Literature, Pedagogy, and Curriculum in Secondary Education: Examples from France

ISBN-13: 9783319848303 / Angielski / Miękka / 2018 / 305 str.

M. Martin Guiney

Opis

This book argues for the importance of literature studies using the historical debate between the disinterested disciplines ("art for art's sake") and utilitarian or productive disciplines. Forgoing the traditional argument that literature is a unique spiritual resource, as well as the utilitarian thought that literary pedagogy promotes skills that are relevant to a post-industrial economy, Guiney suggests that literary pedagogy must enable mutual access between the classroom and the outside world. It must recognize the need for every human being to become a conscious producer of culture rather than a consumer, through an active process of literary reading and writing. Using the history of French curricular reforms as a case study for his analysis, Guiney provides a contextualized redefinition of literature's social value.

Spis treści

Introduction

 

Chapter 1. Aristocrats or Anarchists: Who Has Power over Lite

Chapter 2. The Baccalauréat Exam and the French Canonical Literary Exercise

Chapter 3. Inventing and Defending the General Education of Literature 

Chapter 4. Literature in French Schools after 1968

Chapter 5. How (Not) to Teach: “Parroting” vs “Proximity” in Cinematic Representations of Literary Pedagogy

Chapter 6. Harnessing the Neoliberal Beast

Conclusion

O autorze

M. Martin Guiney is Professor of French in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Kenyon College, USA. He has published on literary pedagogy in France and the United States, as well as on twentieth-century literature and film.

Blurb

This book argues for the importance of literature studies using the historical debate between the disinterested disciplines (“art for art’s sake”) and utilitarian or productive disciplines. Foregoing the traditional argument that literature is a unique spiritual resource, as well as the utilitarian thought that literary pedagogy promotes skills that are relevant to a post-industrial economy, Guiney suggests that literary pedagogy must enable mutual access between the classroom and the outside world. It must recognize the need for every human being to become a conscious producer of culture rather than a consumer, through an active process of literary reading and writing. Using the history of French curricular reforms as a case study for his analysis, Guiney provides a contextualized redefinition of literature’s social value.