The premise of Criticality is that modes of culture create group solidarity and advance social critique, sometimes more self-consciously, sometimes less. The goal of Criticality is to explore these processes of cultural solidarity and critique. Its mission is to foster critical thinking, critical theory, critical pedagogy, and critical culture through information and analysis. Its vision is a postmodern humanism that is multicultural and planetary. Its values are truth, beauty, love, and self-respect.
crit·i·cal·i·ty
- The abstract quality, state, or condition of being critical
- A critical state; especially the point at which a nuclear reaction is self-sustaining
- The tendency to engage in analysis and make judgments based on particular ethical or ideological perspectives
About the blog
Criticality (formerly called Pedagogishness) began in January 2012 as a place for me to share my own ideas about teaching and learning in the humanities classroom. But I quickly found that I was more interested in blogging about the problematic status of the humanities and humanism itself than in things like learning objectives or low-stakes writing in the classroom. Indeed, I was most engaged when writing about critical theory and how it relates to critical pedagogy. And I was more or less obsessed with redefining humanism for a postmodern society.
So in 2013, it turns out that my blog is really about critical theory and critical culture more than it is about pedagogy per se. Hence, the change in name. In addition to blog posts, I’m creating pages on things like critical thinking, critical theory, critical pedagogy, and something called critical culture which is a term that I think I may have coined for a concept that I think may be somewhat novel. There are also pages on individual humanities disciplines where the goal is to explore how the critical and cultural turns of the twentieth century have affected these fields in terms of both theory and practice.
For the moment, there’s still some good old-fashioned pedagogy on Criticality. There’s a Teaching Tip of the Day and an Education Quote of the Day. There is a Pedagogish Infobase where I am posting downloadable PDF handouts on research and writing skills for students. There’s an ever growing blogroll in the sidebar listing blog and websites that I find useful for teaching and learning in the postmodern humanities. And I’m sure there will be more and different over time. Stay tuned. Come again.
About me
Which me? There was the precocious and promising me; then the aimless and wandering me; then the classical studies me; then the peace and social justice me; then the fiction writing me; then the freelance journalism me; then the medical communications me; then the poetry writing me; then the freelance medical writing me; then the happily married me (replaced the always with another boyfriend me); then the classical studies me again, only this time with an overlay of queer theory; then the finally finished his PhD me, which led directly to the considering a full-on academic career me; then the I’m not running around the country anymore for one-year academic jobs while my husband and kitty cats miss me in Brooklyn me; now…the vie de flâneur me, which really means a return of the freelance medical writing me with an overlay of the part-time teaching me, the private tutorial me, and a real blast from the past, the freelance journalism me. Next…who knows?