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SUMMARY:Willed Forgetfulness: The Arts\, Education and the Case for Unlear
 ning - Dr John Baldacchino\, University College Falmouth
DTSTART:20120229T170000Z
DTEND:20120229T183000Z
UID:TALK36527@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ewa Illakowicz
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: Established scholarship in arts education is invaria
 bly related to theories of development founded on notions of multiple inte
 lligence and experiential learning. Yet when contemporary arts practice is
  retraced on a philosophical horizon\, one begins to engage with other cas
 es for learning. As artists take intelligence beyond the matrix of develop
 ment or progression\, one’s sense of experience becomes anticipatory\, d
 ispositional and scopic. This is specifically contextualized in what one c
 ould call art’s inherent paradox. Rather than explain\, reflect or simpl
 y express a form of learning\, the contemporary artist invites us to criti
 que and reject the developmental notion of learning by directing us (as pa
 rticipants in art’s event) towards a case for unlearning. This paper beg
 ins to approach unlearning by initially exploring the anticipatory nature 
 of experience as an act of scoping. It will revisit the notion of anamnesi
 s—recollection—by exploring how experiential anticipation is a form of
  recollection\, and how experiencing art’s events opens the ground for a
  series of negations\, paradoxes and contradictions. Here\, arts practice 
 becomes a form of mimetic scoping whose pedagogical trajectory is that of 
 unlearning. In this respect recollection turns into its opposite: it becom
 es a form of willed forgetfulness. This peculiar form of ‘movement’ fr
 om a state of learning to that of unlearning constitutes the basis for a s
 pecial kind of pedagogical aesthetics where the challenges of criticality 
 and laterality are considered as special ‘worlds’ where learning works
  backwards.\n\nBrief Bio: Dr John Baldacchino specializes in art\, philoso
 phy and education. He is currently Associate Dean of Teaching\, Learning a
 nd the Student Experience and Associate Professor of Arts Pedagogy at the 
 School of Art & Design\, University College Falmouth\, in England. Prior t
 o his current position\, he was Associate Professor of Art & Art Education
  at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York\; before which he
  held academic positions at Gray’s School of Art in Scotland as Reader i
 n Critical Theory\; and at the University of Warwick in England as Lecture
 r of Arts Education and Cultural Studies. He is the sole author of six boo
 ks\, the most recent being Education Beyond Education. Self and the Imagin
 ary in Maxine Greene’s Philosophy (Peter Lang 2009)\; Makings of the Sea
 : Journey\, Doubt and Nostalgia (Gorgias 2010)\; and Art’s Way Out: Exit
  Pedagogy and the Cultural Condition (Sense 2012). He is currently complet
 ing a co-authored book with the philosopher of education Kenneth Wain\, an
 d is embarking on a new book project on John Dewey\, which will be publish
 ed by Springer at the end of this year. His longer term Mediterranean aest
 hetics trilogy\, of which Makings of the Sea is the first volume\, is on c
 ourse and progressing well.
LOCATION: Faculty of Education\, 184 Hills Road\, Cambridge\, CB2 8PQ\, DM
 B\, Room 2S8
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