Embodiment and the Risk of Reading

Abstract

In this article, Anders Öhman discusses Gert J. J. Biesta's concept of the risk of education and what it could mean for the study of literature in the classroom. The article's point of departure is Bakhtin's theory of the utterance. The utterance, for Bakhtin, has to be embodied, that is, it has to be governed by a purpose: it must be uttered by someone, or at least the reader or listener must imagine that it is uttered by someone that speaks with an intent. A grammatical sentence that is not an utterance has no author and no direction or intention; it is therefore abstract and belongs to no one. Reading on the Internet, or digital reading, often consists of short passages or text fragments for which it is difficult to identify an author. These fragments are not embodied and thus the reader does not feel addressed by the text. Although Biesta does not reckon with Bakhtin's theory, his critique of “strong education” provides an analysis that runs along similar lines. According to Biesta, the notion of strong education and what he calls the “language of learning” regard knowledge as free of values thus rendering it abstract. In bringing together Bakhtin's and Biesta's analyses, Öhman concludes that in order for knowledge to elicit valuation, it must first become embodied; this process, in turn, is important to creating the conditions necessary for a dialogue to occur between the content of teaching and the students.