Aidan Seery

What does it mean to unlearn? Once we have learned something, is it ever possible to unlearn that something? If something is said to have been unlearned, does that mean that it is simply forgotten or does some residual force of learning, some perverse force, also resonate in ways that might help us to rethink traditional approaches to teaching and learning? Might we say that education today is haunted by the spectre of unlearning? This book invites readers to reflect on the possibilities of knowing, reflecting, understanding, teaching and learning in ways that allow us to imagine the other side of education, the side which understands non-knowledge, ignorance, stupidity and wonder as potentially the most important learning experiences we can ever have. In a series of provocative essays by some of the world's most renowned theorists in philosophy, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, politics and education, The Pedagogics of Unlearning challenges us to think again about what we mean when we talk about learning - about what it really means to learn - and whether the kinds of learning we imagine in our classrooms and daily lives are actually synonymous with the sort of learning we envision when we think and talk about the purpose and passage of education. If you think you know what education and learning are doing, what teaching strategies do, and what learning outcomes are, then this book asks you to think again, to unlearn what you have learned, to learn to unlearn. TABLE OF CONTENTS // amonn Dunne, "Preface: Learning to Unlearn" - Jacques Ranciere, "Unwhat?" - Deborah Britzman, "Phantasies of the Writing Block: A Psychoanalytic Contribution to Pernicious Unlearning" - Sam Chambers, "Learning How to Be a Capitalist: From Neoliberal Pedagogy to the Mystery of Learning" - John D. Caputo, "Teaching the Event: Deconstruction: Hauntology and the Scene of Pedagogy" - Paul Bowman, "The Intimate Schoolmaster and the Ignorant Stifu: Postructuralism, Bruce Lee and the Ignorance of Everyday Radical Pedagogy" - L. O. Aranye Fradenburg and Eileen A. Joy, "Unlearning: A Duologue" - Aidan Seery, "After-word(s)"The Pedagogics of Unlearning originated at a conference held at Trinity College, University of Dublin, 6-7 September 2014.

This collection provides the first in-depth, interdisciplinary and over-arching review of higher education in Ireland, situating higher education within the socio-cultural, political and historical context of the country over the past 40 years and the development of European and national policies.

This collection provides the first in-depth, interdisciplinary and over-arching review of higher education in Ireland, situating higher education within the socio-cultural, political and historical context of the country over the past 40 years and the development of European and national policies.

Professor J. Valentine Rice, erstwhile Chair of Education at Trinity College Dublin (1966-2005) to whom this volume of essays is dedicated in memoriam, engaged in the richness and diversity of education debate during the thirty-nine years that he held his academic post. His interests in the philosophy of education, Catholic education, human growth and guidance and the Irish language and culture are reflected in the essays by his former colleagues and students presented here. Whether it is the teaching of Irish, the involvement of the churches in education, the points system or the managerialism and "edunomics" of the universities, educational debate is vigorous and often passionate. The diversity of the themes of the contributions seems, on a first viewing, to indicate the lack of a common theme. On closer reflection, however, Val Rice's lifelong commitment to a view of education that must always be broad enough to encompass the many ways in which it aids genuine human flourishing, shines through. These essays are examples of the ways in which colleagues and students have responded to his influence as teacher, mentor, advocate and friend as they continue to work and engage in the broad field of education.