Conference presentation
More than the Madonna or the whore: gender, neoliberalism and becoming in senior secondary drama classrooms.
Deleuze. Guattari. Schizoanalysis. Education. (Murdoch University, WA, 09/12/2013–11/12/2013)
10/12/2013
Abstract
This paper, presented at the "Deleuze. Guattari, Schizoanalysis. Education." conference at Murdoch University in 2013 explores how Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis can be used to examine how student-becomings and teacher-becomings are actualised within the neoliberal and heterosexually striated spaces of the secondary school assemblage. Deleuze and Guattari considered a narrow and limited approach to education problematic and called for creativity, for ‘to create is to resist’ (1994, p.110). Drama is a subject where students create and embody a variety of roles and characters, some from their own imagination, some from set texts. Senior secondary drama enables adolescents to ‘try on’ and experiment with various identities at what is commonly understood as a critical time in their adolescent development when they are negotiating the complex terrain of becoming other. In my interviews with year 12 drama students and their teachers, it became evident that drama is a subject which often attracts students who don’t fit the mold, either because they can’t or don’t want to conform to hegemonic conventions of femininity and masculinity. I argue that drama can be a dynamic rather than static space that redirects the flow of power toward new and creative constructions. However, this is not without conflict. Like a Trojan horse behind enemy lines drama is often a contested space that constitutes ‘new weapons’ for the drama teachers and students who find beauty in heterogeneity. This battle occurs in the midst of an increasingly neo-liberal wasteland of performativity, homogeneity, and the commodification of education.
Details
- Title
- More than the Madonna or the whore: gender, neoliberalism and becoming in senior secondary drama classrooms.
- Authors/Creators
- Dr Kirsten Lambert (PhD) (Author) - Murdoch University, School of Education
- Conference
- Deleuze. Guattari. Schizoanalysis. Education. (Murdoch University, WA, 09/12/2013–11/12/2013)
- Number of pages
- 24
- Identifiers
- 991005752429707891
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Conference presentation
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