To address the modern political task of listening to the voices of excluded others, this paper will propose "the politics of voice" based on the thought of the American philosopher Stanley Cavell. It begins with a critique of Kelz's comparison, in political terms, between Cavell and Judith Butler. Butler's politics constantly challenges…

This article explores what we can learn about truth and meaning from fiction, through a reading of George Orwell's (Eric Blair's) dystopic novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949) in the light of philosopher Stanley Cavell's notion of "lived skepticism." The article suggests that we can conceive of the novel as portraying…

Drawing upon Nel Noddings' contention that, if children are to be happy in schools, their teachers should also be happy, this paper tries to explore a way in which the obviously intimate but seemingly conflicting connections between students' and teachers' happiness can be understood from the viewpoint of Stanley Cavell's reading of J. S. Mill.…

This paper engages the philosophical concepts of subjectification and acknowledgment in conversation with Philip Pullman's young adult novel, "Northern Lights". Our particular focus is Lyra Belacqua, Pullman's central character. Precarious in her vulnerability and in her unknown significance, we read Lyra as usefully negotiating the…

In recent years restorative practice in schools has been heralded as a new paradigm for thinking about student behaviour. Its premise is to provide solutions to indiscipline, to restore relationships where there has been conflict or harm, and to give pupils a language with which to understand wrongdoing. This article offers a critique of…

This paper considers the claims representatives of the "creativity movement" make in regards to change and the future. This will particularly focus on the role that the arts are supposed to play in responding to industrial imperatives for the 21st century. It is argued that the compressed vision of the future (and past) offered by…

'Listen to the scientists.' It is a refrain that Greta Thunberg has used on a number of occasions to impress upon us that we are running out of time if we want to halt the slide towards catastrophe. Now is the time to discuss the findings of science, and science education is the natural place to do so. And yet, there is no obvious, designated…

This paper will critically reconsider the potential of Dewey's pragmatist idea of security without foundation. There is some potential in his anti-foundationalism as a form of wisdom for living beyond the risk society. I shall argue that Deweyan critical thinking needs to be further reconstructed, and even to be destabilized, if it is to exercise…

The aim of this article is to establish--and explore--James Baldwin's significance for educational theory. Through a close reading of "Everybody's Protest Novel", I show that Baldwin's thinking is an important (if unrecognized) precursor to the work of Stanley Cavell and Cora Diamond, and is relevant to a number of…

This article begins by clarifying the notion of what Stanley Cavell has called "Emersonian moral perfectionism." It goes on to explore this through close analysis of aspects of Emerson's essay "Experience," in which ideas of trying or attempting or experimenting bring out the intimate relation between perfectionism and styles…

Stefan Ramaekers and Joris Vlieghe's "Infants, childhood and language in Agamben and Cavell: education as transformation" is an insightful discussion of an important facet of educational experience. In the article, they consider a Fred Astaire dance sequence from the 1953 Vincente Minnelli film, "The Band Wagon," in combination…

Drawing from Stanley Cavell's distinct understanding of skepticism, this paper first considers current and incessant obsession with notions of or related to "educational standards," "school effectiveness and improvement," "evidence-based education," "performance indicators" and…

The article reflects upon the possibility of educating sensitivity to the pain of the different Other by using feature cinema. The authors rely on the methodology suggested by Stanley Louis Cavell and Andrew Klevan, and also on the suggestions and conclusions by William B. Russell, III and Stewart Waters. The authors of this article reflected upon…

This paper addresses both "student engagement" in contemporary universities, and student "disengagement"--where the latter is often seen as a failure of performance, or absence of will. In a bold move, the paper asks whether students "should" be engaged in their university education, and whether there is value in…

The documentary film is a popular curriculum tool, and the goal of this paper is to expand the educational significance of the documentary genre. I argue that current understandings of this genre are limited and limiting, and offer an alternative perspective on the genre. This alternative will be built from Stanley Cavell's philosophy of…