Torill Strand

• Strand, Torill (2022). What promotes justice in, for and through education today? Ethics and Education. ISSN 1744-9642. 17(2), p. 141–148. doi: 10.1080/17449642.2022.2054563.
• Strand, Torill (2022). Educative justice in viral modernity. A Badiouan reading. Ethics and Education. ISSN 1744-9642. 17(2), p. 240–253. doi: 10.1080/17449642.2022.2054560. Show summary

  The metaphor of “viral modernity” denotes an era characterized by communal experiences of how viruses, be they in the shape of physical, virtual or symbolic forms, permeate and shape social and cultural life. To think educative justice in viral modernity thus require a radical move beyond the surfaces of conventional paradigms in order to reach at a deep-seated understanding of the phenomena of education and justice itself. Motivated by this ambition, I here present a Badiouan reading of educative justice in relation to the aims and mission of philosophy of education. I start by briefly mapping out current educational philosophical paradigms and their ways of treating the issue of justice. Next, I contrast these orthodoxies to a Badiouan model. My overall ambition is to promote a philosophy of education that avoids philosophical doctrines, old and new, while simultaneously carrying a potential for unveiling the phenomenon of justice as educative truths-in-worlds.

• Schumann, Claudia & Strand, Torill (2021). Cinema, Philosophy and Education. Studies in Philosophy and Education. ISSN 0039-3746. 40(5), p. 453–459. doi: 10.1007/s11217-021-09797-2. Show summary

  This special issue responds to the current discourse on cinema and education from a philosophical point of view. Considering the fact that young people worldwide are watching films and series via their smartphones or personal computers, we here explore the educative aspects of this popular activity. Does this wide-ranging habit mis-educate the next generation? Or does cinema carry a potential for ethical-political education, parallel to the ancient Greek tragedies and the modernist Bildungsroman? The authors of this special issue deliberate this question by exploring the intersection between cinema and philosophy and the potential powers of cinematic education.

• Strand, Torill (2021). “Skam” (shame) as Ethical–Political Education. Studies in Philosophy and Education. ISSN 0039-3746. 40(5), p. 461–475. doi: 10.1007/s11217-021-09784-7. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I here explore the educational potential of cinema and TV-series through the eyes of the French philosopher Alain Badiou. To illustrate, I read the Norwegian web-based TV-series Skam (shame), which reached out to millions of Nordic teens by a broad distribution, easy access and speaking a language young people could relate to. The series portrays the many faces and ambiguities of shame and shaming embedded in Nordic youth culture. In bringing the question of the pedagogy of cinema and TV-series to the forefront, I here read Skam on three analytical levels. First, to explore the TV-series capability to captivate the viewers through a doubling of the real. Second, to examine Badiou’s idea of cinema as an ontological art, revolving around the question of the relationship between being and appearing. Third, I read Skam analytically, to consider Badiou’s claim that cinema is a democratic emblem. In sum, what may be the series’ potential for shaping the viewers’ ethical–political awareness?

• Strand, Torill (2021). "We are striking because we have done our homework" Two perspectives on contemporary youths' emerging ethical-political awareness. In Rosenthal, Edna; Bergua, Jose Angel & Lopez, Ivan (Ed.), Aftershocks: Globalism and the Future of Democracy. The University of Zaragoza. p. 459–470. doi: DOI%3A%2010.13140/RG.2.2.35866.06084.
• Strand, Torill (2021). A Semiotic Model of Learning. Chinese Semiotic Studies. ISSN 2198-9605. 17(1), p. 153–162. doi: 10.1515/css-2021-0008. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  My ambition with this paper is to throw some light on Charles S. Peirce’s (1839 – 1914) semiotic model of learning. Peirce developed this model in his later writings, where he integrated his phenomenology, pragmatism and semiotics while renewing all three. I start by introducing an analogy on pedagogy used by Peirce in one of his 1903 lectures on phenomenology. Next, I sketch out Peirce’s perspective on the ways in which we learn from experience. In the last section, I map out Peirce’s semiotic model, while indicating some prospects and limitations of a Peircean outlook on the paradoxi-cal attributions of knowledge and learning.

• Papastephanou, Marianna; Zembylas, Michalinos; Bostad, Inga; Oral, Sevget Benhur; Drousioti, Kalli & Kouppanou, Anna [Show all 10 contributors for this article] (2020). Philosophy of education in a new key: Education for justice now. Educational Philosophy and Theory. ISSN 0013-1857. doi: 10.1080/00131857.2020.1793539. Show summary

  Since Plato’s allegory of the cave two educational-philosophical critical modes have stood out: the descriptive (reality as it is) and the normative (reality as it should/could be). Reality resembles or is felt as an epistemic, political and existential permanent lockdown,1 a state of isolation where access to ideality is too restricted and rare. Confined to a dystopian(ized) place of limited light and scant possibility the philosopher aspires to help others ascend to a utopian(ized) place of luminosity and promise. Granted, the philosophical-educational community has, as a historical and contemporary collectivity, contrasted the ideal and the real in richer and more complex modes than those of a neat ‘descriptive versus normative’ binarism. Nevertheless, the search operation for finding the key to unlock the lockdown is persistent and evident in most and otherwise diverse educationalphilosophical endeavours, especially in difficult times. As such a time, the recent pandemic has turned the philosophical, figurative lockdown, literally, into a palpable reality that incites more thinking about the tension between the ideal and the real.

• Strand, Torill (2020). Here and Now. Rethinking philosophy of education. In Strand, Torill (Eds.), Rethinking Ethical-Political Education. Springer Nature. ISSN 978-3-030-49524-4. p. 263–278. doi: https%3A/doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_18. Full text in Research Archive
• Strand, Torill (2020). Rethinking ethical-political education. Beyond the Nordic Model. In Strand, Torill (Eds.), Rethinking Ethical-Political Education. Springer Nature. ISSN 978-3-030-49524-4. p. 1–10. doi: https%3A/doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_1. Full text in Research Archive
• Strand, Torill (2020). Alain Badiou and Education. In Noblit, George W. (Eds.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780190264093. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.ORE_EDU-01457.R1.
• Strand, Torill (2018). "En nesten uovervinnelig kjærlighet". Om lek, filosofi og kjærlighet. In Von Wright, Moira & Kvernbekk, Tone (Ed.), Barn og deres voksne. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202572549. p. 99–115.
• Strand, Torill & Legg, Catherine (2018). Peirce and Education: An Overview. In Peters, Michael (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer Nature. ISSN 978-981-287-532-7. doi: 10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_571-1.
• Strand, Torill (2017). "I create silence". Revisiting the ancient dispute between poetry and philosophy. In Strand, Torill; Smith, Richard D; Pirrie, Anne; gregoriou, zelia & Papastephanou, Marianna (Ed.), Philosophy as Interplay and Dialogue. Viewing landscapes within philosophy of education. LIT Verlag. ISSN 978-3-643-90956-5. p. 53–76. Show summary

  Philosophy as Interplay and Dialogue is an original and stimulating collection of essays. The book covers conceptual and critical works relevant to current theoretical developments and debates. Imagine an international group of philosophers of education coming together each summer on a Greek island. This book is a product of their diligent philosophical analysis and extended dialogues. Investigating diverse material and drawing on classical thinkers and contemporary prominent theorists with fresh and critical perspectives, all essays contribute to philosophical clarifications and the advancement of educational research.

• Strand, Torill (2016). Alain Badiou on political education. In Papastephanou, Marianna (Eds.), Cosmopolitanism: Educational, Philosophical and Historical Perspectives. Springer. ISSN 978-3-319-30428-1. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-30430-4_12.
• Strand, Torill (2015). Kosmopolitisme og realisme. Studier i Pædagogisk Filosofi. ISSN 2244-9140. 4(2), p. 1–5. doi: 10.7146/spf.v4i2.23342. Full text in Research Archive
• Strand, Torill (2015). Thinking Democracy and Education for the Present: The Case of Norway after July 22, 2011. In Jezierska, Katarzyna & Koczanowicz, Leszek (Ed.), Democracy in Dialogue, Dialogue in Democracy. The Politics of Dialogue in Theory and Practice . Ashgate. ISSN 978-1-4724-4897-2. p. 177–192. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It is widely accepted that the machinery of multicultural societies and liberal democratic systems is dependent upon various forms of dialogue - dialogue between political parties, between different social groups, between the ruling and the ruled. But what are the conditions of a democratic dialogue and how does the philosophical dialogic approach apply to practice? Recently, facing challenges from mass protest movements across the globe, liberal democracy has found itself in urgent need of a solution to the problem of translating mass activity into dialogue, as well as that of designing borders of dialogue. Exploring the multifaceted nature of the concepts of dialogue and democracy, and critically examining materializations of dialogue in social life, this book offers a variety of perspectives on the theoretical and empirical interface between democracy and dialogue. Bringing together the latest work from scholars across Europe, Democracy in Dialogue, Dialogue in Democracy offers fresh theorizations of the role of dialogue in democratic thought and practice and will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science and social and political theory.

• Strand, Torill (2014). Philosophy of Education. In Theodoropoulou, Eleni K. (Eds.), Philosophy of Education: Aspects of Praxis. Pedio. ISSN 978-960-546-149-2. p. 99–119.
• Strand, Torill (2014). For alle - Folkeuniversitetets oppdrag i et mangfoldig, globalisert og kunnskapsintensivt samfunn. In Strand, Torill (Eds.), Folkedanningens vandringer. Folkeuniversitetet 150 år. Fagbokforlaget. ISSN 978-82-450-1687-1. p. 281–303.
• Smeyers, Paul; Ruyter, Doret J. de; Waghid, Yusef & Strand, Torill (2014). Publish Yet Perish: On the Pitfalls of Philosophy of Education in an Age of Impact Factors. Studies in Philosophy and Education. ISSN 0039-3746. 33(6), p. 647–666. doi: 10.1007/s11217-014-9404-9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In many countries publications in Web of Knowledge journals are dominant in the evaluation of educational research. For various purposes comparisons are made between the output of philosophers of education in these journals and the publications of their colleagues in educational research generally, sometimes also including psychologists and/or social scientists. Taking its starting-point from Hayden’s article in this journal (2012), this paper discusses the situation of educational research in three countries: The Netherlands, South Africa and Norway. In this paper an alternative for comparing research output is offered by invoking comparisons with colleagues at the international level from within the same sub-discipline. It is argued that if one would do so a different picture would emerge, even if one were to limit oneself to particular kinds of publications. The case is then made that if comparisons are regarded as a necessary part of the evaluation of an individual scholar (for appointment, promotion, tenure, and/or funding application purposes), it would be more fair to use a proxy system which is sub-discipline specific, or minimally contains some kind of correction factor in relation to the over-all quality assessment device. Debates about the relevance or irrelevance of philosophy of education in the context of educational sciences are now obscured, even poisoned by focusing almost exclusively on a particular kind of publication output. As the ‘reward’ system that is developed accordingly is possibly the most important driver of educational research, it puts the sub-discipline unduly under pressure to the extent that it possibly cannot survive.

• Strand, Torill (2014). Experience and education. In Thellefsen, Torkild & Sørensen, Bent (Ed.), Charles Sanders Peirce in His Own Words. 100 Years of Semiotic, Communication and Cognition. De Gruyter Mouton. ISSN 9781614517535. p. 373–378.
• Strand, Torill (2014). Philosophy of education in the present. In Papastephanou, Marianna; Strand, Torill & Pirrie, Anne (Ed.), Philosophy as a Lived Experience. Navigating through dichotomies of thought and action. LIT Verlag. ISSN 978-3-643-90290-0. p. 243–257. Show summary

  Imagine an international group of philosophers of education coming together on a Greek island three years in a row to reflect and promote a conception of philosophy as a lived experience. This book is a result of their discussions and makes an original contribution to the field. The authors here present conceptual and critical works relevant to current theoretical developments and debates within the fields of philosophy and education. The articles contribute both to philosophical clarifications and the advancement of research with solid arguments for theoretical and practical redirections. To deploy their arguments, the contributors draw on classical thinkers such as Plato, Kant and Dewey, and on contemporary prominent theorists, such as Derrida, Badiou and Deleuze, with fresh and critical perspectives.

• Strand, Torill (2014). 'Experience is Our Great and Only Teacher': A Peircean Reading of Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire. Journal of Philosophy of Education. ISSN 0309-8249. 48(3), p. 433–445. doi: 10.1111/1467-9752.12084. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: Wim Wender’s film Wings of Desire tells a story of an angel who wishes to become mortal in order to know the simple joy of human life. Told from the angel’s point of view, the film is shot in black and white. But at the very instant the angel perceives the realities of human experience, the film blossoms into color. In this paper, I take this film to illustrate and explore Peirce’s notion of experience and his claim that “experience is our great and only teacher”. In his 1903 Harvard lectures, Peirce placed phenomenology at the heart of his philosophy, while outlining a notion of “experience” that clearly integrates his semiotics, phenomenology and pragmatism. To Peirce, experience is a “brutally produced conscious effect” that comes “out of practice” and is a “forcibel modification of our ways of thinking”. But as this modification is generated by the actions and flows of signs, it is pertinent to read Peirce’s notion of experience in relation to his notion of semiosis. Consequently, a Peircean reading of Wings of Desire not only helps to explore how experience teaches, but also the ways in which the rudeness of experience cannot be fully understood without considering the sign’s action.

• Strand, Torill (2013). Peirce's Rhetorical Turn: Conceptualizing education as semiosis. Educational Philosophy and Theory. ISSN 0013-1857. 45(7), p. 789–803. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00837.x. Show summary

  The later works of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1913) offers an extended metaphor of mind and a rich conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning. After a “rhetorical turn” Peirce develops his early “semiotics” into a more general theory of sign and sign use, while integrating his pragmatism, phenomenology, and semiotics. Therefore, in this article I bring Peirce’s notion of semiosis – the sign’s action – to the forefront. In doing so, I hope to disclose how Peirce’s rhetorical turn not only opens up towards a richer conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning, but also invites a shift of perspective from the psychological processes of learning to the semeiotic processes that characterizes the very dynamics of knowledge production.

• Hatlem, Marianne; Braathen, Merete Ellen; Elisenberg, Marion; Kolle, Tonje; Nolet, Ronald & Strand, Torill (2013). Barnehagen - et vindu mot verden. In Eskeland, Torill (Eds.), Barnehagen som lærings- og danningsarena: Prosjektrapport fra Sør-Trøndelag og Østfold: Artikkelsamling. Utdanningsdirektoratet. p. 167–180.
• Strand, Torill (2012). Democracy and Education for a New Era. The case of Norway after 22nd July. In Strand, Torill & Roos, Merethe (Ed.), Education for Social Justice, Equity and Diversity. LIT Verlag. ISSN 978-3-643-90255-9. p. 201–220.
• Strand, Torill (2012). The Mission of Philosophy of Education. Studier i Pædagogisk Filosofi. ISSN 2244-9140. 1(1), p. 4–16. doi: 10.7146/spf.v1i1.5504. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: Today, philosophy of education comes forward as diverse, many-faceted and numerous engagements with issues and problems concerning both the fields of philosophy and education. But what is the vital mission of contemporary philosophers of education, and how is this mission justified? Through a tentative reading of Alain Badiou’s ethic and philosophical manifestos, I here hope to throw some lights on these questions. To do so, I clarify Badiou’s epistemic and ontological positions and discuss the relevance of his “ethic of truths” and “democratic materialism”. To what degree may Badiou inform the potential topicality and relevance of a philosophy of education of and for the present?

• Strand, Torill & Jensen, Karen (2012). Researching the Current Dynamics of Professional Expertise: Three Analytic Discourses. In Vukasovic, Martina; Maassen, Peter; Nerland, Monika ; Pinheiro, Romulo ; Stensaker, Bjørn & Vabø, Agnete (Ed.), Effects of Higher Education Reforms: Change Dynamics. Brill|Sense. ISSN 978-94-6209-015-6. p. 59–78. doi: 10.1007/978-94-6209-016-3_4.
• Strand, Torill (2012). The Current Dynamics of Professional Expertise: The movable Ethos, Pathos, and Logos of four Norwegian Professions. In Cole, David R. (Eds.), Surviving Economic Crisis Through Education. Peter Lang Publishing Group. ISSN 978-1433114793. p. 198–212.
• Strand, Torill (2012). Peirce’s Rhetorical Turn: Conceptualizing education as semiosis. Educational Philosophy and Theory. ISSN 0013-1857. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00837.x. Show summary

  The later works of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1913) offers an extended metaphor of mind and a rich conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning. After a “rhetorical turn” Peirce develops his early “semiotics” into a more general theory of sign and sign use, while integrating his pragmatism, phenomenology, and semiotics. Therefore, in this article I bring Peirce’s notion of semiosis – the sign’s action – to the forefront. In doing so, I hope to disclose how Peirce’s rhetorical turn not only opens up towards a richer conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning, but also invites a shift of perspective from the psychological processes of learning to the semeiotic processes that characterizes the very dynamics of knowledge production.

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• Strand, Torill (2020). Rethinking Ethical-Political Education. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-030-49524-4. 290 p.
• Honneth, Axel; Holmes, Inger Sverreson & Strand, Torill (2019). Tingliggjøring og anerkjennelse - et nytt blikk på et gammelt begrep. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISBN 9788202595166. 132 p. Show summary

  I den nye rekken av Cappelens upopulære skrifter kommer TINGLIGGJØRING OG ANERKJENNELSE. ET NYTT BLIKK PÅ ET GAMMELT BEGREP av Axel Honneth som nr. 73. Denne boka består av to såkalte Tanner-forelesninger som Axel Honneth holdt ved University of California, Berkeley i 2005. Her behandler han begrepet tingliggjøring, først brukt av nymarxisten Georg Lukács og senere av Frankfurterskolen. De brukte alle begrepet for å beskrive det patologiske ved å behandle mennesker som ting. I dag er det filosofiske begrepet lite brukt, men kritikken av tingliggjøring lever fortsatt videre i film, skjønnlitteratur og i forskning. Tingliggjøring betyr at mennesker mister den følelsesmessige evnen til innlevelse i andre personer og hendelser. Det er et brudd med den elementære anerkjennelsen som hos Honneth er en betingelse for å være menneskelig. For han er tingliggjøring et symptom på anerkjennelsesglemsel. Med introduksjon av Torill Strand (professor i pedagogisk filosofi) og oversatt av Inger Sverreson Holmes.

• Strand, Torill; Smith, Richard D; Pirrie, Anne; gregoriou, zelia & Papastephanou, Marianna (2017). Philosophy as Interplay and Dialogue. Viewing landscapes within philosophy of education. LIT Verlag. ISBN 978-3-643-90956-5. 513 p. Show summary

  Philosophy as Interplay and Dialogue is an original and stimulating collection of essays. The book covers conceptual and critical works relevant to current theoretical developments and debates. Imagine an international group of philosophers of education coming together each summer on a Greek island. This book is a product of their diligent philosophical analysis and extended dialogues. Investigating diverse material and drawing on classical thinkers and contemporary prominent theorists with fresh and critical perspectives, all essays contribute to philosophical clarifications and the advancement of educational research.

• Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (2016). Pedagogiske fenomener. En innføring. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISBN 9788202494667. 428 p.
• Strand, Torill (2014). Folkedanningens vandringer. Folkeuniversitetet 150 år. Fagbokforlaget. ISBN 978-82-450-1687-1. 350 p.
• Papastephanou, Marianna; Strand, Torill & Pirrie, Anne (2014). Philosophy as a Lived Experience. Navigating through dichotomies of thought and action. LIT Verlag. ISBN 978-3-643-90290-0. 312 p. Show summary

  Imagine an international group of philosophers of education coming together on a Greek island three years in a row to reflect and promote a conception of philosophy as a lived experience. This book is a result of their discussions and makes an original contribution to the field. The authors here present conceptual and critical works relevant to current theoretical developments and debates within the fields of philosophy and education. The articles contribute both to philosophical clarifications and the advancement of research with solid arguments for theoretical and practical redirections. To deploy their arguments, the contributors draw on classical thinkers such as Plato, Kant and Dewey, and on contemporary prominent theorists, such as Derrida, Badiou and Deleuze, with fresh and critical perspectives.

• Strand, Torill & Roos, Merethe (2012). Education for Social Justice, Equity and Diversity. LIT Verlag. ISBN 978-3-643-90255-9. 304 p.

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• Strand, Torill (2022). What does educative justice look like? Show summary

  ABSTRACT: I will here use my experience of reading Toni Morrison’s short story Recitatif as an entry point to elucidate Badiou’s theory of justice. In doing so, I ask; what does educative justice look like? Do we dare to see what is going on? Recitatif tells a story about Twyla and Roberta, two eight-year-old girls placed in Room 406 at St. Bonaventure shelter. “My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick. That’s why we were taken to St. Bonny’s”, Twyla says. Spending four months together “really wasn’t bad”. However, “It didn’t start out that way”. “The minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced us, I got sick to my stomach. It was one thing to be taken out of your bed early in the morning – it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race”. In short, Recitatif tells a story about two girls of different races. Twyla and Roberta are both poor and wards of the state. Moreover, racial identity seems crucial to both. However, we never get to know which of these girls is black and which white. Reading the story, I was eager to guess, to assume, even to insist, but I was never sure. I still not have a clue, despite the fact that the story follows Twyla and Roberta as they grow up and become adults who occasionally meet. As I read, Recitatif came forward as a puzzle, a riddle, a mystery that played with me. Educative justice seems to be the name of that game. Reading the short story, I was at first deeply intrigued by the narrative on Twyla and Roberta’s ethical-political education. Next, I became captivated by Toni Morrison’s style of writing; her technique of playing with, and thereby teasing and enchanting, annoying and fascinating the reader. Third, I came to realize – because of my long-lasting and in-depth engagement with Alain Badiou’s philosophical texts – how this short story acted on my mind, and thereby intrigued, disturbed, challenged and transformed my idea of how educative justice looks like.

• Strand, Torill (2022). What does Educative Justice look like? Or: What happened as I read Toni Morrison’s ‘Recitatif’. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: The aim of my paper is to explore the phenomenon of educative justice. In doing so, I use my experience of reading Toni Morrison’s short story Recitatif as an entry point to explain Badiou’s theory of justice. Recitatif tells a story about Twyla and Roberta, two eight-year-old girls placed in Room 406 at St. Bonaventure shelter. “My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick. That’s why we were taken to St. Bonny’s”, Twyla says. Spending four months together “really wasn’t bad”. However, “It didn’t start out that way”. “The minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced us, I got sick to my stomach. It was one thing to be taken out of your bed early in the morning – it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race”. In short, Recitatif tells a story about two girls of different races. Twyla and Roberta are both poor and wards of the state. Moreover, racial identity seems crucial to both. However, we never get to know which of these girls is black and which white. Reading the story, I was eager to guess, to assume, even to insist, but I was never sure. I still not have a clue, despite the fact that the story follows Twyla and Roberta as they grow up and become adults who occasionally meet. As I read, Recitatif came forward as a puzzle, a riddle, a mystery that played with me. Educative justice seems to be the name of that game. Reading the short story, I was at first deeply intrigued by the narrative on Twyla and Roberta’s ethical-political education. Next, I became captivated by Toni Morrison’s style of writing; her technique of playing with, and thereby teasing and enchanting, annoying and fascinating me. Third, I came to realize – because of my long-lasting and in-depth engagement with Alain Badiou’s philosophical texts – how this short story acted on my mind, and thereby intrigued, disturbed, challenged and educated my idea of how educative justice looks like.

• Strand, Torill (2022). Thinking educational justice.
• Strand, Torill (2021). Thinking educational justice in viral modernity. Show summary

  The coronavirus has sparked an intense philosophical debate on how the virus cuts in the very fabric of human existence (Agamben 2020, Butler 2020, Castrillon & Marchevsky 2021, Žižek 2020). The pandemic revealed our physical fragility, destabilized our economy and isolated us from family and friends. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic clearly connects us to a global community of destiny and inflicts our mindsets. The Covid-19 pandemic has thus reinvigorated the discourse on “viral modernity”, which refers to “the nature of viruses and the ancient and critical role they play in evolution of culture” (Peters, Jandric & McLaren 2020, p. 3). In general, viruses act as pharmakon, both as remedy and as poison, as they form part of the system and processes of their host (Dupré & Guttinger 2016). From the perspective of microbiology, viruses are submicroscopic agents that infect all types of life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms. From the perspective of computer science, a virus is a computer program that replicates itself by writing its own code into the host program. From the perspective of the informational sciences, however, viruses may take the shape of information and may influence our ideas on what counts in the world (Baker et al 2020). Viruses, in the shape of physical, virtual or symbolic forms, may well infect human bodies, social networks and minds. When speaking of a “viral modernity”, contemporary philosophers thus refer to “the profound interaction between the sociological and the ecological, understanding them as part of the same metabolism” (Malabou 2017, p. 1). This discourse is reflected in the ways in which contemporary philosophers of education address today’s burning issues, such as “environmental ethics” (Stables 2020), “pandemic education” (Sturm, Gibbons and Peters 2020), “education in a post-truth world” (Horsthemke 2017) or “what it means to be human” (Oral 2020). To think educational justice within viral modernity, however, does not only require a rethinking of educational practices in face of today’s challenges. It also requires a deeper and more radical redefinition of humanity as part of a larger living and technological system. Consequently, viral modernity calls for a considerate rethinking of the phenomena of education and justice itself. My aim with this paper is to respond to this call.

• Strand, Torill (2020). Thinking a Pedagogy for Justice Now: Political philosophy of Education in a Time of Pandemic.
• Strand, Torill (2019). Cinema & Philosophy - some notes on the educational aspects.
• Strand, Torill (2019). Truth and Education. Revisiting Plato’s allegory of the Cave. Show summary

  Plato’s allegory of the cave portrays a move towards insight, wisdom or knowledge of the common good. We may label this process paideia (Jaeger, 1973), Bildung (Humboldt, 1993) or simply education. In this seminar, we re-visit Plato’s allegory of the cave while exploring to what degree – and in what ways – the allegory may portray ethical-political education of and for the present. In doing so, we compare and contrast Martin Heidegger’s (1940) transitional reading with Alain Badiou’s (2012) hyper-translation. To Heidegger, Plato’s ambition is to illuminate his doctrine of truth. He argues that Plato constituted a turning point in the history of philosophy, introducing a new way of thinking the experience of truth (aletheia). In his 1940 essay on The Doctrine of Truth, however, Heidegger paints Plato as an educationalist. What is vital for the history of truth is in fact an illustration of the essence of education. Following Badiou, Plato’s allegory of the cave carries three dimensions that together portray this educational process: The situation, the event and the subject. The situation is “the cave of illusion”, in which the artificial images and the shadows of the simulacra are taken to signify the world. The event is the unexpected turning of the head; the unpredictable escape; the surprising ascension into the open air; and the experience of the sun and the beauty of the objects of the world outside. The subject is an operation that may produce something new. In other words, a subject is a process that gradually unfolds the imports of the event. In short, the allegory of the cave seems to imply that education is a process related to truth, a process that may or may not emerge from a situated event.

• Strand, Torill (2019). Anti-politics and ontological awareness. Show summary

  I here explore ways of thinking the ontological and historical conditions for ethical-political education of and for the present. In doing so, I compare and contrast Alain Badiou’s ontology with Axel Honneth’s political theory of recognition while using the ongoing Global Strike for Climate Change as an example. Here and now, as I am writing this, hundreds of thousands of students from all over the world have walked out of their classrooms in a call for more action to fight climate change. Today, crowds of youths are flooding the streets of our cities, from Sydney to Berlin, from Bangkok to New Delhi, Oslo and London. But how should we read the historical and ontological conditions that generate these youths emerging ethical-political awareness? Following Badiou, the Global Strike for Climate Change is sign of a political event. First, because it addresses an issue that at every moment concerns people all over the world. Second, because it summons and reveals the endless character of the situation. Third, because it puts the state – in both the ontological and historical senses of the term – at a distance by assigning a measure to its superpower. “For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis, but we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer. We are striking because we have done our homework and they have not,” Greta Thunberg, a 16-year old Swedish activist, says. My focus, however, is not so much the tangible aspects of the strike, but rather the anti-political, or what comes before these youth’s ethical-political awareness. How should we think the historical and ontological conditions for such an emerging awareness? Moreover, is it possible to envision an ethical-political education that considers these conditions?

• Strand, Torill (2019). Educating Humanity: On anti-politics and ontological awareness.
• Strand, Torill (2019). Here and Now: Rethinking philosophy of education.
• Strand, Torill & Vetlesen, Arne Johan (2019). Cappelens upopulære podkast. Axel Honneth - Tingliggjøring og anerkjennelse. [Internet]. SoundCloud.com.
• Strand, Torill (2019). Tingliggjøring som anerkjennelsesglemsel - en introduksjon, Tingliggjøring og anerkjennelse - et nytt blikk på et gammelt begrep. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202595166. p. 7–30. Show summary

  I den nye rekken av Cappelens upopulære skrifter kommer TINGLIGGJØRING OG ANERKJENNELSE. ET NYTT BLIKK PÅ ET GAMMELT BEGREP av Axel Honneth som nr. 73. Denne boka består av to såkalte Tanner-forelesninger som Axel Honneth holdt ved University of California, Berkeley i 2005. Her behandler han begrepet tingliggjøring, først brukt av nymarxisten Georg Lukács og senere av Frankfurterskolen. De brukte alle begrepet for å beskrive det patologiske ved å behandle mennesker som ting. I dag er det filosofiske begrepet lite brukt, men kritikken av tingliggjøring lever fortsatt videre i film, skjønnlitteratur og i forskning. Tingliggjøring betyr at mennesker mister den følelsesmessige evnen til innlevelse i andre personer og hendelser. Det er et brudd med den elementære anerkjennelsen som hos Honneth er en betingelse for å være menneskelig. For han er tingliggjøring et symptom på anerkjennelsesglemsel. Med introduksjon av Torill Strand (professor i pedagogisk filosofi) og oversatt av Inger Sverreson Holmes.

• Strand, Torill (2018). Rethinking philosophy of education.
• Strand, Torill (2018). Here and Now: Rethinking philosophy of education. Show summary

  The TV-series “Here and Now” (HBO 2018) can be seen as an allegory of the current crisis within philosophy of education. The main character is the depressed philosopher Greg Boatwright, father of four: three adopted children - from Liberia, Vietnam and Colombia - and a biological daughter, who calls herself “the boring white chick in the family”. Raising this family was to Greg and his wife a “great progressive experiment in diversity”. However, at his 60th birthday he delivers a disturbingly pessimistic speech: “It all failed”. Later he confides to his daughter: “sometimes I feel like the world’s falling apart”. In face of such a crisis it is pertinent to re-think philosophy of education, old and new. The aim of this paper is to explore to what degree Alain Badiou’s anti-philosophy may represent a way of doing so. To Badiou, an “anti-philosophical” practice is first of all faithful to the present situation. Next, it articulates the means of philosophy. Philosophy is thus turned towards and against itself in order to renew and strengthen its task. In the first part of this paper I perform a close reading of Alain Badiou’s “logic of worlds” in order to clarify his ontological positions and “ethic of truths”. Next, I compare and contrast Badiou’s position with some contemporary philosophies of education. Referring to Greg’s pessimistic speech we may ask: Did they all fail? To what degree may Badiou’s anti-philosophy inform the potential topicality and relevance of a philosophy of education of and for the present?

• Strand, Torill (2018). “An almost invincible love”: On play, philosophy and education. Show summary

  In order to throw some lights on a possible way of thinking the relationship between a child’s play, imagination and the work of Bildung I here perform a three-step analyses of a scene from Margret Olin's documentary "Childhood" (2017). One of the scenes shows a 6 year old boy sitting on the floor next to a lot of small animals and cars placed in a long line. The boy throws a glance at his teacher: - They are on their way to the evil’s castle - Yes? - Isn’t this a lot of soldiers and warfare equipment? - Yes - They are on their way to the wicked […] - But aren’t there anyone who can help? - The only thing that can stop them is an almost invincible love. That's the only thing that can stop them - Yes - But you get three things to make it. It's a tooth that is completely loose like a human in the mouth with the starving crocodile. And then you have to find a skeleton from a famished dragon. And then one must find the one eye of a zombie. - Yes - And if you mix that together, it becomes love […] Why a philosophical exploration of play? My ambition is neither to follow the philosophical traditions that romanticize children’s play (i.e. Froebel 1826, Rousseau 1762) nor to associate play with learning (i.e. Locke 1693, Froebel 1826 and Dewey 1917). Neither is my ambition to underline the link between play and aesthetic experience (i.e. Kant 1790, Schiller 1795, Gadamer 1960) or to highlight the relationship between play and social competence (Mead 1934). My ambition is rather to tentatively explore ways of thinking the relation/non-relation between play and education through the eyes of Alain Badiou: To what degree – and in what ways – may we assert that this 6 year old boy’s play represents a privileged space? Does this playful episode produce, express or communicate something? And if so, is it possible to justify the idea that there may be some (impossible) relations between play and education?

• Strand, Torill (2018). Play - philosophy- love.
• Strand, Torill (2018). ‘Skam’, Shame and Bildung. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: In what ways do the Norwegian web-based TV series Skam (Shame) depict the link between the many faces of individual, social and cultural phenomena of ‘shame’ and the formative processes of ‘self-cultivation’ (Bildung)? Do we trust this depiction? Does the web-based series signify a new type of public education (Volksbildung)? If so, may the series help to re-think Bildung for contemporary societies? I here explore these questions through a semiotic reading of the fourth season. Skam portrays the daily lives of High School students at the affluent West of Oslo. The main characters are five girls, “the losers of the school”. To represent the youth’s own stories, the production of the series was based on hours-long individual interviews with the target audience. A new web-based episode was published daily and the characters’ fictional Facebook conversations and Instagram photos were displayed while airing. The fourth season follows the character Sana and focuses on Islamic religion, forbidden love and cyberbullying. Iman Meskini (19) – the actress who played the character – admits that she is now a role model for many Muslim girls. In my semiotic reading of clips from Sana’s daily life I draw on contemporary political theories and philosophies of shame, Bildung and the relationship between the two. At the first and initial level of interpretation I focus on the multiple meanings of Sana’s headscarf in relation to the many faces and ambiguities of shame. As the root of the noun ‘shame’ (shãm) denotes the parts of the body that modesty requires to be concealed, we may assume that Sana’s vailing may signify ambiguous feelings or states of shame, or ways of being shamed through values embedded in the Western or Islamic culture. But is it necessarily so? At the next level, I focus on how Sana stages herself through the non-color black: Sana’s black clothing, black lipstick and her motto “black is my happy color” seem to carry multiple meanings. As the Greek word for ‘shame’ - ‘aischyne’ - links shame to the aesthetics, Sana’s black may signify a darkness that simultaneously obscures and discloses shame and shaming. Black indicates a void, but also a multiplicity: Sana’s black staging may thus be read as signs of her ethical political formation in terms of both personal and cultural stasis and maturation. At the third analytic level, however, I explore the potential message and import of a speech: In the very last episode Sana throws a party to celebrate Eid al-Fitr (the breaking of the Muslim fast). Arriving at the party, her friends greet her Eid Mubārak and give a speech: “Dear Sana, this speech is to you … because what you invite us to today overturns US presidents tomorrow”. This personal speech touches on urgent ethical-political issues and sums up the plot of the fourth season. But it may also signify an ambition of the creators to ‘educate’ their target audience. Thus, we may again ask to what degree the series help to re-think Bildung for contemporary societies? Does the web-based series signify a new type of public education (Volksbildung)?  

• Strand, Torill (2017). Shame and Bildung .
• Strand, Torill (2017). The thinking university - Thoughts in motion. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: What does it mean to think within and beyond a 21st century university? And to what degree may such thinking be regarded as educative? Philosophers, such as Kant, Humboldt, Jaspers and Habermas, hold that a university is a place for thinking and thus for Bildung (education). However, today their ideas of a thinking university – and thus of higher education – seem contested. It is held that they are rooted in dated notions of “a university” and of “thinking”, and therefore mirror conventional notions on the relationship between thinking, education and a university. My aim with this paper is to explore the triadic knot between thinking, education and a university. In doing so, I perform a close reading of Alain Badiou’s conception of “thinking” in relation to cutting edge research on “education” and a “university”. I start by introducing a brief outline of contemporary notions of a university, of education and the relationship between the two. Next, I perform an in-depth reading of Alain Badiou’s “Being and Event” and “Logic of Worlds” in order to explore his notion of “thinking”, or “thoughts in motion”. In doing so, I compare and contrast Badiou’s notion of “thoughts in motion” to earlier and contemporary conceptions of “thinking”. The third and last section focuses on the triadic knot between thinking, education and a university. With Alain Badiou I here ask: What does it mean to think within and beyond a 21st century university? And to what degree may such thinking be regarded as educative?

• Strand, Torill (2017). Educating Humanity. Show summary

  Throughout the Republic, Plato offers elusive imageries of the importance of our understanding of goodness, in which the allegory of the cave is the most famous. It seems that Plato wants to tell us that morality can never be understood, and justice not achieved, without an understanding of goodness. In this view, the allegory of the cave proposes an image of a potential formative process that may advance goodness and humanity.

• Strand, Torill (2017). The thinking university. Show summary

  Philosophers, such as Kant, Humboldt, Jaspers and Habermas, hold that a university is a place for thinking and thus for Bildung (education). However, today their ideas of a thinking university – and thus of higher education – seem contested. My aim with this paper is to explore the triadic knot between thinking, education and a university. In doing so, I perform a close reading of Alain Badiou’s conception of “thinking” in relation to classic notions of a “thinking university”. I start by introducing a brief outline of classical and contemporary ideas of a university. Next, I perform an in-depth reading of Alain Badiou’s “Being and Event” and “Logic of Worlds” in order to explore his notion of “thinking”, or “thoughts in motion”. In doing so, I compare and contrast Badiou’s notion of “thoughts in motion” to earlier and contemporary conceptions of “thinking”. The third and last section focuses on the triadic knot between thinking, education and a university. With Alain Badiou I here ask: What does it mean to think within and beyond a 21st century university? And to what degree may such thinking be regarded as educative?

• Strand, Torill (2016). Educating Humanity: Revisiting Plato’s Republic.
• Strand, Torill (2016). Alain Badiou on political education: Revisiting Plato’s Republic. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: Despite Plato’s dated view of society and thus an arguably highly problematic perspective on formal education and training, the French philosopher Alain Badiou (1937 - ) holds that “Plato must be restored”. But why does Badiou turn to Plato? What does he seem to gain from Plato’s dialogues? And in what ways may his way of re-reading Plato relate to ethical-political education? In exploring these questions, I take Badiou’s hypertranslation of the allegory of the cave as an exemplary illustration of Badiou’s claim that “…the only education is an education by truths”. In doing so, I read Badiou’s hypertranslation of Plato’s allegory at three analytical levels. First, I point to how this allegory pictures education as a move away from illusio, beyond doxa and towards noesis. Second, how the allegory illustrates a generic truth procedure that not only troubles Socrates, Amantha and Glaucon’s conventional beliefs of education, but also the very foundation of their beliefs. My third reading, however, focuses on the ways in which Badiou’s hypertranslation re-writes, discusses and amplifies generic truth procedures. Badiou’s hypertranslation of Plato’s allegory of the cave may thus be taken to illustrate how the work of philosophy may give new impetus to the potential powers of generic truths. I here argue that Badiou’s hyper - translation of the Republic should not unilaterally be read as an actualization of Plato's classic text. It should also be read as a renewal and strengthening of the truths that originated with Plato and still characterizes the western world’s master discourse on education. It is also a comment to this discourse’s blind spots. We – the readers – are therefore invited to participate in the movable thinking that originated with Plato and which is here re-presented and re-conceived by Badiou.

• Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (2016). Avslutning. Hva er pedagogikk? In Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (Ed.), Pedagogiske fenomener. En innføring. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202494667. p. 405–414.
• Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (2016). Introduksjon. In Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (Ed.), Pedagogiske fenomener. En innføring. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202494667. p. 13–28.
• Kvernbekk, Tone; Kvamme, Ole Andreas & Strand, Torill (2016). Universitetet. In Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (Ed.), Pedagogiske fenomener. En innføring. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202494667. p. 282–292.
• Strand, Torill (2016). Globalt medborgerskap. In Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (Ed.), Pedagogiske fenomener. En innføring. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202494667. p. 355–365.
• Strand, Torill (2016). Pedagogikkens samfunnsoppdrag. In Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (Ed.), Pedagogiske fenomener. En innføring. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202494667. p. 330–341.
• Strand, Torill (2016). Læring. In Kvamme, Ole Andreas; Kvernbekk, Tone & Strand, Torill (Ed.), Pedagogiske fenomener. En innføring. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202494667. p. 84–97.
• Strand, Torill (2016). The Paradoxical Attributions of Democratic Will Formation. Show summary

• Strand, Torill (2016). “I create silence”. Reentering the ancient dispute between poetry and philosophy . Show summary

  In his essay on “The Age of the Poets”, Alain Badiou asserts that “… the poem can assume within thinking the operations left vacant by philosophy”. But what does he mean by saying that? And how does he conceive the link between poetry and philosophy? In the essay, Badiou questions an era (“the age of the poets”) in which philosophy is sutured. This kind of suturing, Badiou claims, has paralyzed philosophy. Badiou’s ambition is clearly to save philosophy from its paralyzed state and also to recognize poetry as an independent “thinking subject”. Consequently, he reenters the ancient dispute between poetry and philosophy with new eyes. My overall ambition with this paper is to throw some lights on Badiou’s recognition of poetry in his ambition to renew and strengthen philosophy. I will also offer a short comment on the way in which Badiou reminds us that art – especially poetry – all since Protagoras has been conceived as “the key to education".

• Strand, Torill (2016). Xenia - the rituals of hospitality.
• Strand, Torill (2015). Hvorfor humaniorastudier?
• Strand, Torill (2015). Skolens samfunnsoppdrag. Bør vi tenke utdanning, danning og demokratisk deltakelse på nytt? .
• Strand, Torill (2015). Xenia - the rituals of hospitality. Show summary

  In Homer’s epic poems, giving and receiving xenia (the rituals of hospitality) is a recurrent theme. Over and over again Homer describes how these rituals created and expressed a reciprocal relationship between guest and host and also political alliances. In the Iliad the Trojan War was a result of a violation of xenia. In the Odyssey, every household is depicted in conjunction with hospitality. To the ancient Greeks, generosity, kindness and courtesy shown to strangers were considered both a right and a duty; their ability to abide to the laws of xenia or theoxenia signified dignity. Plato portrays Homer as the protos didaskalos (“first teacher”) and the hegemon paideias (“leader of Greek culture”). But what did Homer teach, and how did he teach it? In this paper I place Homer’s way of teaching xenia in the intersection between contemporary philosophy, literature and politics, as I here read Homer’s epic poems through the lenses of Alain Badiou. Badiou describes the power of literature as a “transition from knowledge to thought”. This transition happens, first, through literature’s encounter with the real; next, by the way the real is marked by that which has never taken place and will never happen. The acts of poetry and prose thus generate imaginaries that may “pierce a hole in knowledge”. In this way, literature carries the potentiality to name “a real to which politics remains closed”.

• Strand, Torill (2014). Folkedanningens vandringer. Show summary

  I 1864 tok studentene ved Universitetet i Oslo demokratioppdraget på alvor og stiftet «Studenternes Forening for fri Undervisning». Formålet var «at skaffe ubemidlede Personer, Voxne og Børn, fri Undervisning eller veiledning i de til alminnelige Dannelse henhørende Fag» (Morgenbladet 1865). Kunnskap skulle være for alle, ikke bare de privilegerte. Men hvordan tenke forbindelsen mellom kunnskap, danning og aktivt medborgerskap i dag? I forlengelse av forelesningen vises dokumentaren «Folkeopplysning: Oppdragelse, deltagelse, deling?»

• Strand, Torill (2014). CRITICAL THINKING RECONSIDERED Plato’s Meno meets Alain Badiou. Show summary

  In order to explore some aspects of critical thinking I here put Alain Badiou’s conceptual apparatus into play in a critical reading of Plato’s Meno. The inspiration for doing so is Badiou’s “contemporary Platonism” (Bartlett, 2011) and his fresh hypertranslation of Plato’s Republic (Badiou, 2012) . Consequently, in this paper I will not present a scholarly and somewhat anachronistic interpretation of Plato. I would rather let Plato’s Meno face Badiou’s conceptual apparatus in order to reconsider our ways of thinking about critical thinking. It should therefore be said already by now that “critical thinking” will not here be explored as a cognitive practice. On the contrary, my ambition with this paper is to use the meeting between Plato’s dialogue and Badiou’s logic as a tool to explore thinking as a dialogical, productive subject in regards to education : What does it mean to think critically? How should we understand the object of critical thinking? Who is the subject of thought? What may be the work of such thinking? And what is thought?

• Strand, Torill (2014). ‘…the only education is an education by truths’ Alain Badiou on education.
• Strand, Torill (2014). Alain Badiou on political education. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: In this paper I perform a critical reading of the French philosopher Alain Badiou’s hypertranslation of Plato’s Republic in order to outline Badiou’s approach to political education. Despite claiming that “the only education is an education by truths” Badiou never explicitly discusses his notion of education. However, Badiou’s way of turning to Plato seems to reveal an ambition to re-establish the importance of the link between truth and political education. I start by portraying Badiou’s way of reimagining and renewing Plato’s classical text. In Badiou’s hypertranslation, Socrates and his companions are joined by figures such as Beckett, Pessoa, Freud and Hegel. And these figures do not simply agree with Socrates: they dispute, debate, discuss, contest and argue. Badiou’s hypertranslation of Plato’s Republic thus demonstrates thoughts in motion. Next, I read these “thoughts in motion” against Badiou’s logic. In doing so I point to how Badiou – especially in his Logic of Worlds – models the potential powers of such thinking. Through his key concepts “conditions”, “event”, “fidelity” and “truths” Badiou models thinking (thoughts in motion) as a dialogical, productive subject. However, to be beneficial, thinking must be directed towards truths. To Badiou, truths – or rather generic truth procedures – “pierce a hole in knowledge” as they interrupt, disturb and are subtracted from the circulating rule of opinion. As Badiou states that “the only education is an education by truths”, it is exactly this notion of education he depicts by his hyper-translation of Plato’s Republic. In the main part of the paper I take the way Badiou re-writes Plato’s allegory of the cave to illustrate Badiou’s notion of education. At the first analytic level, this allegory pictures education as a trajectory, a move away from illusio, beyond doxa and towards noesis. At the next level, the allegory illustrates thoughts in motion; a generic truth procedure that not only trouble Socrates, Amantha and Glaucon’s conventional beliefs of education, but also the very foundation of their beliefs. At the third level, however, the very ways in which Badiou’s hyper - translation re-writes, discusses and amplifies generic truth procedures, illustrates how the work of philosophy may give new impetus to the potential powers of generic truths. Truths are generic in the sense of truth-procedures that reveal or unfold something entirely new, something that cannot be grasped or apprehended by the already established categories of the discourse, and thus goes beyond the situation: “Created in one world, it is in fact valid for other worlds and virtually to all”. In other words, Badiou’s hyper - translation of the Republic cannot unilaterally be read as an actualization of Plato's classic text. It should also be read as a renewal and strengthening of the truths that originated with Plato and still characterizes the western world’s master discourse on education. It is also a comment to this discourse’s blind spots. We - the readers – are thus invited to participate in the movable thinking that originated with Plato and which is here re-presented and re-conceived by Badiou. References Badiou, A. (2012). Plato’s Republic. Cambridge: Polity Press Badiou, A. (2009). Logic of Worlds. Being and Event II. Bloomsbury: Continuum Bartlett, A. J. (2011). Badiou and Plato. An Education by Truths. Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press

• Strand, Torill (2014). Badiou on Education. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: In this paper I perform a critical reading of the French philosopher Alain Badiou’s hypertranslation of Plato’s Republic in order to outline Badiou’s approach to political education. Despite claiming that “the only education is an education by truths” Badiou never explicitly discusses his notion of education. However, Badiou’s way of turning to Plato seems to reveal an ambition to re-establish the importance of the link between truth and education. I start by portraying Badiou’s way of reimagining and renewing Plato’s classical text. In Badiou’s hypertranslation, Socrates and his companions are joined by figures such as Beckett, Pessoa, Freud and Hegel. And these figures do not simply agree with Socrates: they dispute, debate, discuss, contest and argue. Badiou’s hypertranslation of Plato’s Republic thus demonstrates thoughts in motion. Next, I read these “thoughts in motion” against Badiou’s logic. In doing so I point to how Badiou – especially in his Logic of Worlds – models the potential powers of such thinking. Through his key concepts “conditions”, “event”, “fidelity” and “truths” Badiou models thinking (thoughts in motion) as a dialogical, productive subject. However, to be beneficial, thinking must be directed towards truths. To Badiou, truths – or rather generic truth procedures – “pierce a hole in knowledge” as they interrupt, disturb and are subtracted from the circulating rule of opinion. As Badiou states that “the only education is an education by truths”, it is exactly this notion of education he depicts by his hyper-translation of Plato’s Republic. In the main part of the paper I take the way Badiou re-writes Plato’s allegory of the cave to illustrate Badiou’s notion of education. At the first analytic level, this allegory pictures education as a trajectory, a move away from illusio, beyond doxa and towards noesis. At the next level, the allegory illustrates thoughts in motion; a generic truth procedure that not only trouble Socrates, Amantha and Glaucon’s conventional beliefs of education, but also the very foundation of their beliefs. At the third level, however, the very ways in which Badiou’s hyper - translation re-writes, discusses and amplifies generic truth procedures, illustrates how the work of philosophy may give new impetus to the potential powers of generic truths. Truths are generic in the sense of truth-procedures that reveal or unfold something entirely new, something that cannot be grasped or apprehended by the already established categories of the discourse, and thus goes beyond the situation: “Created in one world, it is in fact valid for other worlds and virtually to all”. In other words, Badiou’s hyper - translation of the Republic cannot unilaterally be read as an actualization of Plato's classic text. It should also be read as a renewal and strengthening of the truths that originated with Plato and still characterizes the western world’s master discourse on education. It is also a comment to this discourse’s blind spots. We - the readers – are thus invited to participate in the movable thinking that originated with Plato and which is here re-presented and re-conceived by Badiou.

• Papastephanou, Marianna; Strand, Torill & Pirrie, Anne (2014). Philosophy as a lived experience. In Papastephanou, Marianna; Strand, Torill & Pirrie, Anne (Ed.), Philosophy as a Lived Experience. Navigating through dichotomies of thought and action. LIT Verlag. ISSN 978-3-643-90290-0. p. 9–20. Show summary

  Imagine an international group of philosophers of education coming together on a Greek island three years in a row to reflect and promote a conception of philosophy as a lived experience. This book is a result of their discussions and makes an original contribution to the field. The authors here present conceptual and critical works relevant to current theoretical developments and debates within the fields of philosophy and education. The articles contribute both to philosophical clarifications and the advancement of research with solid arguments for theoretical and practical redirections. To deploy their arguments, the contributors draw on classical thinkers such as Plato, Kant and Dewey, and on contemporary prominent theorists, such as Derrida, Badiou and Deleuze, with fresh and critical perspectives.

• Strand, Torill (2013). Metapolitikk: Alain Badious danningsbegrep. Show summary

  SAMMENDRAG: Hva er Badious ide om danning? Hvordan ser han for seg at slik danning skjer? Og hva er danningens formål? På torsdagens fagdebatt(ikk) inviterer jeg til å undersøke disse spørsmålene gjennom en kritisk lesing av Badious hyper-oversettelse av Platons Staten. Jeg starter med å vise hvordan Badiou nyleser Platon. I Badious versjon av Staten er Sokrates og hans følgesvenner i selskap med figurer som Beckett, Pessoa, Freud og Hegel. Og de er ikke bare enig med Sokrates: de kverulerer, debatterer, diskuterer og argumenterer. Slik demonstrerer Badious hyper-oversettelse tanker i bevegelse. Slike «tanker i bevegelse» må forstås i lys av Badious logikk. Vi tar derfor et lite skritt til siden for å se hvordan Badiou, spesielt i verket Logics of Worlds, begrepsfester tenkning. Tenkning er for Badiou et dialogisk, produktivt subjekt. Og tenkning har en potensiell kraft, fordi sannhet – eller snarere generiske sannhets prosedyrer – «slår hull i kunnskapen» ved å intervenere, forstyrre og snu opp ned på selve grunnlaget for våre oppfatninger. Badiou slår fast at «den eneste form for danning er danning frembrakt av sannheter». Det er nettopp en slik form for danning Badiou illustrerer med sin hyper-oversettelse av Platons Staten. Et eksempel er Platons hulelignelse, som Badiou skriver om til en lignelse om en kinosal der publikum sitter i mørket med hodetelefoner. [Kapittel 16 av Badious versjon av Staten er vedlagt. Fortellingen om kinosalen begynner øverst på side 212]. Badious nyskriving av Platons hulelignelse illustrerer tre aspekter ved slik danning. 1. For det første illustrerer prosessen med å stige ut av kinosalen, glippe med øynene mot lyset og etter hvert få øye på sola, tilskuerens danningsprosess. Her frigjøres hun fra illusio, overskrider doxa og er på vei mot noesis (selvdanning). Med andre ord skrider hun ut av de illusjonene som er skapt av filmens verden og over mot det virkelige livets erfaringsverden. 2. Deretter, ved å plassere fortellingen om kinosalen som del av en intens debatt mellom Sokrates, Amantha og Glaucon om hva som bør kjennetegne god leder(ut)danning, anskueliggjør Badiou tenkning i bevegelse. Måten Badiou framstiller denne debatten på viser hvordan Sokrates, Amantha og Glaucons ideer beveges: Diskusjonen bølger fram og tilbake. Og de tre lar seg bevege av tanker som ikke bare trøbler deres ideer om godt lederskap, men som også beveger selve grunnlaget for deres oppfatninger, både om det gode samfunn, om kinopublikummet og om god leder(ut)danning. 3. Et tredje element er hvordan Badious hyper-oversettelse av Platons hulelignelse framskriver, problematiserer og forsterker generiske sannhetsprosedyrer, for på den måten å gi fornyet kraft til disse sannhetsprosedyrenes danningspotensial. Sannhetsprosedyrene er generiske i betydningen av en sannhet som avdekker eller utfolder noe fullstendig nytt, noe som ikke kan gripes eller begripes med diskursens allerede etablerte kategorier, og som går ut over situasjonen: «Skapt i en verden, er den i virkeligheten gyldig for andre verdener og virtuelt for alle». Med andre ord kan Badious hyper-oversettelse av Staten ikke ensidig leses som en nyskriving og aktualisering av Platons klassiske tekst. Den må også leses både som en gjeninstituering av de sannhetsprosedyrer som oppsto med Platon og som fortsatt preger den vestlige verdens mesterdiskurs om (ut)danning, og som en kommentar til denne mesterdiskursens blinde flekker. Slik inviteres vi – leserne – til å delta i den bevegelige tenkningen som oppsto med Platon, og som her framstilles og nyskapes av Badiou.

• Strand, Torill (2013). Norway. Show summary

  In Norway, philosophy of education does not operate in the same hostile climate as in other European countries. The great majority of Norwegian philosophers of education have a tenured position, which implies that their salaries are safely secured by the state’s basic funding of the Norwegian Universities and University Colleges. A strong commitment to various aspects of education shapes the course, topics, approaches, methods and dissemination of their work. This is a continuation of the strong tradition of the Norwegian school of ‘philosophers of praxis’ (i.e. Hellesnes, 1969; Skjervhem, 1969). Moreover, Norwegian philosophers of education publish widely in a large number of journals on educational theory, research and practice, not in philosophy journals. Most publications are in Norwegian. But with the stated ambition of promoting Norway as a “leading knowledge based economy” (Ministry of Knowledge, 2012) follows the expectation of more international publications and to “save” the quality of Norwegian educational research by performing systematic meta-analysis and reflections on the visions, missions and quality-criteria of educational research (Norwegian Research Council, 2004, 2006). This development creates quite a few dilemmas and puts the field under pressure along the lines observed in many countries worldwide.

• Strand, Torill; Smeyers, Paul; Reuyter, Doret De & Waghid, Yusef (2013). “Publish yet Perish”: Philosophy of Education in an Age of Impact Factors. Show summary

  What kind of research do philosophers of education do? And what may be the relevance and impact of their scholarly activities? In a recent empirical study, Matthew Hayden (2012) used the titles, abstracts and keywords of 1,572 articles published from 2000 to 2010 in four journals to portray the sub-discipline and its impact. His ambition was “to empirically determine what the field is saying about itself,” and to describe recent trends and thematic topics. Hayden found that contemporary philosophers of education engage with a somewhat narrow range of thematic topics. Moreover, that there is a significant increase in the number of articles published. Hayden concludes by questioning the value of such an increased number of (irrelevant) publications. This symposium is a response to Hayden and a rejoinder to the recent debate on journal rankings as a way of assessing the relevance and impact of philosophy of education (Bridges, 2011; Smeyers & Burbules, 2011; Strand & Kvernbekk, 2009). In many countries publications in Web of Knowledge journals are dominant in the evaluation of educational research. Comparisons are often made between the output of philosophers of education in these and the publications of their colleagues in educational research generally. However, the aim of this symposium is to question this way of assessing the quality, relevance and impact of philosophy of education and to introduce an alternative. In doing so, the cases of The Netherlands, South Africa and Norway are used to illustrate the current situation.

• Strand, Torill (2013). Democracy and Education Reconsidered. The case of Norway after 22nd July. Show summary

  My ambition with this paper is to throw some lights on the close link between “democracy” and “education” and their mutual interdependence. I hope to do so by performing a three-step philosophical analysis of a current event, which I take to illustrate democracy and education as a way of life, an ideal, and an outlook. This analysis draws on the political philosophies of John Dewey, Chantal Mouffe and Alain Badiou.

• Strand, Torill (2013). Unlocking the Creative: Philosophical Discourses on Creativity. Show summary

  What are our images of creativity? How do these images relate to ways of conceptualizing creative education? I here address these questions while drawing on three philosophical discourses that metaphorize creativity as “expression,” “production,” and “reconstruction.” Philosophical discourses on creativity—old and new—demonstrate that creativity is hardly a new way of portraying the dynamics of knowledge and learning. Creativity is by no means a new way of metaphorizing the dynamics of knowledge and learning. Rather, what is new is the current situation, a new phase of the global knowledge economy labeled as for example a “wave of creativity and innovations”, “a creative economy”, a new “ecology of ideas”, or “an age of innovation”. Taking the new ways of the world, it is therefore pertinent to explore ways in which, and to what extent, traditional metaphors of creativity may shape our ways of thinking about the acts of creating something new. Since the current economization of knowledge and ideas has contributed to a common call for a “creative ethos” within knowledge intensive societies it is pertinent to explore how different metaphors of creativity mirror and shape our ways of seeing the dynamics of knowledge and learning. It should be emphasized, however, that all three metaphors move beyond the current hype within business circles, in which creativity is paralleled with effectiveness and seen as economic imperative. Rather, this paper throws some light on this hype, since I here reveal how different ways of metaphorizing creativity offer distinct images, theoretical representations, or models of thought that not only mirror but also provide openings and limitations for our ways of thinking about people’s capacity for curiosity, experimentation and creative innovation. The three philosophical discourses all see creativity as the act of creating something new. Moreover, the three metaphors —“expression,” “production,” and “reconstruction”— should be seen as ideal types, not mirroring any ongoing “epistemic war” or “historic progress,” as their different ways of picturing creativity seems to be equally recognized and are used somewhat overlapping within the current literature. But they offer different and somewhat contrasting perspectives on educative experiences, creative acts, and epistemic ruptures. By implication, they also help to conceptualize creative education differently. Taking a bird’s-eye-view of these discourses, I here reveal their distinct images, theoretical representations, and models of thought. My ambition is to provide a better understanding of the contours of creativity in relation to education in knowledge intensive societies. To what degree do the philosophical discourses on creativity offer openings or limitations of unlocking the creative and critical potential of the young

• Strand, Torill (2013). Kritisk tenkning revurdert. Show summary

  Her vil jeg utforske noen aspekter ved det vi kaller «kritisk tenkning». Det gjør jeg ved å benytte meg av den franske filosofen Alain Badious begrepsapparat i en lesning av Platons dialog Menon. På den måten blir Platon mer aktuell og relevant. Min ambisjon er ikke først og fremst å tolke Platon. Men heller å bruke Platons dialog som redskap for å utforske noen metaforer om kritisk tenkning: Hva betyr det å tenke kritisk? Hvordan tilegner vi oss slik tenkning? Hva er den kritiske tenkningens objekt? Hva er tenkningens subjekt? Hva er den kritiske tenkningens arbeid? Og til slutt: Hva er tenkning?

• Strand, Torill (2013). Experience is Our Only Teacher. A Peircean Reading of Wim Wender's Wings of Desire. Show summary

  Wim Wender’s film Wings of Desire tells a story of an angel who wishes to become mortal in order to know the simple joy of human experience. Told from the angel’s point of view, the film is shot in black and white. But at the very instant the angel perceives the realities of human experience, the film blossoms into color. In this paper, I take this film to illustrate and explore Peirce’s notion of experience and his claim that “experience is our only teacher”. In his 1903 Harvard lectures, Peirce placed his phenomenology at the heart of his philosophy, while outlining a notion of “experience” that clearly integrates his semiotics, phenomenology and pragmatism. To Peirce, experience is a “brutally produced conscious effect” that comes “out of practice” and is a “forcibel modification of our ways of thinking”. But as this modification is generated by the actions and flows of signs, it is pertinent to read Peirce’s notion of experience in relation to his notion of semiosis. Consequently, a peircean reading of Wings of Desire not only helps to explore how experience teaches, but also the ways in which the rudeness of experience cannot be fully understood without considering the sign’s action.

• Strand, Torill (2013). Peirce's New Rhetoric: Prospects for educational theory and research. Educational Philosophy and Theory. ISSN 0013-1857. 45(7), p. 707–711.
• Strand, Torill (2013). Tenkning om kritisk tenkning.
• Strand, Torill (2013). CRITICAL THINKING RECONSIDERED.
• Strand, Torill & Roos, Merethe (2012). Education for Social Justice, Equity and Diversity. Editorial. In Strand, Torill & Roos, Merethe (Ed.), Education for Social Justice, Equity and Diversity. LIT Verlag. ISSN 978-3-643-90255-9. p. 9–18.
• Strand, Torill (2012). Experience is our only teacher. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: Wim Wender’s film Wings of Desire tells a story of an angel who wishes to become mortal in order to know the simple joy of human experience. Told from the angel’s point of view, the film is shot in black and white. But at the very instant the angel perceives the realities of human experience, the film blossoms into color. In this paper, I take this film to illustrate and explore Peirce’s notion of experience and his claim that “experience is our only teacher”. In his 1903 Harvard lectures, Peirce placed his phenomenology at the heart of his philosophy, while outlining a notion of “experience” that clearly integrates his semiotics, phenomenology and pragmatism. To Peirce, experience is a “brutally produced conscious effect” that comes “out of practice” and is a “forcibel modification of our ways of thinking”. But as this modification is generated by the actions and flows of signs, it is pertinent to read Peirce’s notion of experience in relation to his notion of semiosis. Consequently, a peircean reading of Wings of Desire not only helps to explore how experience teaches, but also the ways in which the rudeness of experience cannot be fully understood without considering the sign’s action.

• Strand, Torill (2012). Democracy and Education. Show summary

  This paper explores the close link between democracy and education and argues that this link needs to be reinvigorated. Within democratic welfare societies, education is a fundamental civil, political and social right for all. And its central task is to promote active citizenship. However, parallel with increasing economic, political, social and educational inequalities, new and ugly processes of marginalization emerge. One example is how the “lost generation” of European youths now experience poverty, hopelessness, and distrust in nearly all major institutions. Another example is how everyday racism and xenophobia undermine civic participation and engagement for all. But is it possible to prevent marginalization? And in what ways should we educate for democratic participation? In the first part of this paper I portray some distinct characteristics of the new era and identify some processes of marginalization now playing out within and beyond educational institutions. In the next part I explore the concepts of “democracy” and “education”, and their mutual interdependence. Drawing on the work of John Dewey, democracy is here seen as a way of life, an ideal and an outlook. In the third part of the paper, however, I contrast Dewey’s harmonious image with the current situation while asking: In what ways should we rethink democracy and education for the new era? I here draw on Chantal Mouffe’s model of agonistic democracy and Alain Badiou’s ethics to systematically examine the potential possibilities of rethinking and strengthening the link between democracy and education. In summing up, I point to some challenges meeting educational researchers today.

• Strand, Torill (2012). DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION FOR A NEW ERA. Show summary

  This paper explores the close link between democracy and education and argues that this link needs to be reinvigorated. Within democratic welfare societies, education is a fundamental civil, political and social right for all. And its central task is to promote active citizenship. However, parallel with increasing economic, political, social and educational inequalities, new and ugly processes of marginalization emerge. One example is how the “lost generation” of European youths now experience poverty, hopelessness, and distrust in nearly all major institutions. Another example is how everyday racism and xenophobia undermine civic participation and engagement for all. But is it possible to prevent marginalization? And in what ways should we educate for democratic participation? The first part of this paper portrays some distinct characteristics of the new era and identifies some ugly processes of marginalization now playing out within and beyond educational institutions. Next, the concepts of “democracy” and “education”, and their mutual interdependence are explored. Drawing on the work of John Dewey, democracy is here seen as a way of life, an ideal and an outlook. The third part of the paper, however, contrasts Dewey’s harmonious image with the current situation while asking: In what ways should we rethink democracy and education for the new era? And what are the insights gained from contemporary philosophy of education? In summing up, the paper points to some challenges meeting educational researchers today.

• Strand, Torill (2012). Profesjonskunnskap i endring.
• Strand, Torill (2012). FOU i utdanningen. Erfaring fra Master i Mangfold og Inkludering.
• Strand, Torill (2011). Barnehagen som danningsarena. 7 teser.
• Strand, Torill (2011). DEMOKRATI SOM LEVD ERFARING.
• Strand, Torill (2011). The Rudeness of Lived Experience.
• Strand, Torill (2011). THE VITAL WORK OF PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: Through a tentative reading of Badiou’s way of re-reading Marx, I here hope to throw light on the significance of the work of contemporary philosophers of education; - who all seem to share the ambition of doing philosophy of our times. My question is: In what ways do the work of contemporary philosophers of education relate to what is going on?

• Strand, Torill (2011). Philosophy of Education in the Present. Show summary

  ABSTRACT: In this paper I explore the vital work of contemporary philosophers of education. How should we read the significance of their epistemic labor within the new and globalised symbolic economy? And what may be the potential powers and poverties of their work? First, I tentatively map the current topology while revealing how the epistemic labor of contemporary philosophers of education is caught between the field of philosophy and the field of education: On the one hand, philosophy of education is a daughter of philosophy, drawing from the traditional fields and approaches of its parent discipline. On the other hand, philosophers of education are committed to education. The mission is not to contribute to philosophy, but to educational research, policy and practice. But what may be the significance of their work in the present? Next, I set out to explore this question through a close reading of the French philosopher Alain Badiou’s way of re-reading Karl Marx’ Theses on Feuerbach (1845). Marx questions the social significance of philosophy and states that “philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. To Marx, the philosopher should commit himself to social situations. To Badiou, by contrast, the philosopher commits himself to paradoxical situations, or the incommensurable relation between the rules of philosophy and the ordinary rules of life. Badiou argues that “the philosopher constructs his own problems”, and thereby intervene in the present by (1) confronting thinking as choice, (2) clarifying the distance between power and truth, and (3) thinking the exception. Following Badiou, we may say that “philosophy [of education] is not at all a reflection of anything whatsoever. There is philosophy [of education] … because there are paradoxical relations, because there are breaks, decisions, distances, events.” Philosophers are therefore exclusively interested in relations that are not relations (i.e. paradoxical relations). So, is there an impossible gap between Marx and Badiou? And what about the potential powers of a philosophy of education if there are no common measures between a philosophical situation and ordinary life? In the third section of the paper I further explorer these impossibilities in relation to the epistemic labour of contemporary philosophers of education. How do Marx and Badiou help to read the potential powers and poverties of their commitments? And how should we read the significance of their philosophical work within the new and globalised symbolic economy?

• Strand, Torill (2011). Moving Beyond Conventional Notions of Educational Processes: The Contribution from Charles S. Peirce. Full text in Research Archive
• Nolet, Ronald; Hatlem, Marianne & Strand, Torill (2013). Barnehagen som læringsmiljø og danningsarena: rapport fra en pilotstudie. Høgskolen i Østfold. ISSN 978-82-7825-409-7.

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