Anxiety Can Bring Us Together

Pedagogy Oct 2019

Douglas Dowland

Abstract

This article traces the history of the word anxiety and explores its use as a way to describe the act of literary interpretation. Returning to Stanley Fish’s idea of the interpretive community, the article argues that pedagogy often reinforces anxiety as an individual, isolating experience. This bespeaks a larger concern about the role of pedagogy in student and faculty life. The article concludes by encouraging faculty to consider anxiety as an energy that can be productively harnessed through the construction of a more emotionally aware interpretive community.

Journal: Pedagogy
Published: 2019-10-01
DOI: 10.1215/15314200-7615553
Open Access: Closed
Topics: race and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (4)

Siltanen (2024)

“Bound by a Shared Affect”

Pedagogy
Ball (2023)

Surveillance and Pedagogy

Pedagogy
Ioanes (2023)

Should You Kill the Spider?

Pedagogy
Porter (2023)

Corequisite English and Community College

Pedagogy

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 6 works outside this index ↓

Bammer (2015)

Tribal Rites: Academic-Speak and the Promise of Belonging

↗
Best (2009)

Surface Reading: An Introduction

Representations ↗
Cvetkovich (2012)

Depression: A Public Feeling

↗
Freeman (2012)

Anxiety: A Very Short Introduction

↗
Lim (2010)

The Performance and Pedagogy of Neoliberal Affect

Theatre Survey ↗
Wiegman (2014)

The Times We’re In: Queer Feminist Criticism and the Reparative ‘Turn.’

Feminist Theory ↗

CrossRef global citation count: 4 View in citation network →