Doran, Claire (2024) Engaged Witnessing: An Ethical Framework for Teaching the Holocaust. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.

Preview

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

This study explores three Holocaust curriculums; Anne Frank’s diary, Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, and Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus to determine how or to what extent engaged witnessing may be achieved. I define engaged witnessing as addressing the gap between empathy and action and signifying the inspiration of an empathetic response that requires responsibility and can motivate action. I also explore what possibilities and/or limitations the texts offer as curriculum. The study is taking place in the context of a near future where there will no longer be Holocaust survivors and eye-witnesses in the world to bear witness to its horrors. That testimonial voice therefore must be discovered in other forms and through other mediums. The concepts of alterity, responsibility, witnessing, and response are used to create an ethical framework guiding the reading of these texts. My method draws on William Pinar’s notion of currere, which is an understanding of curriculum as autobiography, and as both researcher and reader I carry out a self-reflective exploration of the texts, not only arguing for engaged witnessing in the classroom but simultaneously discovering my own witnessing voice in the process.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Keywords:	alterity; curriculum; currere; empathy; ethic; history; pedagogy; response; responsibility; testimony, witness;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Education
Item ID:	19014
Depositing User:	IR eTheses
Date Deposited:	14 Oct 2024 09:37
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

Repository Staff Only(login required)

Item control page

Downloads

Origin of downloads