Dr. James P. Burns | College of Education and Human Sciences, University of New Mexico, USA
Friday, November 29, 2024 | 12:30-2:00 p.m. (PST) | Via Zoom
Faculty Host: Dr. William Pinar
View the Seminar Poster
For Zoom details, please email edcp.educ@ubc.ca
Abstract:
The current historical moment seems to have coalesced, in the US and many other countries, the political deployment of historic tropes of manhood as integral to the health of the nation-state, particularly regarding imperialist and settler-colonial violence. Examples include the attempted erasure of various histories from curricula, the resurgence of autocratic leaders, moral panics related to immigration, gender, sexuality, and internal enemies such as teachers and university professors, the continued war between Ukraine and Russia, and the Israeli Government’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza. This presentation will discuss some key aspects of the historical association of proper manhood with the warmaking power of nation-states as a regime of truth tied to regimes of practices. The author will also discuss how such tropes reflect key elements of fascism and biopower and the roles of schools and other apparatuses in habituating young men to specific practices of manhood beneficial to the state. Finally, the author will discuss some possibilities for engagement in the positive critique of regimes of truth as an ethics of embodying truth and the cultivation of the self as an urgent curricular project of subject formation and reformation with the potential to reconstruct the social and political world.
Short Bio:
James P. Burns is an Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies at the University of New Mexico. Upon graduating from high school, he served in the US Marine Corps for eight years. He then earned his BA in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland College Park and his MA in Political Science from the University of Hawai’i Mānoa. Burns taught History and Social Studies in Fairfax County, Virginia Public Schools before he earned his Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from The George Washington University. Burns was previously an Associate Professor at Florida International University and an Assistant Professor at South Dakota State University. His first book, Power, Curriculum, and Embodiment: Re-thinking Curriculum as Counter-Conduct and Counter-Politics, received the 2019 AERA Outstanding Book Award for Curriculum Studies. His second book, Curriculum and the Problem of Violence: Biopolitics, Truth, History and Fascism was released in 2024. His third book, Myth, Manhood, and Curriculum: Towards Truth, Self-Cultivation, and Reparation, will be released in early 2025.
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