LIBERLIT 6: Teaching for Transformation Monday 16 February 2015: Attendee Pack WELCOME TO LIBERLIT 6 The 6th Annual Liberlit Conference for Discussion and Defense of The Role of ‘Literary’ Texts in the English Curriculum Theme for Liberlit 6: Teaching for Transformation Plenary Speaker for Liberlit 6: IRA NADEL Texts as Transformative Tools With sponsorship from http//www.liberlit.com 1 LIBERLIT 6: Teaching for Transformation Monday 16 February 2015: Attendee Pack LIBERLIT MANIFESTO We believe literature to be an essential element of the English curriculum in Japan, and its vital future presence must be ensured and defended. By ‘literature’, we mean authentic texts that use language in creative and careful ways to tell stories, convey impressions, express original opinions, pose critical questions and demand more than simplistic, pragmatic responses. Those texts could include poetry, novels, plays, movies, songs, TV series, or thoughtful authentic writings on culture, society, or history. Teaching literature always means teaching much more than just language. Liberlit will address attitudes and approaches to ‘literary’ texts in English. We lament the ongoing ‘dumbing down’ and ‘infantilisation’ of English education in Japan and the consequent marginalization of literature in the curriculum at all levels. Our conviction is that literature offers learners access to the kinds of creative, critical, and non-complacent views of the world that Japanese students sorely need and indeed, in many cases, crave. Literature has the power to engage and motivate second-language learners; its potential for multiple interpretations develops the minds of students who often believe that every question has but one answer, and the authenticity of literary texts respects them as intellectually maturing adults. Eye-opening materials and mind-widening methods should be an integral part of the education process at all levels, but are essential at university level before students go forth to live among the complexities of the ‘real’ world. Liberlit will explore the idea that it is unkind and disingenuous to deprive students of the marvelously varied, meaningful, and challenging content that only great works of literature and thoughtful authentic writings on culture can offer. We will also investigate and expound techniques, methods, and ways that literary texts can foreground the roots of education, liberate English language into maturely creative uses and instigate a freer, bolder expression of original opinions. With your participation, we hope Liberlit will open up an active and collaborative community of thought, reflection, inquiry and discussion. We hope to make Liberlit an ongoing forum in which we can establish how, where, and why literature should rightly figure in Japan’s English curriculum. Theme for LIBERLIT 6 Teaching for Transformation Transformation is an essential part of how education takes place. It facilitates and is testimony to the basic concept of growth in our teaching. For the Sixth Annual Liberlit Conference, we want to focus on the process of transforming: how it occurs most meaningfully, and how to enhance it without forcing it. Transformation is central to the texts we use. Whether poetry, novel, film, or essay, every genuine literary text incorporates a significant notion of change. At the same time, the texts call forth a response from students that includes an internal shift in thinking, feeling, or worldview. Most of the texts we use also contain an element of social transformation--sometimes foregrounded, often subtly displayed--and typically hinge on a movement from passive to active. The language acquired with such texts is different from that of traditional textbooks, where the status quo tends to be fixed and the language has little viability and even less life. A process of transformation is central to the texts, language, activities, and ways of thinking that characterize a dynamic classroom. Without the careful introduction, discussion, and facilitation of changing, adjusting, altering, and transforming, learning will not produce the ‘A-ha!’ moments of epiphany that can change students into better, stronger, and fuller versions of themselves. This year’s Liberlit Conference will focus on all aspects of teaching and learning that contribute to transformation in its many manifestations. Paul Hullah & Michael Pronko http//www.liberlit.com 2 LIBERLIT 6: Teaching for Transformation Monday 16 February 2015: Attendee Pack CONFERENCE SCHEDULE (PART 1) Room A = 1309 (Main Building, 3rd floor) Room B = 1310 (Main Building, 3rd floor) Room C = 1301 (Main Building, 3rd floor) TIME EVENT 09:30-10:00 On-site registration. Meet your fellow attendees. 10:00-10:10 Words of Welcome and Introductory Remarks (Michael Pronko) (Room C) 10:10-11:30 PANEL 1 (Room A, chaired by Barnaby Ralph) On Becoming-Literature (Joff Bradley) Fostering Creative Expression through Myriad Texts & Activities (Taylor Mignon) Transindividuation and Empathy: Becoming Other in Hypomnesic Milieus (David Kennedy) PANEL 2 (Room B, chaired by Atsushi Iida) Attempt to Teach Literary and Movie Script Textbooks through Cooperative/Collaborative Learning (Koji Morinaga) There and Back Again with Bilbo: a Transformative Experience (Chutatip Yumitani) Black Mirror, “White Bear”: the Social Transformation of Empathy in an L2 Literature Writing Class (Richard Pinner) 11:40-12:50 PLENARY TALK (Room C) Texts as Transformative Tools (Ira Nadel) 12:50-13:50 LUNCH: a chance to mingle more and chat. http//www.liberlit.com 3 LIBERLIT 6: Teaching for Transformation Monday 16 February 2015: Attendee Pack CONFERENCE SCHEDULE (PART 2) TIME EVENT 14:00-15:20 PANEL 3 (Room A, chaired by Barnaby Ralph) Investigating the Sparkle of the Shining Prince: Some of the Hows and Whys of Teaching Japanese Classics in English Translation in Japan (Frances Causer) Literature in Translation in the EFL Classroom (Kathryn M. Tanaka) Reading Seventeen Syllables: Learner Understandings of Hisaye Yamamoto's Stories (Hugh Nicoll) PANEL 4 (Room B, chaired by Joff Bradley) Accomplishing Transformation by the Use of Authentic Literary Texts in English-Language Classrooms in Japan (Wendy Jones Nakanishi) Content-Validity in Testing English Literature in Japanese University Classes (Neil Conway) Several Practical Approaches for American Literature in the Language Classroom (Fuyuhiko Sekido, Aimei Kobayashi, Akiko Yamanaka) 15:30-16:50 PANEL 5 (Room A, chaired by Hugh Nicoll) Transformation in A Night in November: Deconstructing Hegemony (Eucharia Donnery) Thinking Like a Pro: How Discourse Awareness Transforms ESP Learners (Mike Guest) Transformation and the Shifting of the Foundations of Allegory: Reflections on The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. (Barnaby Ralph) PANEL 6 (Room B, chaired by Richard Pinner) Poetry Writing for Healing: Implications for the Second Language Classroom (Atsushi Iida) Poetry, Individual Differences, and Transformation (Jane Joritz-Nakagawa) Words with Worth! Enriching EFL Reading With Wordsworth’s Sonnets (Neil Addison & Neil Conway) 17:00-17:55 PANEL 7 (Room A, chaired by Neil Addison) Giving Students the Tools to Enhance Transformation (Christine Wilby) The Awakening and A Separate Peace through Different Lenses (Kayo Ozawa) 18:00-18:30 ‘Lightning’ Discussion, Any Other Business, Concluding Remarks (Michael Pronko) (Room C) 18:30… CONFERENCE ENDS. PARTY TIME! Details of post-conference party will be available on conference day. http//www.liberlit.com 4 LIBERLIT 6: Teaching for Transformation Monday 16 February 2015: Attendee Pack PRESENTATION DETAILS PANEL 1 (10.10-11.30) Room A 1A. On Becoming-Literature Presenter: Joff Bradley Abstract: Here, I introduce the ‘image’ of literature developed by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Becoming, incorporeal transformation, health, minor literature, and the virtual are some of the thought-provoking concepts which I shall endeavour to explain. As we shall see, writing is a question of becoming - it is fragmentary, always in the midst of things, and destined for a missing people, a ‘people yet to come’. Therefore, teaching transformation through literature is not a sad or militant pedagogy as such, that is to say, a dogmatic methodology thrust upon pre-formed subjectivities, but rather a curious happening - in-between - part of process of creative, even futural, involution. I shall provide ample examples from literature, film and poetry to explain this. And to demonstrate the overarching, pedagogical and philosophical implications of this perspective, I shall reflect upon the ideas of transformative ‘modes of thought’, ‘ascending forms of existence’, and ‘immanent life’. I grant especial significance to the following quote by Deleuze: “The ultimate aim of literature is to set free, in the delirium, this creation of a health or this invention of a people, that is, a possibility of life” and end by considering Nietzsche’s always most unsettling and Unheimlich provocation: become what you are. Biographical Data: Joff P.N. Bradley teaches in the faculty of foreign languages at Teikyo University, Tokyo, Japan. Although born and bred in northern England, he is a resident of Japan and applies his long-standing interest in schizoanalysis, European philosophy and critical thought to the social and political problems affecting his students. He has published articles in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. 1B. Fostering Creative Expression through Myriad Texts & Activities Presenter: Taylor Mignon Abstract: Most English writing