Conclusion: Sharing Wonder

Abstract

How does wonder differ from feelings of magic, immersion, and fascination that are produced by commercial media society? What can it mean to cultivate wonder for ecological learning? How might writing and teaching about art and literature be re-imagined through reading for wonder? Willmott argues that the motive force of wonder is fundamentally different from desire, with a different feeling for pleasure and the good life. Its most subversive value may be to interrupt the cycle of scarcity and desire that consumer society has rendered normative. He concludes by asking, then, what a practice of wonder might look like, and offers a model of ordinary sharing.