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Full-Text Articles in Education
This Is What Democracy Looks Like: Art And The Wisconsin Uprising, Kim Cosier
This Is What Democracy Looks Like: Art And The Wisconsin Uprising, Kim Cosier
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
In February of 2011, an enormous popular political movement came to life in Wisconsin. For many people who were engaged in the month-long occupation of the Capitol in Madison, the Wisconsin Uprising was their first experience with direct political action. For the artists who are the focus of this article, taking part in the Wisconsin Uprising seemed like a natural outgrowth of their many years of socially engaged artmaking. In this article, I offer a brief overview of the Wisconsin Uprising followed by a discussion of the contributions of the artists in the protests in the context of their larger …
Anonymous: The Occupy Movement And The Failure Of Representational Democracy, Jan Jagodzinski
Anonymous: The Occupy Movement And The Failure Of Representational Democracy, Jan Jagodzinski
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
In this essay I try to make the case that the Occupy Movement can be thought through as a Post-Situationist art event which requires that it be thought of in terms of its pragmatic effects and what it can ‘do’ in relation to its viral spreading around major urban centers of the globe. I further try to make my case by utilizing the conceptual tool kit of Deleuze and Guattari; hence such ideas as sense-event, territory, virtual, and actual are part of this repertoire. I then try to further the complexity of Post-Situationism by including hacktivism and exploring the importance …
(Pre)Determined Occupations: The Post-Colonial Hybridizing Of Identity And Art Forms In Third World Spaces, Amanda Alexander, Manisha Sharma
(Pre)Determined Occupations: The Post-Colonial Hybridizing Of Identity And Art Forms In Third World Spaces, Amanda Alexander, Manisha Sharma
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
In this article, we present the effects of globalization on art forms in Peru and on teacher identity in India while exploring hybridization as an ongoing global paradigm in both contexts (Bhabha, 1994; Said, 1979). Peruvian art forms are continuously shifting as global cultures meld and become more technologically connected, which ultimately brings about questions of authenticity. The identities of Indian art educators are evolving, and shifting indicating an assemblage or structure containing many parts working together to perform a particular function. In realizing its function, the structure can be named or its form made visible (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). …
The Terror Of Creativity: Art Education After Postmodernism, Jan Jagodzinski
The Terror Of Creativity: Art Education After Postmodernism, Jan Jagodzinski
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
This essay addresses two problematics. The first concerns the question of creativity, which has become a key signifier for art and its education in the 21st century. I try to situate this interest in creativity within the broader context of neoliberalism and capitalist designer capitalism. The second problematic addresses the term ‘after postmodernism,’ which has left us in a state of relativity by rejecting universality. My interest is to show how these two problematics are at play in the well-known documentary film, Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim. An attempt is made to expose the structure of this film …
Fenced In/Out In West Texas: Notes On Defending My Queer Body, Ed Check
Fenced In/Out In West Texas: Notes On Defending My Queer Body, Ed Check
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
In this article, I utilize autoethnography to describe and reflect upon my experiences as a queer artist, associate professor, and activist living in West Texas (1996-2012). To date, I believe there exist too few testimonies in art education that document how queer educators/artists manage myriad social, political, and everyday issues in their lives and workplaces. Such stories are necessary if I am going to equip present and future art teachers with anti-homophobia classroom strategies. I believe such stories are also necessary to counter cultural homophobia and violence and let queer students and teachers know they do not stand alone. Stories …
The Unprecedented Event: Acknowledging Badiou’S Challenge To Art And Its Education, Jan Jagodzinski
The Unprecedented Event: Acknowledging Badiou’S Challenge To Art And Its Education, Jan Jagodzinski
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
In terms of this year’s journal theme, ”unprecedented,” there is no other contemporary philosopher who has a more radical notion than Alain Badiou when it comes to theorizing the new; that is, the emergence of an unprecedented Event ex nihilio—not novel or innovative, but free of the authority of any prior example—to make a truth claim. For art educators, especially for the Social Caucus, Badiou offers a challenge to what has largely captured the theoretical writing in this journal — namely aesthetics and representation. As well intentioned as these theorizations have been concerning identity politics and critical theory stemming from …
Decolonizing Development Through Indigenous Artist-Led Inquiry, Christine Ballengee-Morris, James Sanders, Debbie Smith, Kryssi Staikidis
Decolonizing Development Through Indigenous Artist-Led Inquiry, Christine Ballengee-Morris, James Sanders, Debbie Smith, Kryssi Staikidis
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
In this article four university art educators explore theories of self-determination and describe decolonizing, approaches to research that are built on mutual trust. As researchers we recognize that (re)presenting the stories of others—especially across international and transcultural boundaries—is both problematic and an ethical challenge. We acknowledge the risks that participants assume when sharing their stories, and follow the culturally sensitive strategy of having collaborating indigenous artists lead the research.
The Space Between: Intersubjective Possibilities Of Transparency And Vulnerability In Art Education, Sara Wilson Mckay
The Space Between: Intersubjective Possibilities Of Transparency And Vulnerability In Art Education, Sara Wilson Mckay
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
This paper argues for the pedagogical value of the pursuit of transparency and vulnerability in art education. The author defines transparency and vulnerability in the context of art, offering subsequent pedagogical examples of both. Possibilities are born through intersubjectivity and answerability, the Bakhtinian notion that considers "how shall I say [do] anything when the other can answer?" (Bakhtin, 1990; Nielsen, 2002). The author asserts that art educators should pursue an idea of transparency and encourage an open attitude toward vulnerability in their pedagogy to emphasize intersubjective relationships and social possibilities through art. The author discusses artwork by Kelli Connell and …
Voices Of Women: Telling The Truth Through Art Making, Alice Pennisi
Voices Of Women: Telling The Truth Through Art Making, Alice Pennisi
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
On Wednesdays, when the last period of the school day is finished, the students trickle out of room 412 of Burnham High School and the young women enter who have been waiting outside. They immediately push all the desks to the side or back walls, leaving a large open space. Then each carries a chair toward the front of the room, creating a circle. Someone closes the door, and they begin to talk with one another. Thus begins a weekly meeting of Voices of Women (VOW), a group comprised mainly of high school girls who create collaborative artwork based on …
Reading Objects: Collections As Sites And Systems Of Cultural Order, Alice Wexler
Reading Objects: Collections As Sites And Systems Of Cultural Order, Alice Wexler
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
The political nature of making personal and cultural meaning of objects (both ordinary and aesthetic) is the site where transactions between our innate need for order and environmental influences, such as consumerism, are made. Valuing objects leads to the phenomena of collection, a subject that has been of interest in education and psychology since the nineteenth century. I ask how the private collections of children, and later adults, lead to systems of labeling, grouping, and display of art and artifacts in the art and natural history museum. In the age of the meta museum, how do educators question the museum's …
How To Draw A Heart: Teaching Art To Incarcerated Youth, Dennis Earl Fehr
How To Draw A Heart: Teaching Art To Incarcerated Youth, Dennis Earl Fehr
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
This article traces the progress of a social theory-based university art education program in which undergraduate majors teach art to incarcerated youth. It addresses and goes beyond the editor's question, "What imagery lies 'outside' art educators' accepted sphere?" Not only is the imagery of these populations out of sight, but so are the sites of incarceration themselves, they exist not only outside the purview of the art education field, but of nearly every sector of society except the police. Even their families are often "out of sight." The readable, conversational format is a political choice. I offer an alternative to …
The Permeable Classroom Or The Tilted Arc Revisited, Karen E. Frostig
The Permeable Classroom Or The Tilted Arc Revisited, Karen E. Frostig
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
"The Permeable Classroom or the Tilted Arc Revisited" reviews the author's various roles as artist, community activist, art educator and art therapist, in the design and implementation of a large, sequential community-based ''Tree Memorial" project. Using the Tree Memorial Project as a compelling example of the "permeable classroom," the paper delivers an overview of the project that takes place in and around the public school setting, featuring collaboration between teachers, students, parents, administrators, community residents, and city officials.
(Un)Becoming Working Class? Living Across The Lines, Ed Check
(Un)Becoming Working Class? Living Across The Lines, Ed Check
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
I am writing this piece as a white self-identified gay male raised working class associate professor in art who is actively reconnecting with my past/roots, trying to better understand my sense of isolation in academe and my slowly seething anger directed at many of my academic colleagues. By working class I mean 2nd and 3rd generation Polish-American, devout Catholic, white privilege, contractor father, housewife mother, large family, in and out of poverty at times, racist with no real information. By academe I mean working for six years to achieve and be granted tenure at Texas Tech University in visual studies.
Un/Becoming Digital: The Ontology Of Technological Determinism And Its Implications For Art Education, Alison Colman
Un/Becoming Digital: The Ontology Of Technological Determinism And Its Implications For Art Education, Alison Colman
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Artists have been experimenting with analog and digital technologies since the 1960's; early examples include Billy Khiver's Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) and Nam June Paik (1966). While countless artists have since made highly innovative use of new media such as the computer, artificial intelligence (AD, biotech, the Internet and the World Wide Web, LED, motion capture, gesture tracking, CPS, open source, and robotics, artist/ theorists such as Penny (1995), Lovejoy (1997), Weibel (1996; 2001) and Wilson (2002) have cautioned against appropriating deterministic engineering models underlying such technologies.(l)These models, predominant in commercial industry, government and the military, embrace efficiency, …
Schooled In Silence, Patricia M. Amburgy, Wanda B. Knight, Karen Keifer-Boyd
Schooled In Silence, Patricia M. Amburgy, Wanda B. Knight, Karen Keifer-Boyd
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
What is not said, is often more powerful than what is spoken about diversity, difference, and identity in U.S. classrooms. Examples are everywhere: Although no students of color may be enrolled in a course at a prominent research university, members of the class do not believe there is such a thing as institutional racism. A handful of women are discussed in course textbooks, all authored by men, but no one thinks it odd that only men have written accounts of women's achievements that appear on the syllabus. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people do not speak for themselves, either, in …
Anding—The Dynamic In Education, Katie Roberts
Anding—The Dynamic In Education, Katie Roberts
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
The world exists in a dynamic that can be described as a web. The moment that you are born, you become part of this web by your every move through space, every encounter with people, and every interaction with objects. Never ending but changing direction, never moving up or down but always laterally, the web progresses and grows continuously. This metaphor also describes the singular existence of all of us by outlining the experiences that help form us. From the common details to the formative moments in life, our lives are a series of cumulative experiences. These experiences connect and …
Critical Creativity: On The Convergence Of Medium Education And Media Education, Michael J. Emme
Critical Creativity: On The Convergence Of Medium Education And Media Education, Michael J. Emme
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Days after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in the United States I heard an interview on the radio. The short exchange, with peace educator and activist Johan Galtung, not surprisingly in light of world events, focused on conflict resolution. While I was impressed by professor Galtung's commitment to peacemaking and his real experience serving as a mediator in world conflicts, what struck me most was the word he used to describe the key ingredient in conflict resolution. That word was 'creativity'. As an artist, art educator, academic and parent I suppose it makes sense that …
Multicultural Art Education: Deconstructing Images Of Social Reproduction, Donna Alden
Multicultural Art Education: Deconstructing Images Of Social Reproduction, Donna Alden
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Exclusionary practices along with inaccurate and incomplete information have historically been used in the classroom by the dominant White culture as a means to disempower minority youth and widen the chasm between opposite ends of the power structure. Although reproducing the existing power structure may not be a conscious motive of art teachers in the 21st century, many of their actions replicate conditions necessary for domination by the Euro-White culture. Admirably, art educators have a history of being on the cutting edge of innovative ideas and inclusionary practices. The movement to include art from many cultures in art curriculums is …
Art, Action Research, And Activism At Artpark, Carole Woodlock, Mary Wyrick
Art, Action Research, And Activism At Artpark, Carole Woodlock, Mary Wyrick
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
The authors have an ongoing interest in combining local history, culture, and environmental issues as topics for teaching. As newcomers to western New York, we became fascinated with the story of Artpark in Lewiston, New York. High on the edge of the Niagara Gorge, the site of Artpark has a complicated history that has been enlivened by Native Americans, the French, the British, contemporary artists, senators, toxic waste specialists, visiting art teachers, and local students. The passage and effects of time on nature, art, and culture have been an important influence on art production since the beginning of Artpark in …
Working With People To Make Art: Oral History, Artistic Practice, And Art Education, Dipti Desai
Working With People To Make Art: Oral History, Artistic Practice, And Art Education, Dipti Desai
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
In recent years, some contemporary artists have used oral history methods as an integral part of their artistic practice. Oral history emerged in the United States as a distinct historical method with the establishment of the first organized oral history project in 1948 by Alan Nevin at Columbia University in New York. It gradually wrenched itself from its elitist origins of documenting stories of prominent white men to becoming a populist approach that draws attention to ordinary people’s lives, perceptions, and experiences of an event. Based on interviews conducted over a short period of time, oral histories’ primary contribution to …
The Ghost Writer, Amy Brook Snider
The Ghost Writer, Amy Brook Snider
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
The core of this article was originally published in an issue on “empowerment” in the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design [NSCAD] Papers in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1988. Not surprisingly, the article is also related to the theme of this Journal of Social Theory in Art Education—“dialogue as empowering pedagogy,” describing as it does how a teacher and her student used the medium of letters as a space for communication and reflection.
Roots/Routes As Arterial Connections For Art Educators: Advocating For Aboriginal Cultures, Rita L. Irwin
Roots/Routes As Arterial Connections For Art Educators: Advocating For Aboriginal Cultures, Rita L. Irwin
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Arterial and life connections for art educators. Arteries are muscular vessels carrying blood away from the heart to every part of the body, eventually bringing the blood back to the heart before venturing out again. Metaphorically, these pathways locate the heart as a home from which travel extends, repeatedly, expectantly as life itself. Symbolically, arterial connections pulsate with the notion of art, expressing art through life through art. To many people, and particularly Aboriginal peoples, art translated as cultural performance is found in the very pathways and bloodlines of their geographies and histories. However, these arterial connections are available to …
Tear Down These Walls: New Genre Public Art And Art Education, Gaye Leigh Green
Tear Down These Walls: New Genre Public Art And Art Education, Gaye Leigh Green
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Public genre art education follows the lead established by the professional art world to engage the public with artforms that depart from traditional media usage and intentions to encourage collaboration, the demystification of art processes, and societal reconstruction. Termed new genre public art, Suzanne Lacy (1995) described in Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art a new sensibility exhibited in the past three decades by artists who deal with the most profound issues of our time “in manners that resemble political and social activity but is distinguished by its aesthetic sensibility”.
The Clash Between The Sacred And The Profane: An Examination Of Controversial Art In The Postmodern Era, Rosalie H. Politsky
The Clash Between The Sacred And The Profane: An Examination Of Controversial Art In The Postmodern Era, Rosalie H. Politsky
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Using mythic criticism, this paper examines the current cultural and religious in stability that may serve as the impetus for the appropriation of ancient religious myths and symbols by various visual and performance artists. The paper concludes with implications of ritual, personal mythology, and controversial art for art education.
When Art Turns Violent: Images Of Women, The Sexualization Of Violence And Their Implications For Art Education, Yvonne Gaudelius, Juliet Moore
When Art Turns Violent: Images Of Women, The Sexualization Of Violence And Their Implications For Art Education, Yvonne Gaudelius, Juliet Moore
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Approximately two years ago, after viewing a slide of Rubens’ The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus, a group of students enrolled in an “art for elementary education majors” course were asked to write an interpretation of this work, as part of a series of art criticism activities that they had engaged in through the semester. Most of the students wrote what might be described as reasonable interpretations in that they discussed the work in formal terms and made judgments about the artwork. However, and this is what is of interest to us in this paper, only two students in …
The Deep Creek School: Technology, Ecology And The Body As Pedagogical Alternatives In Art Education, Daniel L. Collins, Charles R. Garoian
The Deep Creek School: Technology, Ecology And The Body As Pedagogical Alternatives In Art Education, Daniel L. Collins, Charles R. Garoian
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
The Deep Creek School is grappling with a cultural condition in which the line between actual experience and its simulation has become blurred as never before. Today’s students are conversant in the language of electronic media and consumer culture--but they encounter difficulties when trying to navigate the real crises in the health of their bodies and the global environment. There is a deep sense among many of the artists and educators that we speak with that art programs nationwide are not responding sufficiently to the dramatic changes occurring in the culture at large. The precedent of fitting programs to the …
Art, Education, Work, And Leisure: Tangles In The Lifelong Learning Network, Lara M. Lackey
Art, Education, Work, And Leisure: Tangles In The Lifelong Learning Network, Lara M. Lackey
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Although the field of art education has, in recent years, acknowledged the prevalence of non-formal educational sites, our literature is divided on whether this trend poses an opportunity for cooperation and strength or a threat to the status of art as a school subject. This paper consults the literature of critical theory within the domains of art, education, and leisure studies in order to examine the relationship between formal and non-formal art education. First, it considers ways in which tradition conceptualizations of art, education, leisure, and work foster an acceptance of art as experience and knowledge to be gained outside …
Freedom Of Speech And Censorship, Kirstie Lang
Freedom Of Speech And Censorship, Kirstie Lang
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Censorship is commonly posited in opposition to free speech. However, censorship can also be understood as a kind of freedom, one which enables us to participate in collective decisions to control speech. Social and political theorist Isaiah Berlin has written of these two kinds of liberties as integral to Iiberal, democratic traditions which, problematic though they sometimes are, continue to inform the foundations of policymaking in Western, post-industrial democracies (Berlin, 1969; Dworkin, 1991). In this paper I describe these two forms of liberty as interconnected by democratic theory, but as simultaneously contradictory given the values that support them. Doing so …
Visibility And Invisibility In Art And Craft, Fiona Blaikie
Visibility And Invisibility In Art And Craft, Fiona Blaikie
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
The visibility and invisibility or censorship of art and craft is determined by individual and group ontologies. Their production has often been constricted and/or defined by gender, class, culture, race, religion, and politics. In this paper, I am concerned with the visibility of varieties of art, design, and craft. I will examine censorship based on three criteria; gender, culture, and class, with the censorship of artwork because of gender being the dominant theme.
Commentary: Media, Environment, And Art: A New Agenda For Art Education, Ron Sylva
Commentary: Media, Environment, And Art: A New Agenda For Art Education, Ron Sylva
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education
Much has been written about what an education in art should be for. We might think more about what an education in art should be against. We live in a world where objects, environments, ideas, and feelings are manufactured for, and merchandized to, people defined as consumers rather than citizens, spectators rather than participants, and users rather than doers. Despite the proclaimed democratic ideals of education and the celebrated independence of the artist's vision, art education has contributed little to the education of independent minded, informed, and empowered human beings.