Educating the Will

Doug Blomberg. "Educating the Will". 2014

Read: paper in the ICS Institutional Repository

Listen and View: audio file and slides

Doug Blomberg presented this paper to the Biennial Conference of the International Christian Community for Teacher Education (ICCTE) held at Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario, Canada from May 28 to May 31, 2014. His presentation began with an exploration of a concept central to a Christian view of the person, that of the will. This was introduced into Western thought through Augustine’s appropriation of the biblical tradition, particularly Paul’s reflections in Romans 7. Whereas cognition and more recently affect have featured most prominently in approaches to education, the will has been largely overlooked. Blomberg seeks to redress this omission, and goes on to illustrate the implications for a pedagogy in which the role of the will is accorded significance. He describes strategies such as “Project-Based Learning” in the context of the curricular rhythm of “Play, Problem-posing, Purposeful Response”, first proposed in A Vision with a Task (Stronks and Blomberg, 1993).

Preserving the Common, Producing Difference: Neo-Calvinism and the Cultural Turn in the Humanities

ARCU lecture by Dr. Ryan C. McIlhenny
Associate Professor of History and Humanities
Providence Christian College
2013–2014 ARCU lecturer – bio

Listen: audio of lecture and question-and-answer session

Abstract:
A crucial element often missing in the contemporary discussions about Christ and culture is a robust definition of culture. This address offers an updated definition that evaluates traditional evangelical understandings on the topic with contemporary cultural studies and critical theory. Culture, as I propose, is the purely phenomenal identity that springs from human interaction with the created order. Such a definition affirms the common and shared/undifferentiated activities of both Christians and non-Christians that, nonetheless, produce different cultures, preserving the neo-Calvinist emphasis on structure and direction.

Lecture presented by the ICS Centre for Philosophy, Religion and Social Ethics at the Toronto School of Theology boardroom, 47 Queen’s Park Crescent E., Toronto, Thursday March 20, 2014. 7:30 PM.

Rights and Worlds: The Political Significance of Belonging

Rights and Worlds: The Political Significance of Belonging.  Paper presented by Shannon Hoff at Guelph University, January 17, 2014.

View: on Youtube

Listen: audio file of the lecture

Modernity is characterized by an assertion of the individual as a singular unit of significance and its various systems (political, legal, economic, and so on) have taken their lead from the idea of the individual as the bearer of rights. This modern prioritization of the individual, however, while a powerful accomplishment, is also problematic: it does not adequately recognize how the individual it prioritizes would itself point to other contexts of significance by which its identity is constituted and made meaningful. This paper will explore this basic tension between these two visions of selfhood – one expressed in terms of "rights" and the other in terms of "worlds". It will show how care for these basic worlds of significance is necessary for the very operation of rights, and it will point to various ways in which the significance of these "worlds" could be politically recognized and protected.