| This dissertation elucidates Maxine Greene's existentialist concept of freedom as it relates to discourse embedded within a curriculum of action. The project attempts to explain how it is that Greene, by elaborating on Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist concept of freedom, creates a curriculum of empowerment for students in which learning becomes the basis for challenging the social practices that produce both symbolic and real violence, rendering certain students voiceless and thus powerless.; I first attempt to show how Greene contextualizes freedom within a dynamic concept of action. Thereafter, I proceed to examine how Greene builds on Sartre's notions of action and freedom to create an educational theory of emancipation. In this regard, I examine the influence of Maurice Merleau-Ponty on Greene, especially as it manifests itself in what Greene refers to as “social imagination.”; I proceed to argue that Greene's work represents an advance on that of Sartre and other existentialists owing to her interpretation of freedom within an educational setting. Greene takes the theoretical discussion of existentialist freedom a step further by implementing it concretely in curriculum discourse, a progression otherwise largely foreign to the discourse on freedom.; Next, I attempt to elucidate how the positive role of “possibility,” as interpreted within the realm of education, is manifested in Greene's discussion of literature. In Greene's view, imaginative literature holds significance for the existential philosopher above all because of its dominating interest in human freedom. I attempt therefore to explicate the important role that literature plays for Greene both in curriculum theory and in pedagogical practice.; Finally, by incorporating Greene's educational pedagogy into a curriculum of action, I attempt to show how educational leaders can develop a project that, as Sartre would have it, is grounded in a vision of leadership and freedom and embodies a language of both critique and possibility. The aim of the dissertation is thus to create of an existentialist curriculum, one that embodies the advocacy of the student's right to examine his or her culture without being punished if he or she does not reach the conclusions legitimated by the dominant society. |
