Literacy in the post-truth era: The significance of affect and the ethical encounter

Abstract

Education has a responsibility to respond to the threat of deteriorating democracies. The post-truth era is marked by an erosion of trust in public institutions and extreme polarisation. This paper begins with an examination of the ways by which current literacy and media literacy education is not simply outmoded, but also limited by a grounding in neoliberal conceptions of rationality and individualism. Offering a counterpoint to the status quo, and foregrounding the significance of affect, I work with Levinas’s conception of ethics (1979, 1989) to illustrate the tensions between affective reactionism and non-intentional affectivity, enjoyment and its disruption as a premise for intersubjectivity, and contrasting manifestations of anger. I conclude the paper with a proposal for literacy education that comprises intentional focus on relationality, responsibility, and affect.

Keywords:

• Affect
• literacy
• ethics
• Levinas

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Notes on contributors

Lana Parker

Lana Parker is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Windsor. She studies the relationship between education and democracy, particularly as expressed through literacies and the arts.