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Dark pedagogy explores how different perspectives can be incorporated into a darker understanding of environmental and sustainability education. Drawing on the work of the classic horror author H.P. Lovecraft and new materialist insights of speculative realism, the authors link Lovecraft's 'tales of the horrible' to the current spectres of environmental degradation, climate change, and pollution. In doing so, they draw parallels between how humans have always related to the 'horrible' things that are scaled beyond our understanding and how education can respond to an era of climate catastrophe in the age of the Anthropocene. A new and darker understanding of environmental and sustainability education is thus developed: using the tripartite reaction pattern of denial, insanity and death to frame the narrative, the book subsequently examines the specific challenges of potentials of developing education and pedagogy for an age of mass extinction. This unflinching book will appeal to students and scholars of dark pedagogies as well as those interested in environment and sustainability education.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction: Living in Dark Times.- PART I. The horror of education.- Chapter 2. Denial.- Chapter 3. Insanity.- Chapter 4. Death.- PART II. Towards dark pedagogy.- Chapter 5. Dark pedagogy between denial and insanity.- Chapter 6. Dark pedagogy in the Anthropocene.- Chapter 7. A pedagogy of vulnerability
About the author
Jonas Andreasen Lysgaard is Associate Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark.
Stefan Bengtsson is Assistant Professor at Uppsala University, Sweden. Martin Hauberg-Lund Laugesen researches in Education Science at the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark.
Summary
Dark pedagogy explores how different perspectives can be incorporated into a darker understanding of environmental and sustainability education. Drawing on the work of the classic horror author H.P. Lovecraft and new materialist insights of speculative realism, the authors link Lovecraft’s ‘tales of the horrible’ to the current spectres of environmental degradation, climate change, and pollution. In doing so, they draw parallels between how humans have always related to the ‘horrible’ things that are scaled beyond our understanding and how education can respond to an era of climate catastrophe in the age of the Anthropocene. A new and darker understanding of environmental and sustainability education is thus developed: using the tripartite reaction pattern of denial, insanity and death to frame the narrative, the book subsequently examines the specific challenges of potentials of developing education and pedagogy for an age of mass extinction. This unflinching book will appeal to students and scholars of dark pedagogies as well as those interested in environment and sustainability education.
Additional text
“Dark Pedagogy offers fresh perspectives on pedagogical possibilities for these dark times in which our encounters with the more-than-human (such as the climate crisis and a novel, highly contagious virus) are often manifested by denial, insanity, and death.” (Noel Gough, Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, Vol. 23, 2020)
Report
"Dark Pedagogy offers fresh perspectives on pedagogical possibilities for these dark times in which our encounters with the more-than-human (such as the climate crisis and a novel, highly contagious virus) are often manifested by denial, insanity, and death." (Noel Gough, Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, Vol. 23, 2020)
