Join us at this week's meeting of the Philosophy Club, virtually or in-person (Auerbach 320) on Wednesday, Oct. 14 from 1 p.m.—2 p.m. to hear from Dr. Bethsaida Nieves present: The Interplay of Knowledge, Education, and Sovereignty in Puerto Rico.
TOPIC OVERVIEW
Between 1900 and 1903, Puerto Rico’s educators and administrators were in the process of reforming Puerto Rico’s education system. In my study, I examine how educators tried to reform Puerto Rico’s children by reforming Puerto Rico’s education curriculum and use it as a governing practice. I also consider how the student lessons that children wrote in Puerto Rico between 1901 and 1903 reflect the epistemological and ontological shifts evident in the new curricula that determined what type of knowledge was valuable and what counted as ‘truth’. These methods for teaching children how to ‘see’ and reason about ‘truth’ were also about teaching children how to ‘see’ the ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ through defining, observing, and classifying difference. Ultimately, the curriculum reforms were aimed at producing a governable subject that could act and participate in Puerto Rico’s education and society under civil colonial rule. Connecting these historical discourses of difference to the present day, Dr. Nieves’ discussion will examine how discourses of knowledge, education, and sovereignty at the turn of the twentieth century remain a central part of Puerto Rico’s contemporary society. Read the article here.
Bethsaida Nieves received her PhD in Curriculum Theory and Research with a PhD minor in the History of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Nieves studies how constructions of demographic difference are transmogrified into scientific facts and mobilized as mainstream ideologies. In her scholarship, she draws on the historical, scientific, philosophical, and legal archives to analyze the systems of reason(ing) and intersectionalities that project knowledge, power, and difference in education and society. For more information, please visit the ORCiD and Google Scholar pages for Dr. Nieves.
Questions? Contact Brian Skelly at bskelly@hartford.edu or 413.273.2273.
An ongoing weekly tradition at the University since 2001, the University of Hartford Philosophy Club is a place where students, professors, and people from the community at large meet as peers. Sometimes presentations are given, followed by discussion. Other times, topics are hashed out by the whole group.
Presenters may be students, professors, or people from the community. Anyone can offer to present a topic. The mode of presentation may be as formal or informal as the presenter chooses.
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