Peter Rabinowitz
Comparative Literature
Euclid at the Core: Recentering Literary Education
Is the Common Core---the new national blueprint for public education---theoretically bankrupt? Peter Rabinowitz and Corinne Bancroft ‘10 believe it is, at least with respect to teaching literature; and in a forthcoming essay commissioned by Style, they argue for an liberating alternative to what they see as the Zombie New Criticism taking over American secondary schools. In this brown bag, Peter will give a preview of that alternative, a “Euclidean” model that begins with the smallest possible number of initial assumptions, building more complicated interpretations through increased development and subtler manipulation of those postulates, rather than through introduction of new concepts. More specifically, he will chart out the model's grounding in cognitive and rhetorical narrative theory and explain the four fundamental principles that he and Corinne propose.
Friday, Sept. 27, 2013