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Pedagogy and Intellectual Equality in David Mamet’s Oleanna

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2016, 29(3), pp.145-166
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

Jung,Byung-Eon 1

1부산대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Pedagogy and Intellectual Equality in David Mamet’s Oleanna Abstract Jung, Byung-Eon This paper examines the ideas of John on education and the political meaning of intellectual equality in David Mamet’s Oleanna, as measured by Jacques Rancière’s ideas of “universal” pedagogy. When this play was first staged in 1992, critics tried to analyze it in terms of gender politics, for the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas controversy in those days heightened public attention toward sexual harrassment in the workplace. However, Mamet insisted that this play was about power, not about sexual harrassment. This paper mainly focuses on the power of John’s radical pedagogy, mentioning that education concerns the politics for emancipation, which, as Jacques Rancière argues, can be achieved through the consciousness of intellectual equality. While John constantly disputes with Carol about what needs to be taught and how. John first of all emphasizes the pedagogical idea of intellectual equality, which he regards as a basic necessity for social liberation. John’s ideas on teaching and learning reject the traditional pedagogy founded in the basic statement of inequality like “I know and you don’t know.” This politics of radical equality in Oleanna forms the very backbone of the conflicts over how to teach in higher education.

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