Educating for Cosmopolitanism: Lessons from Cognitive Science and Literature Lessons from Cognitive Science and Literature

Drawing on developments in cognitive science, Bracher formulates pedagogical strategies for teaching literature in ways that develop students' cognitive capabilities for cosmopolitanism, the pursuit of global equality and justice. Several staple classroom texts, such as Things Fall Apart, provide detailed examples for teaching practices. Drawing on recent findings of cognitive science, Mark Bracher here employs widely taught literary texts - including Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Voltaire's Candide, Camus's "The Guest, " and Coetzee's Disgrace - to provide detailed demonstrations of how literary study can be used to develop cosmopolitanism, defined as a commitment to global justice. Cosmopolitanism, Bracher explains, is motivated by compassion for peoples who are distant and different from oneself, and compassion for them is dependent on perceiving their need, their deservingness, and their humanity. These perceptions are often prevented by faulty mindsets, or cognitive schemas, that can be corrected by the pedagogical practices described here. - [from the back cover] Cover 1 Half-Title 2 Series 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 7 Acknowledgments 8 1 What Is Cosmopolitanism, and How Can Education Promote It? 10 2 How Cognitive Science Can Help Us Educate for Cosmopolitanism 19 3 Correcting Ethnocentric Prototypes of Self and Other with Achebe’s Things Fall Apart 34 4 Developing Metacognition of Ethnocentrism with Lessing’s “The Old Chief Mshlanga” and Voltaire’s Candide 60 5 Correcting Faulty General Person-Schemas with Things Fall Apart, “The Old Chief Mshlanga,” and Candide 103 6 Developing Cosmopolitan Action Scripts with Camus’s “The Guest” and Coetzee’s Disgrace 115 Works Cited 138 Index 146 Front Matter....Pages i-viii What Is Cosmopolitanism, and How Can Education Promote It?....Pages 1-9 How Cognitive Science Can Help Us Educate for Cosmopolitanism....Pages 10-24 Correcting Ethnocentric Prototypes of Self and Other with Achebe’s Things Fall Apart....Pages 25-50 Developing Metacognition of Ethnocentrism with Lessing’s “The Old Chief Mshlanga” and Voltaire’s Candide....Pages 51-93 Correcting Faulty General Person-Schemas with Things Fall Apart, “The Old Chief Mshlanga,” and Candide....Pages 94-105 Developing Cosmopolitan Action Scripts with Camus’s “The Guest” and Coetzee’s Disgrace....Pages 106-128 Back Matter....Pages 129-141