Discipline of Philosophy Speakers Series

Discipline of Philosophy presents "Photography, Poignancy and Negative Education" by Dr Ian Munday (University of Galway)

In this paper I consider how our experiences of photographs may be educative in ways which are intimately bound up with negation and death. To do this I draw on Roland Barthes’s seminal work Camera Lucida where these issues are handled in some depth. Barthes’ argues that the photograph conjures death: ‘The object ‘has been here’ yet is ‘immediately separated; it has been absolutely irrefutably present, and yet already deferred’. Following this claim, Barthes, draws on two central concepts which denote our relationship with photographs – studium and punctum. Barthes explicitly associates the studium with education presenting it in lukewarm terms where students of the photograph become familiar with cultural meanings intended by the photographer/teacher. In contrast, the punctum refers to the unintended spectral details in photographs which pierce through the studium and connect with our innermost desires. Following Derrida’s deconstructive reading of Barthes, which may align with the latter’s intentions, I argue for a negative education in which study is made poignant through the metonymic relationship between studium and punctum. Lastly I consider how this this relationship may not just be applicable to our experiences with photographs but may be a feature of textuality in general. 

Ian Munday is Senior Lecturer in Educational Philosophy in the School of Education at the University of Galway. Ian’s research activities testify to an engagement with philosophical issues in education, particularly those concerned with teaching and learning. His publications have tended to focus on various approaches to performatives and performativities and demonstrate the significance of these ideas for education.  The themes explored in these terms include race, gender, authority and the language of schooling. Here, philosophical ideas are treated in regard to their relevance to the details of educational practice. Ian has also written on the themes of creativity and problem-solving.