Emmanuel Levinas, one of the most profoundly original Western philosophers in the twentieth century, has recently received considerable attention from educators and educational theorists. Against t...

Biesta has suggested that education after humanism should be interested in existence, not essence, in what the subject can do, not in what the subject is—the truth about the subject—and this is the way inspired by Foucault and Levinas. In this article, I analyze Foucault’s alleged deconstruction and reconfiguration of the subject and Levinas’ approach to human subjectivity and suggest that Foucault’s early and later works have already implied certain concepts of the subject and that Levinas’ approach to human subjectivity (...) does not, as has often been perceived in educational circles, avoid theorizing about human subjectivity. Drawing on the French philosophy of difference, particularly Levinas’ ideas of alterity and subjectivity, I propose a post-humanist subject as a singular existence that ‘announces, promises, and at the same time conceals’, that cannot be exhausted, totalized, and replicated. The singular and unique subject, open and responsible to the world and beyond, is indispensible to the educational mission of subjectification. (shrink)

This article introduces a form of ‘conversation’ distinct from dialogue or dialectic to the context of educational theory, practice, and research. Through an engagement with the thought of Maurice Blanchot, this paper outlines the conditions he attributes to conversation in the form of plural speech, its relationship to research, how it can be educational, and speculatively concludes by considering how it can operate productively within and around educational institutions. As such, this paper provides an original intervention into educational philosophy and (...) theory, which relies on a close reading of key sections of Blanchot's The Infinite Conversation, and reflections on the distinctiveness of his argument in relation to contemporary theoretical approaches, as well as the significance of his thought and its application here to the broader questions of what non-prescriptive theory might have to offer educational research and practice. (shrink)