Our Civilizing Mission: The Lessons of Colonial Education (Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures LUP)

__Our Civilizing Mission__ is at once an exploration of colonial education, and a response to current anxieties about the historical and conceptual foundations of the ‘humanities’. On the one hand, focusing in detail on the example of Algeria, it treats colonial education as a facet of colonialism, exploring francophone writing that attests to the suffering inflicted by colonialism, to the shortcomings of colonial education, and to the often painful mismatch between the world of the colonial school and students’ home cultures. On the other hand, it asks what can be learned by treating colonial education not just as an example of colonialism but as a provocative, uncomfortable example of education. Placing writers’ literary and personal accounts of their transformative and often alienating experiences of colonial education in historical context, it raises difficult questions – about languages, literatures, ways of thinking, nationalism and national cultures – that need to be reconsidered by anyone teaching subjects such as French, or English, especially through literature. [160] An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched. Our Civilizing Mission is at once an exploration of colonial education, and a response to current anxieties about the historical and conceptual foundations of the 'humanities'. On the one hand, focusing in detail on the example of Algeria, it treats colonial education as a facet of colonialism, exploring work by 'colonized' writers that attests to the suffering inflicted by colonialism, to the shortcomings of colonial education, and to the often painful mismatch between the world of the colonial school and students' home cultures. On the other hand, it asks what can be learned by treating colonial education not just as an example of colonialism but as a provocative, uncomfortable example of education. Placing writers' literary and personal accounts of their transformative and often alienating experiences of colonial education in historical context, it raises difficult questions - about languages, literatures, ways of thinking, nationalism and national cultures - that need to be reconsidered by anyone teaching subjects such as French, or English, especially through literature. An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched.Our Civilizing Mission is at once an exploration of colonial education and a response to current anxieties about the historical and conceptual foundations of the ‘humanities'. On the one hand, it treats colonial education as a facet of colonialism. It draws on a rich body of work by ‘colonized'writers – starting with Edward Said, then focusing on Algeria – that attests to the suffering inflicted by colonialism, to the shortcomings of colonial education, and to the often painful mismatch between the world of the colonial school and students'home cultures. On the other hand, it asks what can be learned by treating colonial education not just as an example of colonialism but as a provocative, uncomfortable example of education, and its powers of transformation. "Our Civilizing Mission" is at once an exploration of colonial education and a response to current anxieties about the historical and conceptual foundations of the 'humanities'. On the one hand, it treats colonial education as a facet of colonialism. It draws on a rich body of work by 'colonized' writers - starting with Edward Said, then focusing on Algeria - that attests to the suffering inflicted by colonialism, to the shortcomings of colonial education, and to the often painful mismatch between the world of the colonial school and students' home cultures. On the other hand, it asks what can be learned by treating colonial education not just as an example of colonialism but as a provocative, uncomfortable example of education, and its powers of transformation Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 5 Acknowledgements......Page 9 Note on translations and citations......Page 13 Introduction: Our Civilizing Mission......Page 15 1. Lessons from Said......Page 29 2. ‘Nos ancêtres les colons’......Page 51 3. Teaching in a time of crisis......Page 99 4. Unfamiliar Worlds......Page 175 5. French Lessons......Page 234 Conclusion: Education's Impact......Page 299 Bibliography......Page 333 Index......Page 356 Our Civilizing Mission is both an exploration of colonial education and a response to current anxieties about the foundations of the ‘humanities’. Focusing on the example of Algeria, it asks what can be learned by treating colonial education not just as an example of colonialism but as a provocative, uncomfortable example of education.