Conference paper
Did Buddha Laugh? Zen, humour and pedagogy
Proceedings of the 2004 Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, pp.1-16
Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference, 2004 (Melbourne, Australia, 28-Nov-2004–02-Dec-2004)
Australian Association for Research in Education
2004
Abstract
In academic and popularist text, Western interest in Zen pivots around its 'new age' spiritual appeal. Captured in titles like 'Zen and the art of X' or 'the Zen of Y', these texts explore the selfrealisation necessary to relieve individuals of their often worrisome and frequently unwholesome 'selves'. Research and discussion of humour in education has been mainly concerned with its ability promote learner attention, motivation, comprehension and retention, or to facilitate positive teaching and learning relationships and environments (Powell & Anderson, 1985). Zen is introduced in terms of a 'healing deconstruction' (Loy 1996) that is radically anti-essentialising, in ways that have yet to be properly accounted for by poststructuralism. As well, Zen focuses on existential concerns and is interested in embodiment as knowledge, uses impermanence, suffering and death as resources for technologies of self. As a philosophical/psychological tradition, Zen offers a form of praxis for living a life in which humour is understood to be one of its significant resources. Humour provides a space for serious contemplation on issues that are often repressed or silenced. Taking the comedic dimensions of Zen teaching as a focal point, this paper explores humour as pedagogy. It highlights practices such as the strategic use of paradox, irony, incongruity, unconventionality and distancing; the dissolution of dualisms; and the deployment of radical scepticism in Zen teachings, to argue for a more encompassing consideration of the pedagogic dimensions of humour.
Details
- Title
- Did Buddha Laugh? Zen, humour and pedagogy
- Authors
- Julie M Matthews (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Arts and Social SciencesR Hattam (Author) - University of South Australia
- Publication details
- Proceedings of the 2004 Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, pp.1-16
- Conference details
- Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference, 2004 (Melbourne, Australia, 28-Nov-2004–02-Dec-2004)
- Publisher
- Australian Association for Research in Education
- Date published
- 2004
- ISSN
- 1324-9339
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2004 The Authors. Reproduced here with permission of the publisher.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Social Sciences - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99448814502621
- Output Type
- Conference paper
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