Searching for Politics with Henry Giroux: Through Cultural Studies to Public Pedagogy and the “Terror of Neoliberalism”

Mapping the Complexity of Public Pedagogy Scholarship

“…Cognizant of this dilemma and faced with space constraints, we have opted to redact his references to selected representative citations and to provide this contextual information. For an extensive treatment of Giroux's body of work, see C. G. Robbins's (2009) excellent review. 2 The kinds of critical analyses of texts that Giroux and other authors perform for both academic (e.g., most of the pieces of literature were reviewed for this study) and more general audiences (e.g., through books like H. A.…”

“…Although some researchers studying popular culture (see Crowley & Rasmussen, 2010; Grummell, 2010; Sandlin, 2010; Tisdell, 2008; Wright, 2007) have collected compelling accounts of how individuals receive and utilize public pedagogies, this practice has not been widely applied to the majority of other informal sites of learning identified in the literature. Although these critiques have previously been leveled at H. A. Giroux’s body of work (see C. G. Robbins, 2009), other authors such as Ellsworth (2005) and Lacy (1995) also limit their analyses of public spaces of learning to the perspective of the researcher or the site itself. In calling for researchers to explore more fully the pedagogical processes of public pedagogy, we are not calling for public pedagogy research that utilizes empirical data as proof toward positivistic truth claims; rather, we argue for research that articulates a multitude of interpretations and that draws on psychoanalytical, phenomenological, existential, and poststructural understandings of learning to develop an empiricism that honors the complexity and ambiguity inherent in the mechanisms and processes of public pedagogy.…”

Methods that Move: A Physical Performative Pedagogy of Subjectivity

“…The provision of a space and opportunity to tussle with the tensions of body knowledge was facilitated by me posing contemplative questions, pushing the girls to imagine other possibilities, to reflect on their comments and offer potential counter-narratives. A physical performative pedagogy of subjectivity that makes an effort to make the political more pedagogical and the pedagogical more political (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005;Robbins, 2009) was brought into actuality in the girls' production of posters that critiqued the images and signs (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005) found in mediated forms such as "We Cheer." This research activity drew together the critical and counter narratives that I had initiated weekly and a space was created whereby the oppositional voice tussled with compliance to certain gender, class and race intersections.…”

Cruising for Olivia: Lesbian Celebrity and the Cultural Politics of Coming Out in Sport

“…Essentially, we contend that Olivia's involvement with Jones and Swoopes assists in the production of a particular knowledge(s) of how to "be" a successful lesbian athlete, and therefore, we are interested in unpacking the cultural climate and the manner through which this particular knowledge is produced. As knowledge is produced, distributed, and consumed within modes of communication (Robbins, 2009), we read our selected narratives to "show how the relations of power are present in the most innocent of places" (Johnson et al, 2004, p.170).…”