EDUCATION, ORDER, AND THE SPECTER OF EMANCIPATION

This thesis is a theoretical meditation on the modern project of education. Situated in the broad field of critical studies in education, this work aims to consider the work of Hannah Arendt and Jacques Ranciere in context of the contemporary rationalities and technologies of schooling. By highlighting the modern promise of emancipation against the restraining ideologies and alienation of the world, this thesis proposes a revision and reemphasis on education’s possibilities for something radically different. The totalitarianism of the modern laboring society and the rise of technological power channel education’s aims to particular ends. The predominance of the market also directs education towards certain goals and modes of being. Through the abovementioned thinkers, the Frankfurt School, other continental philosophers, and critical educational theorists, an emancipatory education outside the dominant order of space and time is proposed