Homage to the Place(lessness) of Poetry and the Poetic Life of Carl Leggo

Authors

  • Hannah Spector Penn State University - Harrisburg

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-4467.40432

Keywords:

Carl Leggo, Hannah Arendt, poetry, poetic inquiry, art education

Abstract

This address was written for Carl Leggo and presented June 1, 2019, at the CACS preconference “The Many Faces of Love: Celebrating the Life Work of Carl Leggo”, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. It draws upon Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the three human activities—labour, work and action—that form part of her thesis in The Human Condition. Specifically, I aim to provide a brief description of the role that such activities play in constituting the vita activa (or life of action). This overview then circles around to the ways in which works of art, particularly poetry, help establish a sense of permanence in the world that the activities of labour and action do not. I then identify an intersection between Arendt’s writings on poetry with Carl Leggo’s as relayed in his own writings on the subject. This intersection highlights poetry’s infinite value.

Author Biography

Hannah Spector, Penn State University - Harrisburg

Hannah Spector is an Associate Professor of Education in the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education at Penn State University - Harrisburg. Her most recent publication, "Bureaucratization, Education, and the Meanings of Responsibility" is published at Curriculum Inquiry (2019). She co-edited a special journal issue of Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies (2017, with R. Lake and T. Kress) on "Maxine Greene and the Pedagogy of Social Imagination: An Intellectual Genealogy," which is republished as a book with Routledge (2018). She can be reached at hms22@psu.edu

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Published

02-03-2020

How to Cite

Spector, H. (2020). Homage to the Place(lessness) of Poetry and the Poetic Life of Carl Leggo. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 17(2), 34–37. https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-4467.40432

Issue

Section

Keynote Addresses