BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Violent Educations: Battling School in Yong Adult Literature - Sus
 an Tan\, Faculty of Education\, University of Cambridge 
DTSTART:20130312T130000Z
DTEND:20130312T140000Z
UID:TALK43859@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ting Ding
DESCRIPTION:There is an unsettling proximity between death and school in c
 ontemporary books for young adult audiences.  Popular realist school stori
 es focus on bullying\, gang-warfare\, and school-shootings.  Similarly\, Y
 A dystopias emphasize an intimate link between education\, knowledge\, and
  death.  This talk will focus on an exploration of death in Ender’s Game
 \, using what is arguably a proto-text for the YA dystopia to explore this
  link between death and education in YA literature.  As Ender Wiggin is br
 ought to an early adulthood\, his education centers entirely around acts o
 f violence\, both physical and mental.  School\, rather than acting as a s
 ite of child-nurture\, emerges as a place of death and violent alienation\
 , which demands the ‘death’ of Ender’s child-self.  In elucidating t
 he notion of school as a deadly space\, I will draw on Michel Foucault’s
  notions of the genesis of educational spaces\, as well as Johan Galtung
 ’s theories of cultural violence. This exploration will focus both on En
 der’s experiences within the physical setting of the school\, as well as
  on the trial following Ender’s victory\, as educational practices are p
 laced at the center of a legal trial\, and the bodies of the two children 
 ‘sacrificed’ for Ender’s education act as literal ‘evidence’ of 
 Ender’s crimes as well as his ultimate success.  Through my examination 
 of school within Card’s narrative\, I will explore and elucidate this li
 nk in one of the seminal texts to stage violent educations as necessary fo
 r the salvation of the adult world\, as this puzzling and yet powerful dep
 iction of school as deadly\, and education as inherently violent\, grips t
 he contemporary imagination.  \n
LOCATION:Room 2S8\, Donald McIntyre Building\, Faculty of Education\, 184 
 Hills Road\, Cambridge
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR