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Zembylas
Collection
Work by M Zembylas (sometimes with others)
on emotions in education, critical pedagogy, and
postructuralist big hitters.
Zembylas' work is summarized below. For me,
there are two major themes with some subdivisions.
First,
there is a sustained discussion on the role of
emotions and their place in classroom
pedagogy. The discussion in fact is
dominated by a concern for critical pedagogy, an
approach informed by post structuralism which
attempts to make students aware of the structuring
effects of power relations and discourses on what
seemed to be ordinary and every day definitions
and practices. So-called 'natural' or
'normal' terms and definitions, like those of
bodies, feelings, suitable forms of interaction,
the role for teachers, what counts as instruction
and so on are in fact the product of networks of
power and discourse, acting both in the past and
in the present. The critical pedagogue leads
his students towards an awareness of these
effects, with the aim of opening more emancipatory
and liberating ways of thinking and acting.
The emotions play their part in such critical
pedagogy, because they too have been structured by
relations of power and discourses about suitable
behaviour, in classrooms and more widely.
The emotional dimensions of human action have been
ignored, for example, and replaced by an
over-emphasis on neoliberal and individualized
rationality. Any emotions that still intrude
have been managed, seen as irrelevant, as a
barrier to rational thought and sound judgement,
as characterizing various inferior groups,
including ethnic minorities and women. More
cunningly, a convenient kind of emotionality has
also been encouraged. Zembylas describes
this variously as 'sentimentality', a personal
feeling often involving a kind of politically
neutral pity for victims, or, borrowing terms from
Boler, as 'passive empathy', generalized and
unfocused sentimentality, again based on
individual feelings and the illusions that we can
feel the pain of others—without having to do
anything about it. Student reactions to
having this sort of stuff imposed on them include
denial, guilt, resentment and desensitization [I
personally think these are equally likely with
imposed critical radical pedagogy too]. Zembylas
agrees that those sorts of emotions are widespread
in everyday life and in the mass media, so it is
going to be difficult for critical pedagogy is to
deal with them. I think most of the work is
actually pretty pessimistic, usefully critical,
but with radical alternatives held out only as an
ideal or a hope.
We need to redefine emotions [typical academic
response], and this clearly overlaps with the
second theme, discussed below, which is to read a
number of critical commentators, including Dewey,
Raymond Williams, Foucault, Deleuze, some feminist
writers including Ahmed, Butler and Grosz,
and other contemporary commentators, including
Tronto. Those people are read in order to
justify a different conception of emotions.
Emotions are not just personal feelings, for
example, but are social and can be shared, in
Williams's 'structures of feeling', or Foucault's
discourses. Emotions are closely tied to
action and practice, in a whole complex: Zembylas
seems to draw on Deleuze and Spinoza specifically
here, reviving the 17th century concept of
'affect', to refer to the internal impact of
external events on individual and seemingly
subjective thoughts and motivations.
Zembylas uses this argument to make a more
fashionable point -- emotions are embodied. We can
also see the critical implications of these
arguments, in that social shared discourses or
motivations can clearly be shaped and interpreted
by dominant groups as above. However, a
critical potential remains if we can show that
dominant shapings and interpretations are only one
alternative, and if affect and embodiment are
ultimately uncontrollable.
It is almost inevitable that classroom realities
will bite this approach firmly on the bum.
Zembylas (2012b) finally seems to notice that some
emotions are nasty ones, and that the whole
approach can encounter difficulties once students
are allowed to unload their emotion in ,say,
anti-racist courses. Suddenly he grasps the
complexities and has to do some rethinking.Some of
this involves softening his critical language to
make it more counsellor-like and soothingly
therapeutic. He even reassesses the role of
empathy and the psychology of wounding, despite
criticism in Zembylas (2003) and Zembylas (2008).
He has encountered students with voices of their
own!
The second theme therefore takes up the
more technical and academic issue of trying to
link a critical radical pedagogy to the work of
some modern or currently fashionable
theorists. The intention is to provide a
suitable well justified ground for alternative
conceptions. Inevitably, this is going to
involve a selective reading of these theorists,
however, since none of them specifically and
explicitly draw implications for critical radical
pedagogy. For me, it is easier to see this
in the commentary on Deleuze and Deleuze/Foucault
below. As my detailed notes suggest,
Zembylas has to read key terms and discussions in
such a way that can fit his project. Perhaps
the clearest example, one which Zembylas himself
draws our attention to, concerns the discussion of
affect. As suggested, this is a term with a
definite 17th century context, and it is not
exactly the same as the modern term 'emotions',
which implies something personal and subjective
again — although Zembylas gets close to equating
the terms in the course of his discussion.
This looks like a philosophical quibble, but there
are implications, in that Spinoza, and possibly
Deleuze, were using the term to fill out their own
project, which was, roughly, to explain how
material forces get experienced by and expressed
in individuals: it is a thoroughly materialist
ontology, possibly even more tightly determinist
than things like marxism, quite different from the
sort of politicized constructivism associated with
educational poststructuralism. One
difference, for example, is that for Spinoza,
learning was guided by an automatic process of
extending individual perceptions and thoughts as
others were encountered—the 'spiritual automaton'
(good discussion in Bogue)
. Learning was guided by whether ordinary
people felt joy or despair (a pretty limited range
of emotions) in their bodies, and they obviously
sought to maximize nice feelings, in an 'ethic of
joy'. This is clearly pretty conformist and
utilitarian, and, at the final level, the
philosopher him or herself had to intervene to try
and address the adequacy of ideas and get more
creative. Deciding what counts as joy or
despair itself is not easy, even for the
individuals concerned, as Spinoza admits.
Certainly it is not going to be easy for
pedagogues to observe joy in this specific sense,
something arising from extending knowledge (as
opposed to finding a lost pencil, remembering it
is your birthday, or getting a smile back from
your girlfriend) Finally Deleuze actually
discusses affects and percepts mostly in his work
on art, (see Deleuze
& Guattari) which is not considered, and
there are other philosophical projects, including
an attempt to make a connection with
Nietzsche. I'm not saying that Zembylas is
wrong to impose this selective reading — there is
a great deal of debate among Deleuzians about how
to read the work, and, indeed, whether there is or
should be a dominant reading — but it behoves a
poststructuralist especially to point out that
their reading is a selection!
The
same goes for the piece on Bourdieu, which gets
close to asset-stripping. It uses the term
emotional capital to criticize conventional
understandings which lead to emotional
regulation and human capital stuff (he includes
Goleman in this critique), but there is little
else from Bourdieu. Bourdieu is seen as
permitting counter-hegemonic pedagogic action
but only because he shows that emotional norms
are not natural but historicized. There is no
recognition that Bourdieu says they are an
imposed cultural arbitrary, and no discussion of
how Bourdieu shows how they get imposed in
respectable pedagogy (and in leisure). Would
Zembylas see his own impeccably cool and
rational academic work as complicit in any way?
As usual, Bourdieu's case for pessimism is not
examined -- we overcome it with optimism of the
will, no doubt. There is not even any
examination of the tensions within the overall
reproduction of capital in Bourdieu --just
voluntaristic opting for change and hope for
pedagogy.
Lanas & Zembylas (2014) might just as well
be standard Christianity with its emphases on
love -- not even any liberation theology
although Freire's 'armed love' is mentioned.
There is also a strange view that the Revolution
is all but accomplished and now all we need to
do is make sure there is enough love in the new
manifesto!
As the publications increase, the second theme
gets more prominent. The first theme is pretty
well exhausted in the articles on Bourdieu,
Deleuze and Tronto. The others look like a rather
desperate search for confirmation, perhaps as
responses to criticisms, and/or the normal
pursuit of the professional academic who has to
maximize his own capital [I am not saying there is
any thing wrong with that!] .
Zembylas, M. (2002)
'"Structures of feeling" in curriculum and
teaching: theorizing the emotional rules'. Educational
Theory 52(2): 187-208. [R Williams compared
with Foucault to outline the basics about emotions
as implicated in power relations]
Zembylas, M.
(2003) 'Caring for teacher emotion:
Reflections on teachers self -
development'. Studies in Philosophy
and Education 22: 103-25. [Sets out the
stall for postructuralist accounts of the
emotions. Discusses emotional rules. Masses of
other work summarized and referenced, including
Boler]
Boler, M. and
Zembylas, M. (2003) ‘Discomforting
Truths: The Emotional Terrain of Understanding
Difference’. In P Trifonas (ed) Pedagogies
of Difference: Rethinking Education for
Social Justice, 110--36, . New York:
RoutledgeFalmer [Argues for discomforting
pedagogy as ethical, despite possible costs
and risks, and celebratory of
difference]
Zembylas, M and
Michaelides, P. (2004) 'The sound of silence
in pedagogy'. Educational Theory, 54
(2): 193 -210. [Classic
philosophy really -- pushes issues to extreme
conclusions in order to be critical - -then
finds it all becomes wackily irrelevant and
idealist {via discussions of western mysticism
and Buddhism} except that -- it shows we need
to do philosophy!]
Zembylas, M. (2007a)
'A Politics of Passion in Education: The
Foucaldian Legacy'. Educational
Philosophy and Theory. Doi:
10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00300.x [Self-evident
really. A Deleuzian bit as well
and some connections made with Spinoza and the
ethic of joy]
Zembylas, M. (2007b)
'The specters of bodies and affects in the
classroom: a rhizo-ethological approach'. Pedagogy,
Culture and Society 15(1): 19--35
['Progressive' reading of Deleuze on Spinoza and
the usual 60s stuff bolted on to stuff
about embodied pedagogies]
Zembylas,
M. (2007c) 'Emotional capital and
education: Theoretical insights from
Bourdieu'. British Journal of Educational
Studies 55(4): 443--63. DOI
10/1111/j.1467-8527.2007.00390.x [Asset
strips Bourdieu. as in my commentary above]
Zembylas, M.
(2007d) 'Risks and pleasures: a
Deleuzeo-Guattarian pedagogy of desire in
education'. British Educational
Research Journal 33 (3): 331-347.
[Much better summary technically of the 60s
stuff, but inevitable sliding towards normal
terminology when 'applying' --
becomes educational postructuralism plus desire]
Zembylas, M. (2008)
'Trauma, justice and the politics of emotion: the
violence of sentimentality in education'. Discourse:
Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education,
29 (1): 1-17 [Against sentimental, individualist
or universalist trauma narratives, and warning of
desensitizing reactions. Usual critical pedagogy
alternatives]
Zembylas M and
McGlynne, C. (2012a) 'Discomforting
pedagogies: emotional tensions, ethical dilemmas
and transformative possibilities'. British
Educational Research Journal 38 (1):
41-59. [Nice case study of a N Ireland school
using the 'blue-eyed brown-eyed' exercise to
explore reactions to perceived discrimination --
with mixed results]
Zembylas,
M. (2012b) 'Pedagogies of
strategic empathy: navigating through the
emotional complexities of anti-racism in
higher education'. Teaching in
Higher Education, 17 (2): 113-25. [The
complexities are as in Ellsworth's
critique. Second thoughts on empathy --
OK if used strategically. Bits of critical
discussion of critical pedagogy. General
realization of complexity and not before time]
Zembylas
M, Bozalak, V and Shefer. T. (2014) 'Tronto's notion of
privileged irresponsibility and the
reconceptualisation of care: implications for
critical pedagogies of emotion in higher
education'. Gender and
Education 26(3):200--214. DOI:
10.1080/0954025.2014.901718. [Familiar argument
by now -- emotions and caring need to be
understood in a critical pedagogy framework, as
implicated in power relations]
Lanas, M. &
Zembylas, M. (2014) [Christianity and
tautology defining love]
Zembylas and Boler discuss
pedagogies of discomfort online
(with some interesting subsequent comments)
See also: Schertz,
M. (2007)
'Avoiding "passive empathy" with Philosophy
for Children'.
Journal
of Moral Education, 36 (2): 185-98. [Picks
up on Boler and Zembylas on passive empathy as
bad, and investigates PWC's 'Community of Inquiry'
discussion technique. Personal claims for its
success.]
Also see Ellsworth, E.
(1989) 'Why Doesn't This Feel
Empowering? Working Through the
Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy'.
Harvard Educational Review 59 (3): 297
-324 for an excellent critique focused on
teaching anti-racism. Brookfield
is also good on the problems of 'transformative
learning'
back to Education
Studies page
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