Dear Colleagues,
It is my pleasure to introduce the latest book in the Research and Practice in Social Studies series for Teachers College Press: Toward a Stranger & More Posthuman Social Studies, edited by Bretton Varga, Timothy Monreal, and Rebecca Christ!
It is available for purchase on the Teachers College Press website, Amazon, or anywhere you buy books! Here is the TC Press link: https://www.tcpress.com/toward-a-stranger-and-more-posthuman-social-studies-9780807768266?page_id=211
Book description: Posthumanism has seen a surge across the humanities and offers a unique perspective, seeking to illuminate the role that more-than-human actors (e.g., affect, artifacts, objects, flora, fauna, other materials) play in the human experience. This book challenges the field of social studies education to think differently about the precarious status of the world (i.e., climate crisis, ongoing fights for racial equity, and Indigenous sovereignty). By cultivating a greater sense of attunement to the more-than-human, educators and scholars can foster more ethical ways of teaching, learning, researching, being, and becoming. In an effort to push the boundaries of what constitutes social studies, chapter authors engage with a wide range of disciplines and offer unique perspectives from various locations across the globe. This volume asks: How can thinking with posthumanism disrupt normative approaches to social studies education and research in ways that promote imaginativeness, speculation, and nonconformity? How can a posthumanist lens be used to interrogate neoliberal, systemic, and oppressive conditions that reproduce and perpetuate in-humanness?
Advanced praise:
"At the intersections of posthumanisms and social studies unfold important dialogues that attend to ontoepistemological multiplicities-a critical consideration of the many bodies, beings, and imaginations of 'the social' that form and inform emergent ways of being, knowing, and doing that are co-constituted therein…. Within these bloomspaces of possibility, this volume addresses how knowledges and beings are de- and re-territorialized through the toppling of monuments, racialization, sacred energies, technologies, the arts, sexualities, and literatures, to name a few. The authors ask readers to consider what it might mean to not only approach social studies from a posthuman lens but what it might mean to teach a posthuman social studies."-From the Foreword by Boni Wozolek, assistant professor, Penn State Abington
"Bretton A. Varga, Timothy Monreal, and Rebecca C. Christ provide an indispensable guide to posthumanism in social studies education, essential reading for anyone interested in posthuman framings/orientations in this field. The chapters not only show what 'posthuman social studies' means, but also how embracing posthumanism can help social studies educators and researchers enact a more just vision and praxis for humans, nonhumans, and more-than-humans in the world."-Michalinos Zembylas, professor, Open University of Cyprus
"Varga, Monreal, and Christ curate a lively collection of chapters and short provocations that beg us to consider the 'social' of social studies in our more-than-human world. The authors illustrate that while all bodies co-create realities, truths, knowledges, and relationalities, not all bodies are one and the same in this powered world. The book is full of poignant, timely narratives crafted to demonstrate how the past, present, and future are all entangled. The result: each reader must consider how pedagogies matter in the becoming of our strange world."-Candace R. Kuby, professor, University of Missouri
Table of Contents
Foreword: Becoming Posthuman Social Studies-Boni Wozolek
Introduction: Be(com)ing Strange(r): Toward a Posthuman Social Studies-Bretton Varga, Timothy Monreal, & Rebecca Christ
Life Lessons: Posthuman Ideas About Life for an Enlivened Social Studies Education-Mark Helmsing
A Thousand Deaths: Current Events and Racial Reproductions of the Dead and Dying-Asilia Franklin-Phipps
Unsettling the "Social" in Social Studies-Cathryn van Kessel
Toppling the (Hu)Man: Posthumanism and the Mattering of Historical Spaces-Francisco Medina, Karen Zaino, & Debbie Sonu
Lives in/of Things-Sandra Schmidt
Cities as Pedagogues: Materiality in Paris's Public Sphere as a Teacher of Consciousness-Avner Segall
Mattering the Research-Jelena Aleksic
Set in Stone?: Social Studies Teacher Candidates' Conceptions of Matter-Morgan Tate & Amelia Wheeler
Following for the Community-Polina Golovátina-Mora
"I'm a Monster Now": The Construction of Spacetimemattering Through Intra-Action in Childhood-Fernando Guzmán-Simón & Alejandra Pacheco-Costa
Arboreal Methodologies: The Promise of Getting Lost (With Feminist New Materialism and Indigenous Ontologies) for Social Studies-Jayne Osgood & Suzanne Axelsson
Into the Sea: A Fictive Speculation on How to Cope at the End of the World-Peter Nelson
Not as Strange as Dying: Reimagining U.S. Social Studies as Place-Based and Decolonized-Janice Kroeger & Christine Widrig
Possibilities for Knowing Differently With a More-Than-Human Ladybird-Pedagogue-Karen Barr & Hannah Seat
(In)Separatable: Social Studies With/out the Human-Sarah Shear
The (Self/Re)generating Sacred Energy Called Teotl: Using Nahua Philosophy to Introduce Posthumanist Thinking-Timothy Monreal & Jesús Tirado
Beading Shkodé-Browning Neddeau
Re/Membering Ethical Relationality: Re/Telling Stories of Dis/citizenship as Lived-Muna Saleh
Nonhuman Alliances-Polina Golovátina-Mora
Youth Are Already Queer: Agentive Possibilities Among Queer TikTok Creators-Sandra Schmidt, Eric Estes, & Isabel Gomez
Any/bodies: Posthumanism and Economics Education-Erin Adams
Indeterminancy and Strangeness in the Posthuman Classroom: Thinking Toward Possibility-Alexandra Page
Embracing Strangeness, but Not Becoming Strangers-Alexander Butler
Afterword-Nathan Snaza
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Wayne Journell Curriculum and Instruction
Professor
Univ of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro NC
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