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Non-hierarchical Pedagogy

Facilitator: Adam Sax, CETLI Graduate Fellow, Comparative Literature
Convener: Professor Al Filreis, English

In this workshop, we will look at ways to dismantle and overcome long-standing traditions of how literature should be taught according to denotive or “this means that” pedagogy. In order to undo this linear method of teaching texts and other forms of media, we will discuss what it means to embrace the “noise” of both the material at hand and of the classroom itself. Critical to our discussion will be the idea that self-reflexivity, both at the level of the object-of-study and of the learner, cannot be eliminated from the pedagogical milieu and should therefore be embraced as part of the dynamic of effective teaching praxis. One approach in order to embrace this self-reflexivity is via the abundance of technological means available in today’s classroom, and so critically necessary in this moment of predominantly remote learning. Such technologies, as will be discussed, should not be taken up in order to rehash outmoded methods of linear, Object = Meaning pedagogy, but rather should be embraced as sites of self-reflexivity, meaning making, and the general confounding of meaning as such, for both students and instructors alike. While the workshop has no assigned pre-reading, it is suggested that those attending read Al Filreis’ “Modernist Pedagogy at the End of the Lecture: IT and the Poetics Classroom.”

Counts toward the CETLI Teaching Certificate. This event grows out of concerns in the Comparative Literature department and so may be most useful to students in related fields.

Registrations are closed for this event

Date:
Friday, October 9, 2020

Time:
2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
Location:

Online
Event Participants:

School(s):
All

For More Information:
CETLI-info@upenn.edu