(2009). Oh, That Magic Feeling! Multicultural Human Subjectivity, Community, and Fascism's Footprints. Philosophy of Music Education Review, v17 n1 p56-74 Spr. This paper examines how significant musical moments, occurring within singular contexts, may be performative to the development of community. While community is often viewed within music education as an unequivocal good, I argue that this result may not always be beneficent. In this paper, I look at one unique performative moment through the lens of anti-racism education as the potential for community conceived as multicultural human subjectivity. Drawing upon the arguments of Theodore Adorno, Paul Gilroy, and others, I then examine this same moment as one in which the seeds of fascistic community may also be sewn. From this background, I examine the ongoing project of the National Association for Music Education (MENC) known as the National Anthem Project (NAP) as an identity building project, questioning where the lines blur between solidarity, nationalism, and fascistic forms of community within the potentially significant musical moments that NAP may also foster…. [Direct]
(2009). Tomorrow We Live: Fascist Visions of Education in 1930s Britain. British Journal of Sociology of Education, v30 n1 p71-82 Jan. The present paper explores the fascist vision for education in 1930s Britain through the presentation of extracts from official publications of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), as well as from the writings of Party members. The paper presents a socio-historical study of British adherents to fascism and provides an account of their thinking in relation to education and schooling, exposing a milieu of ideologues, Party functionaries and serving teachers who were animated by their political commitment. Following a brief outline of the early years of British fascism, there is an account of some key members and their educational ideas, followed by a discussion of the BUF's educational policies and of its approach to internal education and training. The orientation of the BUF and its membership to education, and the Party's formulated policies in this field present a modernist vision that was calculated to have particular appeal to educational professionals. There is a consideration,… [Direct]
(2010). "A Constant Transit of Finding": Fantasy as Realisation in "Pan's Labyrinth". Children's Literature in Education, v41 n1 p52-63 Mar. This article considers Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" as a text which utilises key codes and conventions of children's literature as a means of encountering the trauma of Fascism. The article begins by placing "Pan's Labyrinth" at a contextual crossroads involving fairy tale and a Spanish cinematic tradition and considers the significance of the text as a hybrid creation. It then explores some of the tropes and motifs that are re-imagined within the narrative. There follows an investigation of the film as a testament to the importance of fiction and fantasy when faced with the very real consequences of war, oppression and trauma. Finally, "Pan's Labyrinth" is considered alongside a heritage of children's literature whose motifs, symbols and figures are remarkably available for appropriation, re-invention and renewal…. [Direct]
(2011). Depicting Teachers' Roles in Social Reconstruction in \The Social Frontier,\ 1934-1943. Educational Theory, v61 n3 p311-333 Jun. According to the dominant historiographical narrative, the social reconstructionists were a homogeneous group with a shared social, political, economic, and educational agenda. However, the pages of the journal \The Social Frontier\ are replete with evidence that they were not in agreement on significant issues, especially when it came to the proper role of teachers in reform efforts. In fact, a close look reveals that the social reconstructionists presented multiple, overlapping, and often conflicting theories and strategies to advance the reconstruction of society, while explicating different roles for teachers therein. When teachers are placed at the center of the investigation, their factionalism, which has been discussed previously by C.A. Bowers and James Giarelli in their studies of the journal, is conspicuously apparent. Analysis of the different conceptions of teachers presented in \The Social Frontier\ (subsequently titled \Frontiers of Democracy\) reveals that… [Direct]
(2010). Re-Creating Pablo Picasso's "Guernica". Arts & Activities, v146 n5 p33, 45 Jan. Recently, the teachers at the author's school completed a group project with their eighth-graders in which they recreated a mural version of the famous painting by Pablo Picasso, "Guernica." This activity was aimed at: (1) studying the rise of Fascism in Spain and Germany during the Spanish Civil War prior to World War II; (2) learning about the Cubist technique that Picasso developed in the beginning of the 20th century; (3) re-creating a copy of the painting, "Guernica", by Picasso; (4) working on shading and texture techniques using graphite pencils and sticks and colored pencil; (5) studying the tragic event of the German bombing of the Basque town of Guernica, which was an attempt to test the readiness of the country's air force for World War II; (6) learning the technique of using a grid to enlarge and reproduce a painting to its original size; and (7) learning the geographic locations of the countries involved in this historic event. Their social-studies… [Direct]
(2013). "In Landlessness Alone Resides the Highest Truth"; Or, at Sea with Honors. Honors in Practice, v9 p15-25. As an English professor specializing in American literature and possessing a passion for one nineteenth-century American novel in particular, Don Dingledine writes that one reason he loves to teach "Moby-Dick" is the seemingly limitless ways in which it speaks to human actions and events in our own time. Melville's timeless novel has been used to comment on the rise of fascism, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and debates over Social Security and national health care. "Each age, one may predict, will find its own symbols in 'Moby-Dick'," a Melville biographer wrote in 1929. Drawing from the novel, the author compares honors students to Ishmael, and writes that the forces that attract students to honors are those that draw Melville's Ishmael to the sea. The qualities that ensure Ishmael's survival are ones that will lead to success in honors and beyond. Some people today view an academic degree in a similar light. Ishmael strives to comprehend the whale, its… [PDF]
(2012). The Wealth of Nations and the Poverty of Analysts. Academic Questions, v25 n1 p144-152 Mar. Now that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is dead and his forty-two years as despotic ruler of Libya and fomenter of international disorder has come to a permanent halt, it is a good time for governments–both in and beyond the NATO alliance–to review accommodations and agreements made with his regime. It is also time for the academic social policy community to examine its own behavior, especially during the period in which the Gaddafi family dictatorship drew to a close and sought ways to convince democratic nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom that the Lion of Libya had become a Middle East Angel of Mercy. Social scientists have the same right as any other American citizen or British subject to proclaim and advocate political views. Indeed, the history of specialists, especially in international relations, is of scholars with strong views for or against the full panoply of "isms"–from communism, fascism, and socialism to all sorts of intermediate positions…. [Direct]
(2009). Obama's \Postmodernism,\ Humanism and History. Policy Futures in Education, v7 n3 p349-355. The term \postmodernism\ has recently been used to describe President Barack Obama, and not by just one commentator. Jonah Goldberg in a recent USA Today column, the author of \Liberal Fascism,\ advanced the notion that Obama is a postmodernist. Webster Griffin Tarpley, Bruce Marshall & Jonathon Mowat (2008) have written a book entitled \Obama: The Postmodern Coup\ that purportedly exposes Obama from the Left, arguing that Obama is in reality \a right-winger, an elitist, a creature of Wall Street, and a deeply troubled personality, running far to the right of his main opponent\ (then, Senator and now Secretary Clinton). While characterizing both views as \monstrous,\ the author contends in this article that what caught his eye and that requires serious attention is the attribution of postmodernist to Obama by Cardinal James Francis Stafford, a high-ranking papal official. The author does not attempt to defend Obama against these spurious charges. Rather, he tries to make clear the… [Direct]
(1983). The Aesthetics of Fascism. Journal of Communication, v33 n2 p70-78 Spr. Analyzes how war is treated in four films: \The Deerhunter,\\Patton,\\M*A*S*H,\ and \Apocalypse Now.\ Considers the critical question of how art handles the implication that \slaughter is attractive, necessary, or somehow glorious.\ (PD)…
(1980). Teaching about Fascism: An Interdisciplinary Approach. History Teacher, v13 n4 p523-29 Aug. Describes a university course which teaches the history of fascism and nazism through interdisciplinary methods: philosophy, film, literature, and art. Visiting lecturers include survivors of concentration camps. (KC)…
(2011). Racism, "Race" and Ethnographic Research in Multicultural Italy. Ethnography and Education, v6 n1 p9-27. This article is divided into two parts: in the first one, after mentioning episodes of violence against immigrants, the author discusses the issues of "race" and racism within the debate on immigration and diversity taking place in Italy. Pointing out a number of relevant indications and reflections that qualify such debate, she argues that the concern of Italian researchers, educators and citizens about the resurgence of racism must be understood with reference to the historical, philosophical and scientific perspectives that aimed to disunite humanity, on the one hand; on the other, in the light of Italy's history of racist ideology and its impact on education, during Fascism. Both research paths justified exclusion and exploitation of populations on the basis of a naturalistic classification whose null denotation has been definitely proved by recent biological and genetic evidence. In the second part, and with regard to contemporary times and changes brought about by… [Direct]
(2012). Surviving Economic Crises through Education. Global Studies in Education, Volume 11. Peter Lang New York This book comes at a time of increasing anxiety about the repercussions of financial instability and the probability of widespread market volatility. The educators and researchers whose work is collected here have considered these factors deeply when constructing their responses to prevailing financial conditions. These views guide the reader through economic crises as a mode of survival and as a means to deploying education at its most meaningful and intense. The approach aligns practice with theory and takes the empirical evidence from these studies as a means to determining the economic influence on education. This book will be a valuable asset for teachers and professors, as well as an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate classrooms. Contents of this book include: (1) Introduction to Surviving Economic Crises through Education (David R. Cole); (2) "Knowledge Economy", Economic Crisis and Cognitive Capitalism: Public Education and the Promise of Open Science… [Direct]
(2009). Herouxville's Afghanistan, or, Accumulated Violence. Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, v31 n2-3 p177-200. This essay explores the cultural-pedagogical logic of what the author calls the perlocutionary effect of transcendence that the "discourse of the West" produces. This discourse provides a fortified interiority beyond history, but also a door through which racisms, imperialisms, and fascisms of the past can possibly return. The second part of this essay situates the author's discussion of the Herouxville Declaration and the Reasonable Accommodation Debate (as well as the response of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission to them) in relation to the postwar cultural political formation over which a new hegemonic, national identity crystallized. The author also underscores here that, precisely as a hegemonic formation, whatever real and imaginary egalitarian policy content it possessed (or enshrined in the limited form of the Charter guarantees), this was a reaction of crisis management in the face of the struggles of the past; not only to second wave feminism in Canada and elsewhere… [Direct]
(1989). John Dewey on War and Fascism: A Response. Educational Theory, v39 n1 p71-80 Win. This essay on John Dewey's approach to the crisis of war seeks to clarify Dewey's policy toward World War I, his approach to the peace movement, and his response to the rise of fascism. (IAH)…
(1985). Marcel Deat: From Socialism to Fascism. Indiana Social Studies Quarterly, v37 n3 p45-52 Win 1984-85. The views of the French political leader Marcel Deat are examined to determine whether he was a fascist by conviction or a fascist by the force of circumstances created by World War II. It is shown that by 1934 Deat had clearly adopted a stance best described as national socialist. (RM)…