Features of Place Making Curriculum

Abstract

Ellsworth, E., & Kruse, J. (2005) EarthShapes art studio. http://extrememediastudies.org/earthshapes/index.html

Notes

1 Elizabeth Ellsworth’s (2005) work introduced me to Brian Massumi, who is a participant in contemporary debates about how philosophy, aesthetic and cultural theory might best be used to address current issues of culture and power. Ellsworth argues that Massumi’s explorations of embodiment and its “potential for generating inventive as opposed to critical engagements with process of social change” (p. 118) challenges educators to “shift how we make bodies matter in pedagogy” (p. 17).
I think it will be some time in the distant future, if ever, that I am able to write an article without making reference to Massumi’s interdisciplinary scholarship and thought. Perhaps it is because of his invitation to uproot concepts, extract them from their usual connections, transmit them elsewhere and then to enjoy their deviation and digression. Though, of course, he (2002) explains this all much more eloquently.

2 EarthShapes extends initiatives of a curriculum of place that began with Joe Kincheloe and William Pinar’s (1991) early efforts to educationally contextualize the curricular challenges posed by living in a particular location.