Attunement and democratic literature education, or free time with Clint Eastwood

Abstract

This article takes its starting point in the idea that literature education has democratic potential. It questions a view of literature education as fundamentally a fosterer of democratic citizens, and aims to conceptualise a literature education which in itself can contain democratic moments. The quest for such moments is informed by a Mouffean agonistic understanding of democracy, particularly the aspect of collective identity formation. It is also informed by Masschelein and Simons’ understanding of school as ‘free time’ and by Felski’s concept attunement from her theory of literary reading. A fusion of these theories works to form an understanding of the literature classroom as a space for becoming, individually and collectively, in an open, non-predetermined sense. The theoretical argument is illustrated by a discussion between four upper secondary school students about the short story ‘Farangs’ (Lapcharoensap, 2005). I use Felski’s attunement and the metaphor of harmonising, singing in harmonies, to conceptualise a relation between literature education and democracy that centres on becoming in collective terms.