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Newman, Robert D. Pedagogy, Praxis, Ulysses: Using Joyce’s Text to Transform the Classroom. University of Michigan Press, 1996.

Related topics:

Beginnings and Endings
Bodies
Ingestion and Excretion
Language and Linguistics
Narration
Thought and Action

Link to citation page: https://www.worldcat.org/title/pedagogy-praxis-ulysses-using-joyces-text-to-transform-the-classroom/oclc/32509265&referer=brief_results

Link to full text:

Newman's anthology treats pedagogy as an "activity integral to all learning, all knowledge production," and thus worthy of conscious development (1). He seeks to show that Ulysses is not only a novel but a pedagogical resource that "teaches us to read and to think about how we read" (1). The compilation as a whole steps away from Joyce to focus on the utility of Ulysses' lessons in context of education culture: "By showing how Ulysses provides a model for inventive teaching and learning, Pedagogy, Praxis, Ulysses intends to...investigate how what we learn from reading Ulysses may be applied to opening up other texts and expanding our thinking about how and why we teach" (1-2). The works within this collection combine the theoretical with the practical, thus presenting "specific ideas that can be readily applied in the classroom" (2).

After this introduction by Newman, the work is divided into five sections: 1) "Beginnings, Narratives, Identities"; 2) "Civilization and Its (Dis)Contexts; 3) "Ideology and Voice"; 4) Visualizing Pedagogy"; 5) "Classification and Invention". Newman describes the first section as a pursuit of "ways in which we construct and are constructed by narratives." The chapters in this section touch on "social, cultural, and even culinary issues" (2). A noticeable trend in the anthology, as Newman mentioned, is the tying together of Ulysses with other works. For instance, Margaret Mills Harper, in her chapter "Bread and Wine, Coke and Peanuts: Teaching Sacrificial Feasts," "demonstrates the kind of meta-teaching Joyce's book encourages by focusing on the idea of the sacrificial feast." Other, mutlimedia texts employed include: lyrics from artist Seamus Heaney, Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, the film adaptation of Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart, and the Warner Brothers' cartoon The Brave Little Toaster. The diverse creativity exhibited in the source selection of Harper's work is characteristic of the entire book.

Notably, the articles, even within a given section, have little to do with one another. However, the articles all frame their analyses around teaching these themes to students. Thus, Newman's vow as editor to focus on the praxis of pedagogy in Ulysses is carried out as teachers demonstrate how to teach complex, unusual theories to students.

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