Theory Tradition and Implications for Language Education.
Section III. The Poststructuralist Turn.
Chapter 11. Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: Facing Pedagogy in the Nuclear Shadow.
Chapter 12. Teacher Education as a Form of Discourse.
Chapter 13. On Discursivity and Neurosis: Conditions of Possibility of (West) Discourse With Others.
Chapter 14. Modernism, Hyperliteracy, and the Colonization of the Word.
Chapter 15. Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Future of Pedagogy.
Section IV. Globalization And Its Discontents.
Chapter 16. The Geography of Theory and the Pedagogy of Place.
Chapter 17. Teacher Education and Global Culture.
Chapter 18. The Problem for the South Is the North (But the Problem for the North is the North).
Chapter 19. The Specific Challenges of Globalization for Teaching and Vice Versa.
Chapter 20. A Few Modest Prophecies: The WTO, Globalization, and the Future of Reason.
Chapter 21. From Leo Strauss to Collapse Theory: Considering the Neoconservative Attack on Modernity and the Work of Education.
Chapter 22. Not Rocket Science: On the Limits of Conservative Pedagogy.
Chapter 23. Engaging Peter McLaren and the New Marxism in Education: An Essay Review of McLaren's Rage+Hope.
Chapter 24. The Deep Politics of War and the Curriculum of Disillusion.
Section V. East/West Encounters And The Search For Wisdom.
Chapter 25. Identity, Self, and Other in the Conduct of Pedagogical Action: An East/ West Inquiry.
Chapter 26. "...the Farthest West Is but the Farthest East": The Long Way of Oriental/Occidental Engagement.
Chapter 27. Wisdom Responses to Globalization: The Pedagogic Context.
Chapter 28. Can Wisdom Trump the Market as a Basis for Education?
Chapter 29. On Studying Confucius: Pitfalls and Possibilities in Global Times.
Chapter 30. Spiritual Cardiology and the Heart of Wisdom.
Section VI. Special Words For Teachers And Teacher Educators.
Chapter 31. Children and the Gods of War.
Chapter 32. Fake News and Other Conundrums in Reading the World at Empire's End.
References.
About the Authors.