Curriculum and the Aesthetic Life: Hermeneutics, Body, Democracy, and Ethics in Curriculum Theory and Practice

Curriculum and the Aesthetic Life brings together over 20 years of scholarly work by dancer, educator, and scholar Donald S. Blumenfeld-Jones on the intersection of curriculum theory and practice with aesthetics, ethics, and hermeneutic inquiry, focusing on the body and emotions and the theory and practice of Arts-Based Education Research, including his noted Hogan Dreams. He brings to his work an aesthetic sensibility developed over 40 years of active involvement in the arts as well as a Frankfurt School critical theory orientation and a constant concern for building an ethical world through cultivating an aesthetic awareness. This linking of aesthetics and ethics makes a unique contribution to the theoretical foundations of curriculum theory and educational philosophy. Always concerned with connections to practice, this book provides many examples of curriculum practice and teaching as well as scholarly studies of curriculum work. This book is essential reading for anyone involved in the arts and education.

Donald S. Blumenfeld-Jones received his EdD from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies, Ethics, and Education at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College of Arizona State University. He has published numerous book chapters and also journal articles in such places as Educational Theory, Journal of Aesthetic Education, and Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. Prior to his academic career, he danced professionally for twenty years, studying, performing, and choreographing modern dance in New York City and performing, choreographing, and teaching throughout the United States and Canada.