Toward a Badiou-Inspired Eventful English Language Arts Curriculum: A Refractive Autoethnography

Abstract

The purpose of my autoethnographic study is to understand more fully how my experience of educational events and their emerging truths impact my identity and my curricular and pedagogical approaches as a seasoned English Language Arts teacher. My dissertation addresses the following research questions: • In what ways does my experience of “educational events” impact my English Language Arts teacher identity, curriculum, and pedagogy? • What implications do my experiences of teaching eventfully have for English Language Arts teaching practice and curriculum in neoliberal times? In order to address these questions, I consider French philosopher Alain Badiou’s theorization of the “Event.” I articulate what I call a refractively eventful encounter as a contribution living within the traditions of Badiou’s event theory, curriculum studies, and English Language Arts curriculum. Specifically, I refractively interpret stories, memories, and artifacts from my experiences of taking four doctoral courses, in addition to my teaching of two novels, Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and Janne Teller’s Nothing, in an urban high school in Alberta. My autoethnographic interpretation of these experiences helps me articulate the ways in which neoliberal culture deeply inscribes itself into my being and how I attempt to resist such commitments. I explore the possibility of inviting students and teachers to re-cognize, or come to know again, commitments of their own. In my findings and conclusion chapters, I discuss key implications of eventful teaching in neoliberal times, namely: what it means to be a humilitant critical pedagogue and the implications of refraction for curriculum, pedagogy, and autoethnography.