Novel Education

Abstract

An invitation to write, to play, to be affected, to be permissive in taking note: all these gestures of freedom compose Novel Education. Britzman opens the crypt of research to and finds the perils and pleasures of narrating life in the human professions. It is at once an introduction to psychoanalytic theories of everyday education and a guide to perplexed learning. Each chapter considers the situation of pedagogy through the dream of education and analyzes learning through its emotional experiences and passions. New attention is given to aesthetic conflicts made from trying to know intersubjective life. Topics include studies of inhibition, sexuality, aggression and depression, the problems of sexual enlightenement, the uses of free association and the transference, and the play between creativity and anxiety. The second edition includes a new opening note on the problems of experience and case writing for the human sciences. A concluding chapter, "Writing on the Mind" joins a theory of group psychology to new formulations on creativity for students, teachers, parents, analysts, and children. This thought-provoking book is essential reading for undergraduates and graduates students, those teaching and learning in professional education in the fields of counseling, social work, education, and psychotherapy and anyone involved in the learning lives of others. An invitation to write, to play, to be affected, to be permissive in our note taking: All these gestures of freedom compose the play of novel education.