Art, Disobedience, and Ethics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction: The Pragmatics and Ethics of the Suddenly Possible

   • Dennis Atkinson

   Pages 1-11

3. Restoring Pedagogic Work to the Incipience and Immanence of Learning: Disobedient Pedagogies

   • Dennis Atkinson

   Pages 13-37

4. Spinoza and the Challenge of Building a Life

   • Dennis Atkinson

   Pages 39-57

5. The Force of Art and Learning: Building a Life

   • Dennis Atkinson

   Pages 59-63

6. Whitehead’s Adventure

   • Dennis Atkinson

   Pages 65-90

7. Ethics and Politics in Pedagogic Work

   • Dennis Atkinson

   Pages 91-117

8. Becoming in the Middle

   • Dennis Atkinson

   Pages 119-153

9. The Force of Art

   • Dennis Atkinson

   Pages 155-191

10. Pedagogy and Events of Disobedience

    • Dennis Atkinson

    Pages 193-204

11. Pedagogic Work: An Ethics of Building a Life

    • Dennis Atkinson

    Pages 205-226

12. Back Matter

    Pages 227-236

    PDF

This book explores art practice and learning as processes that break new ground, through which new perceptions of self and world emerge. Examining art practice in educational settings where emphasis is placed upon a pragmatics of the ‘suddenly possible’, Atkinson looks at the issues of ethics, aesthetics, and politics of learning and teaching. These learning encounters drive students beyond the security of established patterns of learning into new and modified modes of thinking, feeling, seeing, and making. 

• pragmatic learning
• curriculum studies
• art education
• educational psychology
• pedagogy

  “In his latest book, Art, Disobedience, and Ethics: The Adventure of Pedagogy, Dennis Atkinson raises the fundamental issues of learning and pedagogy. His questioning of the way in which we understand basic educational processes has been a feature of his work for many years now, and I welcome his latest intervention at this difficult time for the arts in education. Atkinson’s method is to explicate an existing philosophy, often one that is not directly concerned with education, and then apply it to art and educational practices in order to refresh our thinking about what we might otherwise think of as commonplace. For me its major contribution, and therefore its chief value, lies in its skilful and scholarly arguments for the profoundly disruptive power and potential of real learning, whilst yet insisting upon its highly unpredictable and contingent nature.” (Jeff Adams, Professor of Education at the University of Chester, England, and Principal Editor of iJADE)

• Department of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths University of London, London, United Kingdom

  Dennis Atkinson

Dennis Atkinson is Professor Emeritus at Goldsmiths University of London, UK. 

Policies and ethics