Dissertation in the field of art education: DEA Anna-Kaarina Peura

The dissertation seeks to highlight the strategic, that is to say directing and formative constancy of the philosophical discourse on history and individuality in Benjamin's thinking. The study proposes to verify that, from the point of view of the relation between the theory of knowledge and self-knowledge, true knowledge for Benjamin is equivalent to authentic life.

DEA Anna-Kaarina Peura will defend her dissertation Échafaudages du réel. Images d'une vie prospère dans l'oeuvre stratégique de Walter Benjamin on Monday 29 May 2017.

Opponent: Professor Esa Kirkkopelto, University of the Arts Helsinki
Custos: Professor Harri Laakso, Aalto University Department of Art

The discussion will be in Finnish.

MORE INFORMATION:

Since his formative years, Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) is looking for a « place » of sharing where pedagogically effective communication would generate fruitful action. After the failure of his Habilitation thesis, in 1925, this demanding place is located outside any university milieu. Benjamin,
however, does not cease to mention the possibility of renewing research through teaching. Yet this is not the result of lengthy elaborations of pedagogy or of some other special field, but of constructing a « universal » – that is for Benjamin: philosophical – conception of knowledge.

For Benjamin, knowledge and teaching are intrinsically linked: the transmissibility of knowledge requires the act of researching and the will to teach and all true knowledge is knowledge transmitted. On the basis of this vision Benjamin conceives a conception of the human and a way of acting – a « practice » of the written discourse – and the attempt of the Benjaminian man to realize himself.

Subsequently, Benjamin’s teaching will be reflected in a variety of activities, including commentary on philosophical and literary texts, book reviews, radio works, as well as writings on history, aesthetics and art. Now, as in his reflections of the formative age, Benjamin never ceases to question the epistemological basis of the object of study, nor the just mindset, the attentive state of mind of anyone who tries to transmit, through his or her own tested precepts, the knowledge transmitted.

The present study seeks to highlight this strategic, that is to say directing and formative constancy of the philosophical discourse on history and individuality in Benjamin's thinking. This includes a spiritual dimension that is objectively grasped from the point of view of epistemology and metaphysics, and not from the confessions alone. This type of spirituality could « renew » the research for the art pedagogy today, bringing it back to the « sources » of an alternative education. The hypothesis that the present study proposes to verify is that, from the point of view of the relation between the theory of knowledge and self-knowledge, true knowledge for Benjamin is equivalent to authentic life.

WELCOME!

The dissertation notice and the published dissertation are placed for public display at the Learning Hub Arabia (Hämeentie 135 C, 5th floor, room 570), at latest 10 days before the defence date.