Aesthetic Movements of a Social Imagination: Refusing Stasis and Educating Relationally/Critically/Responsibly

Academy for Educational Studies. 2419 Berkeley Street, Springfield, MO 65804. Tel: 417-299-1560; e-mail: cqieeditors@gmail.com; Web site: http://academyforeducationalstudies.org

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Aesthetics; Imagination; Aesthetic Education; Art Education; Visual Arts; Educational Philosophy; Social Responsibility; Activism; Social Justice

2327-3607

Maxine Greene centered the arts as important sites for cultivating a more relational and ethical means of educating students. Advocating for an aesthetic pedagogy, Greene conceived of aesthetics as a philosophy that studies artistic making, perception, and affect as a means of understanding experiences, and the meaning of those experiences as connecting (and awakening) individuals to/with the world. In this philosophical work, I posit Greene's concept of the social imagination as both a call for action in education and as an artful and aesthetic movement--a doing. Grounded in Greene's aesthetic pedagogy and the social imagination, this article explores how encounters with and through the arts can nurture more relational, critical, and socially responsible education. Within and inspired by questions of relationality, criticality, and responsibility, examples from the visual arts are discussed. I argue that the arts create openings for encountering contemporary socio-political complexities that oppress and persist. The arts also provoke us to move--a type of aesthetic activism is borne.

As Provided

22

2018

EJ1172312