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Title: Teaching and Imagination: Towards a Phenomenological Account of the University
Teacher for the 21st Century
Author: Dr Judy Lattas
Institution: Macquarie University
Position: Director of the Interdisciplinary Women’s Studies, Gender and Sexuality program
in the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts; Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching in
the Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy (2006-8)
Email: jlattas@scmp.mq.edu.au
Bio: Dr Judy Lattas has been teaching in women’s studies and gender at Macquarie since
1989. In 1998 she was awarded her PhD for a thesis entitled “Politics in Labour”, a
deconstructivist reading of Hannah Arendt on the philosophical conditions of totalitarianism.
In her research she is interested most recently in the popular right in Australia, publishing on
Pauline Hanson, on gun activism, on secessionist micronations and on the Cronulla riots.
In the field of Learning and Teaching her scholarship includes “Inquiry Based Learning: a
Tertiary Perspective” in Agora (the quarterly journal of the History Teachers’ Association of
Victoria), February 2009 and “Dear Learner: Shame and the Dialectics of Enquiry” (winner
of the International Journal of the Humanities International Award for Excellence in the area
of new directions in the humanities) International Journal of the Humanities March 2009
Proposal accepted as: chapter for book on Imaginative Education
What is teaching, as distinct from learning? In the proliferation of the phrase ‘teaching
and learning,’ and the increasing normalisation of its correction into ‘learning and teaching’ –
or simply ‘learning’ - this is a question for our time. Teaching is everywhere lauded in the
new university. Yet its repudiation is being led by those in the highest places in higher
education policy and the scholarship of teaching. It is not to its old rival, research, that
teaching is losing out; rather it is to a new preoccupation with the student, and a new rhetoric
in which there are no more teachers, only learners. In this chapter I respond to the
disappearance of teaching in the discourse of learning with a contemplation of its specific
character, and a contribution towards a phenomenological account of the university teacher.
Imaginative Education (IE) practitioners who are interested in engaging their
imaginations in teaching, in primary and secondary as well as tertiary education, need to be
able to grasp what might be called the essence of teaching. This is in a world that is overfull
of truths (in terms of statements of teaching excellence, shifting historical models and popular
iconography) and yet is losing the symbolic mechanism through which the truth of teaching
may be revealed. An object may only have truth, or an essence, when it is defined against
another that belongs to its conceptual universe - and in the case of the binary opposition, that
complements and completes it. For the teacher, the other object is the student. Teacher and
student emerge together in a relation of reciprocal identity, mutual exclusion and mutual
exhaustion. Each is for the other, a mirror of the other; but is not the other. Occasions when
‘the teacher is a student’ or ‘the student is a teacher’ feature as exceptions that prove the rule.
They become striking in the same way that ‘the girl is a boy’ is able to register its impact.
The reference is to a norm of clearly distinguished meanings, and it is this norm that is
retreating with the advance of a totalising construction of learning.
The idea that ‘we are all learners’ is part of the heralding of ‘lifelong learning’ that
has come with the embrace of new technologies of knowledge production and distribution,
and their decentring of the educational institution. Willing to meet the challenge head on,
administrators in these institutions sought to secure their markets by mapping their place in
the unending journey and unlimited resource pool of the internet, and by tapping into the
emerging rhetoric. Schools and universities now prepare the student for a lifetime of learning
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(rather than for a job, or for entry into an elite circle of knowledge keepers). The apparent
democratisation of access to education, and democratisation of the order of knowledge,
attracted those interested in overturning the hierarchies of power in the teacher-student and
academy-world relation. They grafted their studies of the psychology of learning and cocreation of knowledge (constructionism) onto the discourse of ‘student-centred’ and ‘studentled’ teaching and learning.
The result has been a two-way surge of interest in the constructionist pedagogies of
Problem Based Learning (PBL), Enquiry Based Learning (EBL)1, Discovery Based Learning,
‘andragogical’ (adult) learning and so on. In Australia, several universities are introducing
measures to expand the take up of these pedagogies across the board, in the arts and
humanities as well as the sciences and vocational training programs.2 It is in these pedagogies
that the conventional role of the teacher is most deeply questioned, and, in much of the
literature, recast if not relinquished in the role of ‘facilitator.’ In the extreme constructionist
position, a renunciation of teaching can be found in the articulation of a goal of ‘learning
without teaching;’ a flattening out of the teacher-student order to the extent that not only are
there no podium style lectures, but no instruction takes place; no texts or preferred readings
are set; and no disciplinary foundation is established. The teacher is neither represented nor
required in the pure PBL/EBL classroom.
It is the constructionist epistemology, however, which holds the most interest and
potential for IE practice. A focus on the dynamics of the learning process and the role of the
creative function in the making of knowledge is highly appropriate as a starting point for
explorations in this field of endeavour. My concern is not to dispute this starting point. It is
rather to argue for a clear recognition of the profession of teacher, and the crucial part that
teachers play in the scene of learning that is called upon in constructionist literature, in all the
paths that might open up along the way.
Here the issue of suggested models of the teacher is critical. In PBL/EBL writing, the
ideal model of teaching (such as it remains in the idea of facilitating) is the maieutic one, or
the Socratic model of the teacher as midwife. This is set against a model of the teacher as
master, cast as the traditional model. The master is a holder of knowledge, a revered high
scholar who inducts selected learner-apprentices into the hallowed ranks of the enlightened
few. The erudition of the master is delivered to the learner-apprentice in a direct transmission
from one who is full of knowledge, to one who lacks knowledge. The mode of delivery is the
lecture, sent via podium speech, and received in silence by passive listeners. To this account
is counter-posed the preferred account of the facilitator-midwife. This quasi-Socratic figure
assists in the delivery of knowledge that comes from within the learner-labourer. Both learner
and teacher here are maternal figures in that one is heavy with the child of her thought
processes, and the other is primarily nurturing and supporting. Rather than being full of
knowledge, the facilitator-midwife is equipped with the kind of skill and wisdom that comes
from experience and not scholarship. Authority, along with expert knowledge, is repudiated
in the teacher on this model.
I find this preferred model of the teacher, as it is being advanced in constructionist
literature, to be just as problematic as the traditional model that these writers hold up for
rejection. In her 1994 essay ‘The Teacher’s Breasts’3 and her 1997 book, Feminist Accused of
Sexual Harassment,4 Jane Gallop offers a thoroughgoing critique of the maternalist norm of
the university teacher. Gallop is a well-known feminist theorist who was herself formally
charged with sexual harassment – not because of any sexual bullying or innuendo, she
maintains, but simply because she exhibited the kind of power and authority over her
students, including her female students, that any senior professor would, male or female.5
This violated an unspoken honour code amongst feminists, she says. In the situation of the
university, she finds that when feminist teachers assume any kind of authority, instead of
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being like sisters or mothers, they are accused of being authoritarian and of betraying the
cause. They are seen as being ‘as bad as the men’ - and so worse than the men, for calling
themselves feminist. This can go so far as to be called a form of sexual harassment of women
students. This is actually what she found herself accused of, in the university she worked in.
She maintains in her writing that it was simply because she was seen as being too
authoritative by everybody, especially her young female students. Her plea is for the
teacher’s authority to be recognised and defended as legitimate and essential.
The philosopher who provides the most powerful recognition and defence of the
teacher’s authority is the maverick phenomenologist Hannah Arendt.6 Mordechai Gordon
writes about this in his edited collection of interpretations of Arendt on education.7 Gordon
argues that Arendt’s understanding of the proper authority of teachers is very different from
that given in the portrayal of the authoritarian master. In Arendt’s vision, it is the students’
potential for imaginative creation and what she calls renewal (in the key concept of natalism
that can be found in all her works) that is provoked in the exercise of authority in teachers;
the authority that provides a trust-enabling and positive communication that, to the best of
their knowledge, ‘this is our world.’ The enactment of this authority primarily implies the
teacher’s responsibility - responsibility for the world that is, and for the world that may be
given birth to in the process of learning.
It is not only on the question of authority that the new pedagogical account of the
maieutic teacher is inadequate, in my view (and in the view of Jacques Derrida, who
commented on the sterility of midwife figure of the teacher in his 2004 book Dissemination).8
I find that it is just as problematic to determine that the facilitator-midwife can only deliver
the knowledge that comes from outside the classroom, in the form of the student’s own prior
understandings, as it is to determine that the master-expert can only deliver the knowledge
that that comes from outside the classroom, in the form of his own prior scholarship. My
suggestion is that knowledge might be considered as an event that comes in a situation, such
as within a classroom, when people respond to one another and to an idea, in the moment (or
the re-created moment) of its composition. The role of the teacher here is fundamental. I
describe this role in a phenomenological consideration of traces of the meaning of the teacher
in philosophical accounts, literature, popular culture and etymology.
The closest match to the traditional model of the teacher, as cited in constructionist
literature, is the Humboldtian figure that Baert and Shipman (2005) reflect upon in their
critical analysis of the effects of ‘audit culture’ on the contemporary university.9 In their
identification with a discipline, the academic teachers proposed by German humanist von
Humboldt would be highly committed, self regulating scholars who could manage their own
profession, and be trusted with their culture’s intellectual legacy. In the current context, I find
that considerable care needs to be taken in surrendering what is a long accepted, and
strategically important, figure of the professional teacher.
Other accounts of the teacher that I consult include the Byzantine Erotapokriseis
tradition,10 the Biblical teacher as ‘host’,11 a phenomenological construction inspired by
Merleau Ponty,12 and writing by Levinas on the teaching of philosophy.13 Romantic notions
of the teacher and imagination are considered in readings of Blake’s ‘The Schoolboy’ and
other texts. In popular culture, images of the good teacher who liberates the soul squashed by
social inequality, and of the bad teacher who squashes the soul as an agent of social
conditioning, are consulted. Etymological considerations yield further representations of the
teacher, particularly with regard to the root meaning of ‘to teach’ as ‘to point to’ or to
indicate.
It is the Arendtian notions of natality and belatedness, however, that I find most
engaging and most promising, read alongside her account of the Life of the Mind.14 From this
contemplation I offer my own sense of what Imaginative Education might look like when the
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pivotal work of the teacher is brought into focus. A brief sketch of one classroom activity, in
a medium size, introductory, interdisciplinary university subject, is given to illustrate my
account in its practical dimension.
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Cahen, Didier, ‘Derrida and the question of education’. Derrida & education, edited by Gert
J. J. Biesta and Denise Egéa-Kuehne. London; New York: Routledge, 2001 LB880.D48 D47
2001
‘Derrida tried to think of teaching as the irreducible other – infinitely other – of pedagogy.’
p. 17
Derrida quote: ‘Rhetoric may amount to the violence of theory, which reduces the other
when it leads the other, whether through psychology, demagogy, or even pedagogy which is
not instruction. The latter descends from the heights of the master, whose absolute exteriority
does not impair the disciple’s freedom.’ ‘Violence and Metaphysics’ in Writing and
Difference 1978 p. 106
p. 17 Blanchot quote: ‘...one must not be satisfied with attributing to the master the part of
role model, and with defining his/her link with the pupil as an existential link. The master
represents an absolutely other region of space and time...The master gives nothing to know
which does not remain determined by the indeterminable “unknown” he/she represents,
unknown which does not affirm itself by the mystery, the prestige, and the erudition of he/she
who teaches, but by the infinite distance between A and B...to go to the familiarity of things
while reserving their strangeness, to relate to everything by the vry experience of the
interruption of relations, this is nothing other than to hear something speak, and to learn how
to speak. The relation of master to disciple is the very relation of the spoken word...’
Blanchot l’entretien infini 1969:4
Francis Fischer two schemes of teaching p. 19 corresponds to master & maieutic; teaching
via Derrida as unveiling
Audit culture, technology p. 20
Derrida quote: ‘On the one hand, pupils and students as well as teachers must be given the
possibility, in other words the conditions of philosophy. A master must initiate, introduce,
form, and so on, his disciple to this. The master who himself must have been previously
formed, introduced, initiated remains someone other for his disciple. Keeper, guarantor,
mediator, predecessor, elder, he must represent the word, the thought or the knowledge of the
other: heterodidactic. But on the other hand, whatever the cost, one will not renounce the
autonomist ad autodidactic tradition of philosophy. The master is nothing but a mediator
who must efface himself.
How can the necessity of the presence [avoir-lieu] of a master and the necessity of his
effacement [non-lieu] be reconciled? What unbelievable topology do we require to reconcile
the heterodidactic and the autodidactic?’ 1990 520-1 ‘Les antinomies...’The Right of
Philosophy French ed
Derrida, deconstruction, and education: ethics of pedagogy and research, edited by Peter
Pericles Trifonas and Michael A. Peters. Oxford: Blackwell pub., c2004. LB880.D48 D49
1 Introduction : Derrida and the philosophy of education / Peter Trifonas
2 Applied Derrida : (mis)reading the work of mourning in educational research / Patti Lather
3 The teaching of philosophy : renewed rights and responsibilities / Denise Egea-Kuehne
4 The ethics of science and/as research : deconstruction and the orientations of a new
academic responsibility / Peter Trifonas
5 Archiving Derrida / Marla Morris
6 Derrida, pedagogy and the calculation of the subject / Michael A. Peters
7 Signal event context : trace technologies of the habit@online / Robert Luke
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8 Dewey, Derrida, and ’the double bind’ / Jim Garrison.
Get from work:
Leon Donski on conspiracy, Nancy Jay on dualism
Derrida, deconstruction, and education: ethics of pedagogy and research, edited by Peter
Pericles Trifonas and Michael A. Peters. Oxford: Blackwell pub., c2004. LB880.D48 D49
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What is teaching, as distinct from learning? Responsibility (for love of the world). As in
Arendt.
The world always withdrawing/appearing. The job of the teacher is to re-present it, keep the
flame going, reignite. As always in process of rebirth, link to natalism, but it is not ‘delivery’
– has to be sparked in engagement with the learners.
Find a myth to narrate the model that this might correspond to, neither master nor midwife –
match lighter??? Atlas to carry the world?
No, go with Hestia. Responsibility for keeping the flame alight (has to keep relighting it).
Hestia has come to represent hearth & home but this is not quite right. She represent more
public hearth than private. – or both. She insists on her virginity – so does not dwell in mortal
world, does not represent the private as opposed to public (which is the world, for Arendt).
She presides over both, guards the possibility of both.
Both Metis & Athena represent wisdom but my model of teaching is neither of those. Hestia
is neither the mother (Metis – effaced within Zeus) – maternal figure of teaching – nor the
enabled child (Athena – fully present and armed for the world; Plato makes poros, or
"creative ingenuity", the child of Mètis). The teacher has a special being that is neither of
these, but her special role is to keep the possibility of both alight. She carries the world in a
more important way than Atlas.
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The Myth of Atlas
Atlas was a Titan, one of the firstborn sons of Earth. Atlas made the mistake of
siding with his brother Cronus in a war against Zeus. In punishment, he was
compelled to support the weight of the heavens by means of a pillar on his
shoulders. He was temporarily relieved of this burden by Heracles, who
needed the Titan's aid in procuring the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. In
connection with another heroic quest, Atlas divulged the whereabouts of the
Graeae to Perseus.
The encounter of Atlas and Heracles came about when Eurystheus, the great
hero's cousin and taskmaster, challenged him to retrieve the Golden Apples of
the Hesperides. The Hesperides, or Daughters of Evening, were nymphs
assigned by the goddess Hera to guard certain apples which she had received
as a wedding present. These were kept in a grove surrounded by a high wall
and guarded by a dragon named Ladon, whose many heads spoke
simultaneously in a babel of tongues. The grove was located in some far
western land in the mountains named for Atlas.
Heracles had been told that he would never get the apples without the aid of
Atlas. The Titan was only too happy to oblige, since it meant being relieved of
his burden. He told the hero to hold the pillar while he went into the garden of
the Hesperides to retrieve the fruit. But first, Heracles would have to do
something about the noisily vigilant dragon, Ladon.
This was swiftly accomplished by means of an arrow over the garden wall.
Then Heracles took the pillar while Atlas went to get the apples. He was
successful and returned quickly enough, but in the meantime he had realized
how pleasant it was not to have to strain for eternity keeping heaven and earth
apart. So he told Heracles that he'd have to fill in for him for an indeterminate
length of time. And the hero feigned agreement to this proposal. But he said
that he needed a cushion for his shoulder, and he wondered if Atlas would
mind taking back the pillar just long enough for him to fetch one. The Titan
graciously obliged, and Heracles strolled off, omitting to return
Hestia was the oldest daughter of Cronus and Rhea and one of the twelve Olympian gods.
The word 'hestia' in Greek means the heart, the place in the house where the fire was
maintained. So, Hestia was the goddess of the heart. She was venerated in the households and
in the temples. In ancient Greece, the cult of the heart was cherished in every house. That was
the place where family gathered. The father of the family used to play the role of the goddess'
priest. Also, in every town there was a communal heart sacred to Hestia. The common heart
of all Greece was symbolized by Hestia of Delphi.
There are almost no legends of Hestia. All that is known about her is that both Poseidon and
Apollo tried to win her love. In order to stop them in their attentions, she vowed to Zeus she
would remain a virgin forever. Zeus accepted her vow and granted her with special honours.
According to some versions, Hestia later resigned her seat at the high table in favour of
Dionysus, who then became one of the twelve great Olympian gods.
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Although Hestia was venerated throughout Greece, she didn't have any temples. In the art,
she was shown on several red figured vases, wearing a veil and holding a sceptre or flower,
sometimes seated, sometimes standing, but always in a pose of immobility
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Hestia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Hestia (disambiguation).
Hestia
The Giustiniani Hestia in O. Seyffert, Dictionary
of Classical Antiquities, 1894
Goddess of the Hearth
Abode
Delphi
Symbol
Hearth
Parents
Cronus and Rhea
Siblings
Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, Hera,
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Zeus, Chiron
This box: view • talk
In Greek mythology, virgin Hestia, (Roman Vesta) daughter of Cronus and Rhea, (ancient
Greek Ἑστία') is the goddess of the hearth, of the right ordering of domesticity and the family,
who received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain, the
hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official sanctuary. With the establishment of a new
colony, flame from Hestia's public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new
settlement.
In Roman mythology, her more specifically civic approximate equivalent was Vesta, who
personified the public hearth, and whose cult round the ever-burning hearth bound Romans
together in the form of an extended family. The similarity of names between Hestia and
Vesta, is misleading: "The relationship hestia-histie-Vesta cannot be explained in terms of
Indo-European linguistics; borrowings from a third language must also be involved," Walter
Burkert has written[1]. At a deep level her name means "home and hearth", the oikos, the
household and its inhabitants. "An early form of the temple is the hearth house; the early
temples at Dreros and Prinias on Crete are of this type as indeed is the temple of Apollo at
Delphi which always had its inner hestia" [2] Among classical Greeks the altar was always in
the open air with no roof but the sky, and that of the oracle at Delphi was the shrine of the
Goddess before it was assumed by Apollo. The Mycenaean great hall, such as the hall of
Odysseus at Ithaca was a megaron, with a central hearthfire.
The hearth fire of a Greek or a Roman household was not allowed to go out, unless it was
ritually extinguished and ritually renewed, accompanied by impressive rituals of completion,
purification and renewal. Compare the rituals and connotations of an eternal flame and of
sanctuary lamps. At the more developed level of the polis, Hestia symbolizes the alliance
between the colonies and their mother cities.
Contents
[hide]
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1 As an Olympian
2 Leaving Olympus
3 Other worship
4 In mythology
5 References
6 Sources
7 External links
[edit] As an Olympian
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Hestia is one of the three Great Goddesses of the first Olympian generation: Hestia, Demeter
and Hera. She was described as both the oldest and youngest[3] of the three daughters of Rhea
and Cronus, the sisters to three brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Originally listed as one
of the Twelve Olympians, Hestia gave up her seat in favour of newcomer Dionysus to tend to
the sacred fire on Mt. Olympus. Every family hearth was her altar.
Of the Olympian gods, Hestia has the fewest exploits "since the hearth is immovable Hestia
is unable to take part even in the procession of the gods, let alone the other antics of the
Olympians," Burkert remarks.[4] Sometimes this is assumed to be due to her passive, nonconfrontational nature. This nature is illustrated by her giving up her seat in the Olympian
twelve to prevent conflict. She is considered to be the first-born of Rhea and Kronus; this is
evidenced by the fact that in Greek (and later Roman) culture ritual offerings to all gods
began with a small offering to Hestia; the phrase "Hestia comes first" from ancient Greek
culture denotes this.
Immediately after their birth, Kronus swallowed Hestia and her siblings except for the last
and youngest, Zeus, who later rescued them and led them in a war against Kronus and the
other Titans. Hestia, the eldest daughter "became their youngest child, since she was the first
to be devoured by their father and the last to be yielded up again" (Kereny 1951:91) — the
clearest possible example of mythic inversion, a paradox that is noted in the Homeric hymn
to Aphrodite (ca 700 BCE):
She was the first-born child of wily Kronus — and youngest too.
Poseidon, and Apollo of the younger generation each aspired to court Hestia, but the goddess
was unmoved by Aphrodite's works and swore on the head of Zeus to retain her virginity.
The Homeric hymns, like all early Greek literature, are concerned to reinforce the supremacy
of Zeus, and Hestia's oath taken upon the head of Zeus is an example of surety. A measure of
the goddess's ancient primacy—"queenly maid...among all mortal men she is chief of the
goddesses", in the words of the Homeric hymn— is that she was owed the first as well as the
last sacrifice at every ceremonial assembly of Hellenes, a pious duty related by the
mythographers as the gift of Zeus, as if it had been his to bestow: another mythic inversion if,
as is likely, the ritual was too deep-seated and essential for the Olympian reordering to
overturn. There are theories (by modern neopagans among others) that Hestia, as goddess of
"home and hearth", was one of the most ancient of all gods later worshipped as Olympians;
as a maternal goddess of humans finding safety and homes in caves around a fire, worship of
Hestia, by other names, may literally be hundreds of thousands of years old and has
continued through Classical Greek times to the present day.
[edit] Leaving Olympus
Hestia, not wanting to be involved in the gods' quarrels, decided to leave Olympus to tend to
her sacred hearth. She became a lesser goddess in the same ranks of Pan and Dionysus, the
latter of whom later rose to the place of Olympian when Zeus chose him to take Hestia's
place.
[edit] Other worship
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"Hestia full of Blessings", Egypt, 6th century tapestry (Dumbarton Oaks Collection).
The "great hall" of Minoan-Mycenaean culture as well as the type of earliest enclosed site
built for worship on the Greek mainland is the megaron: the name of the Goddess who was
venerated in the Helladic megara is not recorded, but at the center of each holy site laid bare
by archaeologists was normally a hearth.
In his account of the Fasti of the Roman year, Ovid twice recounted an anecdote of Priapus's
foiled attempt on a sleeping nymph: once he told it of the nymph Lotis[5] and then again,
calling it a "very playful little tale", he retold it of Vesta, the Roman equivalent of Hestia.[6]
In the anecdote, after a great feast, when the immortals were all either passed out drunk or
asleep, Priapus — who had grotesquely large genitalia — spied Lotis/Vesta and was filled
with lust for her. He quietly approached the nymph, but the braying of an ass awoke her just
in time. She screamed at the sight and Priapus ran away.
[edit] In mythology
Hestia figures in few myths: she did not roam or have any adventures. The Homeric hymn To
Hestia is consequently brief, simply an invocation of five lines, a prelude:
Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo, the Far-shooter at goodly Pytho, with soft oil
dripping ever from your locks, come now into this house, come, having one mind with Zeus the allwise: draw near, and withal bestow grace upon my song.
In the hymn, Hestia is located in ancient Delphi (rather than at the hearth of Zeus on Mount
Olympus), which was considered the central hearth of all the Hellenes. In classical Greek art,
Hestia was depicted as a woman modestly cloaked in a head veil.
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METIS was one of the Okeanides and the Titan goddess of good counsel, advise,
planning, cunning, craftiness and wisdom. She functioned as the counsellor of Zeus
during the Titan War, and devised the plan which forced Kronos to regurgitate his
children. However, Zeus, in fear of a prophecy that she would bear a son more powerful
than himself, swallowed the pregnant Metis whole. Their daughter, Athena, was later
born fully grown from the god's head. Zeus is himself titled Mêtieta, "the wise
counsellor," in the Homeric poems.
It should be noted that most poets and mythographers represent Athena as a
"motherless goddess," with no mention made of Metis.
Plato makes poros, or "creative ingenuity", the child of Mètis.[5]
Metis (mythology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
In Greek mythology, Metis (Μῆτις) was of the
Titan generation and, like several primordial
figures, an Oceanid, in the sense that Mètis was
born of Oceanus and Tethys, of an earlier age
than Zeus and his siblings. Mètis was the first
great spouse of Zeus, indeed his equal (Hesiod,
Theogony 896) and the mother of Athena, Zeus'
first daughter, the goddess of the arts and
wisdom. By the era of Greek philosophy Mètis
had become the goddess of wisdom and deep
thought, but her name originally connoted
"magical cunning" and was as easily equated
with the trickster powers of Prometheus as with
the "royal metis" of Zeus.[1] The Stoic
commentators allegorized Metis as the
embodiment of "wisdom" or "wise counsel", in
which form she was inherited by the
Renaissance.
Mètis was both a threat to Zeus and an
indispensable aid (Brown 1952:133):
Zeus lay with Metis but immediately
feared the consequences. It had been
prophesied that Metis would bear
extremely powerful children: the first,
Athena and the second, a son more
powerful than Zeus himself, who would
Greek deities
series
Primordial deities
Olympians
Aquatic deities
Chthonic deities
Other deities
Titans
The Twelve Titans:
Oceanus and Tethys,
Hyperion and Theia,
Coeus and Phoebe,
Cronus and Rhea,
Mnemosyne, Themis,
Crius, Iapetus
Sons of Iapetus:
Atlas, Prometheus,
Epimetheus, Menoetius
Personified concepts
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Muses
Nemesis
Moirae
Cratos
Zelus
Nike
Metis
Charites
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Adrasteia
Horae
Bia
Eros
Apate
Themis
Eris
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eventually overthrow Zeus.[2]
In order to forestall these dire consequences, Zeus tricked her into turning herself into a fly
and promptly swallowed her.[3] He was too late: Mètis had already conceived a child. In time
she began making a helmet and robe for her fetal daughter. The hammering as she made the
helmet caused Zeus great pain and Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes, or Palaemon
(depending on the sources examined) either cleaved Zeus's head with an axe,[4] or hit it with a
hammer at the river Triton, giving rise to Athena's epithet Tritogeneia. Athena leaped from
Zeus's head, fully grown, armed, and armored, and Zeus was none the worse for the
experience. The similarities between Zeus swallowing Mètis and Cronos swallowing his
children have been noted by several scholars.
The second consort taken by Zeus, according to the Theogony was Themis, "right order".
Hesiod's account is followed by Acusilaus and the Orphic tradition, which enthroned Mètis
side by side with Eros as primal cosmogenic forces. Plato makes poros, or "creative
ingenuity", the child of Mètis.[5]
Metis
Metis was the Titaness of the forth day and the planet Mercury. She presided over all wisdom
and knowledge. She was seduced by Zeus and became pregnant with Athena. Zeus became
concerned over prophecies that her second child would replace Zeus. To avoid this Zeus ate
her. It is said that she is the source for Zeus wisdom and that she still advises Zeus from his
belly.
It may seem odd for Metis to have been pregnant with Athena but, never mentioned as her
mother. This is because the classic Greeks believed that children were generated solely from
the fathers sperm. The women was thought to be nothing more than a vessel for the fetus to
grow in. Since Metis was killed well before Athena's birth her role doesn't count.
Metic
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(not to be confused with Métis)
In ancient Greece, the term metic meant resident alien, a person who did not have citizen
rights in their Greek city-state (polis) of residence.
Metic comes from the Greek μέτοικος, metoikos, where the second element is derived from
οἶκος, oikos, "house; inhabit." The preceding element meta could here either carry the notion
of "change" or of "among". The two possible senses implicit in the word were one who
changes their place of dwelling and one who lives among (that is, who is "among" but not
"of"). There is no need to distinguish between these senses. Both reflect the reality of the
Page 16 of 16
immigrant—a person who has moved from somewhere else and come to live among
strangers.
Goddess of wisdom, warfare, handicrafts and reason. Sister of Ares, and is the
Athena daughter of Zeus. Sprung from Zeus's head in full body armor. She is the wisest of
the gods. Her symbols are the aegis, owl, and olive tree.
God of fire and the forge (god of fire and smiths) with very weak legs. He was
thrown off Mount Olympus as a baby by his mother and in some stories his
father. He makes armor for the gods and other heroes like Achilles. Son of Hera
Hephaestus and Zeus is his father in some accounts. Married to Aphrodite, but she does not
love him because he is deformed and, as a result, is cheating on him with Ares.
He had a daughter named Pandora. His symbols are an axe, a hammer and a
flame.
1
. I use Enquiry rather than Inquiry in line with British-Australian English convention.
The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe is conducting a university wide pilot of EBL in
2008-9, based on the Manchester ‘hub and spoke’ model; the University of South Australia features a
commitment to EBL in its teaching and learning framework, while Macquarie University lists PBL workshops
as one of its Learning and Teaching Plan strategies for improving the research skills and critical thinking of
students. The Australian Learning and Teaching Council sponsored national Teaching-Research Nexus project
cites numerous examples of PBL-EBL practice in Australian departments on its website.
3
Gallop, J. (1994) “The Teacher’s Breasts”, in Jill Julius Matthews, ed. Jane Gallop Seminar Papers,
Humanities Research Centre A.N.U. See also responses by Moira Gatens, Vicky Kirby and Meaghan Morris.
4
Gallop J. (1997). Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment, Duke University Press.
5
We have had our own case in Australia of a woman academic being accused of sexually harassing her female
students - this was in a Western Australian university in the department of Archeology, part of the saga known
as the Rindos affair. Some of you may have heard of this from the newspapers a few years ago.
6
Arendt, H. ‘Crisis in Education’ in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1993
7
Gordon, M, ed. (2001). Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing our Common World, Boulder, Colo.,
Westview Press
8
Derrida, J. (2004) Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson. Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 153
9
Baert, P. and Shipman, A. (2005) ‘University Under Siege? Trust and Accountability in the Contemporary
Academy’ European Societies 7(1): 157-185
10
Davis, Robert A ‘Erotapokriseis: Questioning, answering and the representation of the
teacher in Byzantine pedagogy’, paper delivered to The Teacher: Image, Identity, Icon. An International
Conference exploring representations of 'The Teacher' in the Arts and Humanities (2 to 4 July 2008, Glasgow,
United Kingdom).
11
McGovern, Deirdre, ‘The teacher as host’, paper delivered to The Teacher: Image, Identity, Icon. An
International Conference exploring representations of 'The Teacher' in the Arts and Humanities (2 to 4 July
2008, Glasgow, United Kingdom).
12
Morrison. Harriet B (1988) Seven Gifts A New View of Teaching Inspired by the Philosophy of Maurice
Merleau Ponty. Northern Illinois University Educational Studies Press.
13
. see Wirzba, Norman ‘From maieutics to metanoia: Levinas's understanding of the philosophical task’ Man
and World Volume 28, Number 2 / April, 1995; and ‘Teaching as propaedeutic to religion: The contribution of
Levinas and Kierkegaard’ International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Volume 39, Number 2 April, 1996
14
Arendt, H. (1978). Life of the Mind, London, Secker and Warburg.
2