The Affects Of Pedagogy In Literary Studies

The Affects of Pedagogy in Literary Studies considers the ways in which teachers and students are affected by our encounters with literature and other cultural texts in the higher education classroom. The essays consider the range of emotions and affects elicited by teaching settings and practices: those moments when we in the university are caught off-guard and made uncomfortable, or experience joy, anger, boredom, and surprise. Featuring writing by teachers at different stages in their career, institutions, and national or cultural settings, the book is an innovative and necessary addition to both the study of affect, theories of learning and teaching, and the fields of literary and cultural studies.

Critically analyzing the representation of pedagogy in the novels of J.M. Coetzee, this insightful text illustrates the author’s profound conception of learning and personal development as something which takes place well beyond formal education. Bringing together critical and educational theory, Pedagogy in the Novels of J.M. Coetzee examines depictions of pedagogy in novels including Age of Iron, Elizabeth Costello, Disgrace, and Childhood of Jesus. Engaging with Coetzee’s varied literary use of pedagogical themes such as motherhood, maternal love, and the importance of childhood interactions, reading, and experiences, chapters demonstrate how Coetzee foregrounds pedagogy as intrinsic to the formation of human actors, society, and civilization. The text thereby aptly explores and broadens our understanding of education - what it is, what it achieves, and how it can affect and shape human existence. This text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, academics, researchers and professionals in the fields of pedagogy, postcolonial studies, educational theory and philosophy, and English literature.

Literary Praxis: A Conversational Inquiry into the Teaching of Literature explores the teaching of literature in secondary schools. It does this from the vantage point of educators in a range of settings around the world, as they engage in dialogue with one another in order to capture the nature of their professional commitment, the knowledge they bring to their work as literature teachers, and the challenges of their professional practice as they interact with their students. The core of the book comprises accounts of their day-to-day teaching by Dutch and Australian educators. These teachers do more than capture the immediacy of the here-and-now of their classrooms; they attempt to understand those classrooms relationally, exploring the ways in which their professional practice is mediated by government policies, national literary traditions and existing traditions of curriculum and pedagogy. They thereby enact a form of literary ‘praxis’ that grapples with major ideological issues, most notably the impact of standards-based reforms on their work. Educators from other countries then comment on the cases written by the Dutch and Australian teachers, thus taking the concept of ‘praxis’ to a new level, as part of a comparative inquiry that acknowledges the richly specific character of the cases and resists viewing teaching around the world as though it lends itself unproblematically to the same standards of measurement (as in the fetish made of PISA). They step back from a judgmental stance, and try to understand what it means to teach literature in other educational settings than their own. The essays in this collection show the complexities of literature teaching as a form of professional praxis, exploring the intensely reflexive learning in which teachers engage, as they induct their students into reading literary texts, and reflect on the socio-cultural contexts of their work.

DIVA collection of essays examining theories of affect and how they relate to issues of performance and performativity./div

In Teaching Literature scholars explain how they think about their everyday experience in the classroom, using the tools of their ongoing scholarly projects and engaging with current debates in literary studies. Until recently, teaching has played second fiddle to literary research as a mode of knowledge in academia, leaving new teachers with nowhere to turn for advice about teaching and no forum for discussion of the difficulties and opportunities they face in the classroom.

Jennifer Travis and Jessica DeSpain present a long-overdue collection of theoretical perspectives and case studies aimed at teaching nineteenth-century American literature using digital humanities tools and methods. Scholars foundational to the development of digital humanities join educators who have made digital methods central to their practices. Together they discuss and illustrate how digital pedagogies deepen student learning. The collection's innovative approach allows the works to be read in any order. Dividing the essays into five sections, Travis and DeSpain curate conversations on the value of project-based, collaborative learning; examples of real-world assignments where students combine close, collaborative, and computational reading; how digital humanities aids in the consideration of marginal texts; the ways in which an ethics of care can help students organize artifacts; and how an activist approach affects debates central to the study of difference in the nineteenth century.