Testimony and Narrative as a Political Relation: The Question of Ethical Judgment in Education

Abstract

In this article, we explore the role of film in educational settings and argue that testimony and narrative are dependent upon each other for developing ethical judgments. We use the film 12 Angry Men to enhance our thesis that the emotional response that sometimes is intended in using film as testimonies in classrooms requires a specific listening; a listening that puts pupils at risk when they relate testimonies to their own life narratives. The article raises the importance of listening in training narrative ethos in relation to violence witnessed in film. The article contributes by enhancing an understanding of a relational dimension to testimony and narrative, which, in an Arendtian sense, is also put forward as a political relation.

Anger and Organization Studies: From Social Disorder to Moral Order

“…It is not accidental, therefore, that this film has been used or recommended as a teaching resource in numerous courses as well as offering a rich empirical resource for researchers into group dynamics, negotiation and emotion (see e.g. Adami & Hallander, 2015;Blessing & Blessing, 2015;Waller, Sohrab, & Ma, 2013).…”