Centering Aesthetically Within Place: a Geostory Composed from an Arts-Based Pragmatist Inquiry
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CENTERING AESTHETICALLY WITHIN PLACE: A GEOSTORY COMPOSED FROM AN ARTS-BASED PRAGMATIST INQUIRY A dissertation submitted to the Kent State University College and Graduate School of Education, Health, and Human Services in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Jennifer L. Schneider December 2019 © Copyright, 2019 by Jennifer L. Schneider All Rights Reserved ii A dissertation written by Jennifer L. Schneider B.A., Kent State University, 2005 M.A., The Ohio State University, 2009 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2019 Approved by ____________________________, Director, Doctoral Dissertation Committee James G. Henderson ____________________________, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Alicia R. Crowe ____________________________, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Linda Hoeptner-Poling Accepted by ____________________________, Director, School of Teaching, Learning and Alexa L. Sandmann Curriculum Studies ____________________________, Dean, College of Education, Health and Human James C. Hannon Human Services iii SCHNEIDER, JENNIFER L., Ph.D., December 2019 Curriculum and Instruction CENTERING AESTHETICALLY WITHIN PLACE: A GEOSTORY COMPOSED FROM AN ARTS-BASED PRAGMATIST INQUIRY (403 pp.) Director of Dissertation: James G. Henderson, Ed.D. Places are essential to our existence as humans. Unfortunately, however, places can fade into the background of our lives, becoming taken-for-granted in our experiences of living. Being disconnected and remaining nonreflective about the places we inhabit and the lives we make with them is profoundly problematic, especially given the influence of the “crisis of modernity” (Ryan, 2011) and the schism it advances between mind, body, and environment. Consequently, there is an urgent need to educationally cultivate our awareness of places in the hopes of making a more livable future for ourselves and all beings. Inspired by personal experiences and curriculum scholars who attend to places and honor mind-body connections, this dissertation empirically and reconstructively responded to the crisis of modernity through cultivating an understanding of place that involved “centering” (Macdonald, 1995) in it aesthetically. A qualitative inquiry infused with principles and practices from arts-based research and pragmatism was designed to explore place in northeastern Ohio. Archival, familial, and autobiographical data were generated using a variety of methods including: public archives, private archives, oral history interviews, researcher journaling, wandering, gathering, photographing, and artful journaling. Through cycles of hermeneutic, interpretive analysis five experiential “objectives” (Ryan, 2011) emerged as significant: past~present, living~dead, material~immaterial, human~nonhuman, and individual~collective. The compelling objectives grounded the making of a creative nonfiction “geostory” (Harway, 2016), which wove together visual and narrative data. In light of this place-based inquiry, educative consequences and possibilities are discussed with reference to the aesthetic and existential dimensions of curriculum and pedagogy studies. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As Rumi, the Sufi mystic and poet, wrote, “Yolu yürümeye başladığınızda, yol size görünür,” which roughly translates to, “As you begin walking, along the way, the road appears.” The creative and intellectually challenging process of doing this dissertation could not have been foreseen when I began my doctoral studies, and my way through it was only possible because of relationships with others. I genuinely believe when someone gives their time to something, they are sharing their energy with it and a tiny piece of their soul as well. I, therefore, want to express my deepest gratitude to those who offered inspiration and support during my journey. To James Henderson: A tiny paragraph will never do justice to our years of working closely together. Fortune smiled upon me when I met you during my academic studies—a journey in which I never felt like I fit neatly into just one space. Through you I encountered the discipline of curriculum studies; this changed me. Curriculum is a space for thinking deeply about educational problems and embracing their aliveness, nuances, and complexity. Thank you for the countless hours deliberating over curriculum, pedagogy, leadership, and life. Thank you for nourishing the philosophical, ethical, pragmatic, and existential dimensions of education. Working with you, while dissertating and on other projects, has stretched my educational imagination for democratic living. You have become more than an academic advisor; you are also someone I consider a mentor and friend. I hope my future scholarship can stand on your shoulders with grace and humility as I grapple with and invite others into educational questions around how we might live a good life with ourselves, each other, and all begins. iv To Alicia Crowe: I will be forever grateful to have meet and worked with you during my doctoral coursework and dissertation journey. When I did not see a path yet, you guided me through murkiness and uncertainty. You trusted me, even when I did not fully trust myself, and you questioned and nudged me forward. Your guidance with a balance of educational leadership, theories, and practices inspires my teacher knowing and being. Thank you for your ongoing encouragement and willingness to be part of my committee. And thank you for holding a space that let me grow in unexpected and creative ways during my doctoral journey. To Linda Hoeptner-Poling: Since my undergraduate studies in art education, you have been a teaching force in my life. You are a source of intellectual and professional guidance coupled with deep listening and caring. As an educator, you have always encouraged the embrace humility, criticality, self-exploration, self-expression, open- mindedness, and warm-heartedness. Thank you for letting me pour out my confusions, uncertainties, and insights with you during my journey through higher education. From you I have learned the educational value of both studying and practicing the arts and how through thinking, making, and sharing we might have agency in exploring serious, real- life questions. To the KSU community: To those who were my doctoral peers, ones I met in passing and those I have/had closer relationships with may your professional journeys be enriching to your minds and souls. May you remain humble with open minds, critical eyes, and warm hearts amid the educational courses of action of which we are all a part. A thank you must be given to Craig Resta for serving as my graduate faculty v representative during the final phase of the dissertation process. To those KSU faculty, who are or once were, (Walter Gershon, Frank Ryan, Cathy Hackney, Tricia Niesz, Vanessa Earp, Teresa Rishel, and Bill Bintz) thank you for offering open ears, critical pointers, and probing questions on my work when our paths crossed. Two others must also be acknowledged, Sherry Ernsberger and Shannon Stewart. Sherry, thanks for all the wisdom and support in helping me navigate and negotiate the bureaucracy of the university. Shannon, thank you for your friendship and heartfelt conversations over the years; you are truly a supernova. To members in the Wooster, Ohio community: The on-staff Genealogy Librarians at the Wayne County Public Library, Christina and Deborah. Thank you for the conversations and guiding me in the archives. You are both gems. Rachel David for the grounded and adaptable space you create in your yoga classes, and Violet Nolletti, my personal trainer at the local YMCA and friend. Working with both of you in different ways pulled me out of spinning thoughts and self-doubts and put me back into myself, back into my strength, balance, and flexibility. Allison and Stuart Templeton thank you for your friendship and for creating an incredible space for sipping coffee, chatting, and eating. Your café was place that will forever be a part of where my thinking and writing for this dissertation came into form. Wooster misses you, and I miss you. To my land and kin: An endless wellspring of life and wisdom without which the possibility of my dissertation journey would have been unthinkable. Thank you for sharing fragments of your lives with me and for letting me care for and create with those pieces. Thank you for inspiring and humbling me. To my mom and dad, thank you for vi bringing me into a world with conscious intent despite unknowable futures, and thank you for teaching me in how to get dirty and clean up and how to be a curious, resourceful, gentle, and strong human being. My two brothers, thanks for sharing this lifetime with me and for childhood adventures fueled with fields and forest. I hope my effort here honors the gifts you all have shared with me in the highest possible way. To my family in Turkey: Your loving kindness to a yabancı gelin (i.e., foreign bride) has all given me a sense of belonging within different place, culture, and language. Thank you for the ongoing teachings in how one might live a life in which seeming opposites can seek deeper understandings and respect of differences. To my husband, Ali Salih: Opposites. But an engineer and artist seem to be making a pretty good partnering. A pairing I treasure. You are one of my greatest joys and biggest mysteries. Thank you for being the sort of person who sees me as an equal and always honors my voice, feelings, intellect, and dreams. Saying thank you a million times over will never be enough for your endless patience and support during my academic pursuits, but I want to say it regardless, thank you so much, kocam canım. vii PREFACE Figure 1. Letter from the private archive (Barnes, 1930-1957). viii 16th October 2018 Warmest of Greetings great grandfather, Earl— While reading through letters you wrote to family and friends, I came across the carbon copy of one addressed to a "little Newcomer". It was in a score of letters taken from your office at what was once the Ohio State University's Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. All of your written correspondence got packed away after you passed unexpectedly from a stroke in 1957 at the age of 64.