Towards a Plastic Starting Point: Rethinking Ethical-Political Education with Catherine Malabou

Abstract

Although there is only one name attached to this thesis, it wouldn't have come into existence if it were not for the help of a great many people. Heartfelt thanks go to my brilliant supervisors Torill Strand and Nick Peim. Working with you has been an absolute pleasure. Not only am I grateful to have such great philosophers, thinkers and writers comment on my work, I am also grateful for our friendship, and the confidence you have had in me as a philosopher.Both of you have taught me so much and the project would have been very different without you. Thank you Torill for having taken me to conferences and workshops (philosophy does really live and thrive in the Mediterranean), for involving me in numerous stimulating projects and exposing me to the life and works of a philosopher from day one. Thank you so much for your enthusiasm, generosity, and confidence. Nick, thank you for showing me England, where they drive on the left, and for showing me that philosophy is neither abstract nor elongated from daily life, even when it is. Your interest in my project has been continuously uplifting, and I have been looking forward to each and every one of our FaceTime chats. I've learned that Tony Soprano's «eh, waddaya gonna do?» is a great question to ask in the face of philosophical adversity. Torill and Nick, I am happy that our friendship and collaborations can continue.Catherine Malabou, I sincerely appreciate our friendship, your hospitality and your support for me and my project. I must also thank you for doing the work that you do -it could not be more true to say that this project would not have been the same without you! Benhur Oral, thank you so much for asking the very difficult and very right questions, and for your kind encouragement throughout. Thanks to Niri Talberg for making me realise how much I wanted to pursue this project, and for being an unwavering source of support. I'm not sure I would have embarked on this if it hadn't been for you. I truly appreciate our friendship and banter.Birgitte Ingebretsen, your love, support, and sense of realism have kept me sane. My parents and my sister, thank you for believing in me and supporting me every step of the way. You have always wished me the best, for which I am eternally grateful. My family and friends deserve thanks for their support, for asking about my research, and for patiently listening even when they realised that the answer would be long and confusing to everyone, including myself. Thanks to Caroline Cruaud for being such a talented French tutor and scholar. Thank you, the Alliance Franco-Allemande pour la caféine and The Extended Village, for providing ii French, German, coffee, brunches, outings, beers, laughs and music. Thanks to Jon Kaurel and Kalisha Wills for the laughs. Thanks to everyone in the HumStud research group and the Department of Education for accepting my proposal, and for their excellent support and impressive academic standards. Marianna Papastephanou, Benhur Oral, Anna Kouppanou, Kaja J. Rathe, the Tilos conference participant...

Is (it) time to leave eternity behind? Rethinking Bildung's implicit temporality

“…In the book that marks what has been called Malabou's 'neurological turn' (Hogstad, 2020), What Should We Do With Our Brain? (2008, she picks up a thread which was only briefly touched upon in The Future of Hegel, namely neural plasticity.…”

“…It seems, then, that Bildung cannot guarantee that education can be the redemptive or critical institution that it is usually thought to be (Masschelein & Ricken, 2003). This position has already been challenged on the basis of Malabou's plastic ontology which undermines the idea that education can be totalitarian in this way (Hogstad, 2020).…”

Slaughtering a cow in early childhood education: Pedagogic meetings with destruction as change

“…Change in education has thus been conceptualized in relation to human growth and social goals through intentional practices that are meant to guide the plastic development of children, as they become citizens. In other words, education has been designed to cause prescribed change (Hogstad, 2020).…”

“…The concept of plasticity has been re-introduced within the field of education to re-think the idea of change as goal of education (Hogstad, 2020). Change and change-ability, or plasticity, is understood as an underlying state of being both biologically and ontologically (Malabou, 2008).…”