Promises to Keep: Cultural Studies, Democratic Education, and Public Life

Description

This book takes a serious look at the erosion of democratic public life and public education, and offers directions for re-imagining, re-designing, and re-inventing the current system. Bridging the disciplines of film studies, postcolonial studies, curriculum theory, and politics, these essays suggest new possibilities for curriculum, and shed new light on what shape public education could take in coming decades. Book Cover Half-Title Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Series Editors’ Foreword Introduction Promises to Keep Education and the New Progressive Cultural Politics Marxism and Post-Marxism Postcolonialism and the Project of Un-thinking Eurocentrism The Troubling of Identity Community in a Postmodern Age Cultural Studies and the New Progressivism The Reconceptualist Curriculum Movement Critical Pedagogy Social Foundations of Education Cultural Studies and Education Chapters I. Education and the New Cultural Terrain 1 The Globalization of Capitalism and the New Imperialism: Notes toward a Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy Globalization and Capitalism The McLaw of Value The Failure of the Free Market Global Capitalism as the New Imperialism The Corporatization of Public Education Corporate Philanthropy and the Neoliberal Agenda Democracy in Crisis: Decoupling Democracy from Capitalist Development Toward a Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy Teachers as Intellectual Workers Class: The Outmoded or Forgotten Antagonlsm Conclusion 2 Civil Society and Educational Publics: Possibilities and Problems What Is Civil Society? Civil Society and Educational Publics Limitations and Dangers 3 Extraordinary Conversations in Public Schools Social Spaces for Challenge Pushing the Borders of Gender and Race Baring Secrets Distancing An Eighth Grade Group Contesting Social Stereotypes Creating an Intellectual and Ethical Community across Borders December through February: The Melting, and Then Partial Restoration, of Privilege March through April: Playing with Power, Shifting, and Reversals April through June: Coalitions, Standpoints, Speaking Truth to Power…Preparing for the “Real World” Conclusion 4 A Talk to Teachers: James Baldwin as Postcolonial Artist and Public Intellectual Baldwin in the Village Final Thoughts 5 Promises to Keep, Finally? Academic Culture and the Dismissal of Popular Culture A Correspondence Theory of Reality or the Academy’s Numb Thesis The Culture Industry Reconsidered (Again): Adorno, Horkheimer, and Their Legacy in the Cultural Studies of Education Toward an Alternative Approach to Academic Work and Popular Culture II. Reimagining Curriculum and Pedagogical Practice 6 Stan Douglas and the Aesthetic Critique of Urban Decline I II III IV V VI VII VIII 7 Screening Race Race in the Hood The Black Arts Movement A Cinema of Racial Violence A Mimetic Realism Realism and the Didactic Protest Film An Aesthetic of Color and Critical Race Theory Ethics and an Antiaesthetic Antiaesthetics and Cinematic Practices Implementing the Antiaesthetic Two Case Studies In Conclusion 8 Troubling Heroes: Of Rosa Parks, Multicultural Education, and Critical Pedagogy Monumentalist History and Parks as a “Founding Mother” Critical Histories: Setting the Record Straight Effective History: Rosa Parks the Floating Signifier Conclusion 9 The Symbolic Curriculum: Reading the Confederate Flag as a Southern Heritage Text The Confederate Flag and the Battle over Southern Heritage The New Right Discourse of “Whiteness” The Progressive Response: From Critique to Reappropriation of the Confederate Flag The Corporate and State Discourse of the “New South” Teaching the Confederate Flag Controversy Conclusion 10 Urban Education, Broadcast News, and Multicultural Spectatorship Fashioned by the Text Itself: How Is the Story Framed? Fashioned by Institutional Contexts: What Are the Parameters of News Media? Fashioned by Technology: How Does the Videotape Construct the Story? Conclusion 11 “They Need Someone to Show Them Discipline”: Preservice Teachers’ Understandings and Expectations of Student (Re)presentations in Dangerous Minds A Multiperspectival Analysis Representations of Students in Dangerous Minds Dangerous Minds: Production History Dangerous Minds: Textual Analysis—Representations of Students Focus Group Responses Acceptance and Alignment Misconception and Inexperience Renegotiation, Rereading, and Rearticulation Concluding Thoughts Afterword Schooling in Capitalist America: Theater of the Oppressor or the Oppressed? Cast of Characters The Place: West Los Angeles; The Time: Winter 2001 Getting to Know Some of the Characters In the Faculty Lounge In Pablo’s Classroom After the Play: Critical Commentaries Notes References Contributors Index