Browsing by Author "Sax, Benjamin E."
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- An Experimental Hope: The Case for Emergent PedagogyStoller, Aaron (Virginia Tech, 2013-11-06)This dissertation will make the case that education at the post-secondary level must be reimagined. Rather than being organized around abstract bodies of information, it must be centered on moments of transformation out of which teaching, learning, knowing and -- in fact -- democratic individuals emerge. This reconstruction of education takes place through two primary moves. First, I make the case that contemporary schooling is grounded in a flawed model of knowing, which draws together mistakes in thinking about the nature of the self, of knowledge, and of the world, which are contained in the epistemological proposition: "S knows that p." In doing so, I argue that the German conception of Bildung must replace "S knows that p" as the guiding paradigm of knowing within educational practice. In doing so, I develop a theory of creative inquiry in order to claim that knowledge emerges from embodied, social action and is a form of artistic practice. Second, I develop a pedagogy, which I call emergent pedagogy, based on the theory of inquiry articulated in the first half. Here, I argue that post-secondary pedagogy must emerge out of the contexts, situations, and communities in which students and faculty are embedded. In this way, pedagogy must be considered a kind of artistic practice in which methods are adapted to and intuited from unique problems experienced by the university community. Ultimately, I show that pedagogy must shift from being viewed as a kind of telling and hearing to a form of participatory making.
- Imagining the Worst: Ladislav Fuks' Contributions to Holocaust FictionLautenschlager, Michael Allen (Virginia Tech, 2011-04-26)Ladislav Fuks' works are under-recognized in English-speaking academic discourse. He is a valuable contributor not only to the Holocaust Literature genre, but also to film and literature in general. His two English-translated works, Mr. Theodore Mundstock and The Cremator, as well as the film adaptation of The Cremator, examine the role imagination can play in art that addresses atrocity, allowing for a heightened subjective impact on the audience. I critically and comparatively examine Fuks' work to establish his value to literature and Holocaust art. In the first chapter, I frame my argument with questions of art's abilities to represent atrocity and provide relevant background information relating to Fuks' and his experience in wartime Prague. In Chapter Two, I closely read Mr. Theodore Mundstock, concentrating specifically on Fuks' use of metaphor, presentation of incredulity, and commentary on the imagination's capabilities in confronting terror. Chapter Three compares Mr. Theodore Mundstock to the "Momik" section of David Grossman's See Under: Love, focusing on similarities between the title characters. Chapter Four examines Fuks' use of the grotesque in The Cremator and its film adaptation. Chapter Five compares Fuks' works to Aharon Appelfeld's novel Badenheim 1939, emphasizing each author's reliance on the audience's retrospective prescience, which provides a significant psychological impact and avoids contributing to the over-saturation of Holocaust information on the public. I conclude that Fuks should be more highly regarded and widely recognized both academically and in popular culture, as he exhibits similar features as other, more celebrated Holocaust writers, and his innovative contributions defend the value of literature in representing atrocity.
- Rethinking Uncertainty: Spinoza and Hume on Shaping Uncertain Secular FuturesVergaray, Alfonso Ruben (Virginia Tech, 2014-10-30)This dissertation extends contemporary views about uncertainty. It does so through a reading of the role of uncertainty in the political thought of two modern philosophers, Baruch Spinoza and David Hume. Despite uncertainty's notable and multi-disciplinary appeal in the academic literature, the frame in which most scholars think about social and political uncertainty is one-sided. On the whole, contemporary scholars consider uncertainty as a problem in need of a remedy. In the social sciences uncertainty is transformed into risk in order to empirically calculate risk probabilities. The hope is that risks (uncertainties) can be controlled, reduced, and in all, mitigated. In this dissertation, I argue for a conceptual rethinking of uncertainty that expands its scope and reach to include a socially and politically beneficent understanding, a constructive form of uncertainty. In particular, I explore the ways social groups experience conditions of uncertainty in different contexts through an examination of what I term future-oriented and epistemic uncertainty in Hume and Spinoza's political thought. Spinoza's arguments for liberal democracy, and Hume's arguments favoring commercial society, are highlighted as instances of constructive uncertainty. The dissertation concludes by applying a general understanding of constructive uncertainty to the ideology of the American Dream in order to illustrate suggestively how a constructive conception of uncertainty might prove useful when critically engaging contemporary matters.
- Syllabus - REL/JUD/HUM 3704 (Spring 2013)Gabriele, Matthew; Sax, Benjamin E. (2012-12-14)Syllabus for REL/JUD/HUM 3704: Christians, Jews, & the Idea of Judeo-Christianity (Spring 2013).