1st Edition

Arts-based and Contemplative Practices in Research and Teaching Honoring Presence

Edited By Susan Walsh, Barbara Bickel, Carl Leggo Copyright 2015
    214 Pages
    by Routledge

    214 Pages
    by Routledge

    This volume presents a scholarly investigation of the ways educators engage in artistic and contemplative practices – and why this matters in education. Arts-based learning and inquiry can function as a powerful catalyst for change by allowing spiritual practices to be present within educational settings, but too often the relationship between art, education and spirituality is ignored. Exploring artistic disciplines such as dance, drama, visual art, music, and writing, and forms such as writing-witnessing, freestyle rap, queer performative autoethnograph, and poetic imagination, this book develops a transformational educational paradigm. Its unique integration of spirituality in and through the arts addresses the contemplative needs of learners and educators in diverse educational and community settings.

    1. Introduction Susan Walsh, Barbara Bickel, and Carl Leggo 2. Lectio Divina: An Invitation To Readers Kerri Mesner, Barbara Bickel, and Susan Walsh 3. Lectio One 4. Writing Witness Consciousness Susan Walsh and Heeson Bai 5. Lectio Two 6. To See, To Know, To Shape, To Show: The Path of an Indigenous Artist Vicki Kelly 7. Lectio Three 8. Companions with Mystery: Art, Spirit and the Ecstatic Celeste Snowber and Barbara Bickel 9. Lectio Four 10. Wrestling with the Angels of Ambiguity: Queer Paths in Contemplative Activism Kerri Mesner 11. Lectio Five 12. Woman Overboard: Pedagogical Moments of Performative Inquiry Lynn Fels 13. Lectio Six 14. Improvising Vulnerability Through Freestyle Rap Inquiry Sean Park and Shahar Rabi 15. Lectio Seven 16. Loving Language: A Poet’s Vocation & Vision
    Carl Leggo 17. Closing Lectio

    Biography

    Susan Walsh is a writer/poet and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada. Her research involves contemplation, innovative forms of writing, and various artistic practices. Her publications appear in venues such as Qualitative Inquiry, Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), and Teaching and teacher Education.

    Barbara Bickel is an artist and Associate Professor of art education and Director of women, gender & sexuality studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA. Her arts-based research appears in venues such as Journal of Arts and Community, Visual Arts Research, and Journal of Motherhood Initiatives, and her art has been exhibited across North America.

    Carl Leggo is a poet and Professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada. His books include: Growing Up Perpendicular on the Side of a Hill; View from My Mother’s House; Come-By-Chance; Teaching to Wonder: Responding to Poetry in the Secondary Classroom; and Sailing in a Concrete Boat: A Teacher’s Journey.

    "This edited collection of lived research bringing together the arts and contemplative practice is an important contribution to the field of arts-based research." - Marni J. Binder, International Journal of Education through Art, Vol 12, No 2