Cathryn Van Kessel
Biographic Data
| ID | 1606473 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cathryn Van Kessel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cathryn |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Kessel |
| SIGNATURE | VAN KESSEL C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas Christian University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7450-5963 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 24 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Engaging Boldly to (Re)Think Methodology
In Methodology and Praxis: Thinking with Patti Lather, editors Gabriel Huddleston and Robert Helfenbein and their contributing authors offer both academic and personal insights into the works, theories, and life of Patti Lather. As readers, we are invited to learn not only about Lather’s extensive contributions to qualitative methodologies but also her influence on the personal lives of fellow academics. Rarely do we get to peak behind the veil o…
A Curriculum of Illusion and the Miraculous During DreadFul(l) Times
The current milieu feels dreadful and full of that dread: gun violence and cis-heterosexism in the United States (and elsewhere), as well as the global climate crisis. Given our dread-full situation, what might we do to “keep going” from an ethical standpoint? On our minds is what we are calling a curriculum of illusion and the miraculous, which weaves together Jean Baudrillard’s illusion with Robert Orsi’s call to reclaim the language of immanen…
Baudrillard, hyperreality, and the ‘problematic’ of (mis/dis)information in social media
(Con)spirituality as a curriculum of immortality
If we are listening to marketing hype, it seems that—with enough money—we can live longer, healthier lives. These products, however, are often no more than consumerist swindling steeped in pseudo-science and pseudo-spirituality. When viewed through the lens of terror management theory (TMT), mitigating the harms of (con)spiritual grifts is more than a problem of a lack of scientific literacy, anti-consumer education, and media literacy. Those who…
Material and Affective (Re)shapings within Unspeakable/Uninterrupted Territories of Violence
How might we refuse historically censored, sustained, and whitewashed frames and forms of quotidian violence that drag our attention towards registers of inevitability and predictability? This conceptual article considers assemblages of violence in the context of historical and ongoing reverberations of antiblack racism in the United States. Specifically, the authors consider various material and affective intersections that produce movements wit…
Theorizing necropolitics in social studies education
This article engages with three commonly traversed social studies topics—depictions of violence and death from the French Revolution, during the Vietnam War, and regarding U.S. histories of racial segregation—through the lens of Achille Mbembe’s necropolitics (i.e., political and social machinations of power that determine who lives and who dies). In particular, this article theorizes how specific necropolitical concepts (e.g., necropower, the li…
Snatching Bodies, Snatching History/ies
This article engages in curriculum work regarding the theft of Black bodies and history/ies, the plundering of Black cemeteries, and sustained hegemonic efforts to use and reuse Black bodies for white/settler onto-epistemological advancements. In particular, this article draws from assemblages of violence and necropolitics to explore implications of postmortem racism on curriculum studies. By tracing the history of body snatching, we identify and…
Responding to Worldview Threats in the Classroom
This study used two training sessions and two focus groups with 17 preservice teachers (aged 20-36) completing their first teaching practicum placement during their Bachelor of Education program at an urban research university in western Canada. The aim was to implement ideas from terror management theory (TMT) during their teaching practicum. Participants explored how to facilitate contentious issues so as to prevent defensive reactions when wor…
Ma(r)king The Unthinkable
Culture is an integral part of social studies education, and is a generative line of inquiry when placed in conversation with existential concerns. This post qualitative study engages with terror management theory (and its inspiration, the writing of Ernest Becker) to think about culture in the context of extreme historical violence. In particular, the authors re/read accounts from the Nazi massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland (1941) and the Hutu…
Thinking educational controversies through evil and prophetic indictment
This article is about evil and its function in educational discourse. The research posits, using work in postsecularism and particularly through an historical, legal, and theological read of prophetic indictment and the function of the jeremiad in educational policy, that the terms of educational debate are rendered in a legal rather than a deliberative discursive framework. This lends itself, then, to the creation of evil others opposed to one’s…
Teaching as an Immortality Project
Journal Article Teaching as an Immortality Project: Positing Weakness in Response to Terror Get access Cathryn Van Kessel, Cathryn Van Kessel Correspondence: Cathryn van Kessel, Department of Secondary Education, 551 Education South, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada.E-mail: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7450-5963 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Kevin Burke Kevin B…
Villainification and Evil in Social Studies Education
Villainification is the process of creating single actors as the faces of systemic harm, with those hyperindividualized villains losing their ordinary characteristics. Like heroification, there is a simplified portrayal of historical actors, but villainification has particularly harmful consequences. We suggest that villainification obscures the way in which evil operates through everyday actions and unquestioned structures because of the focus o…
The Transparency of Evil in The Leftovers and its Implications for Student (Dis)engagement
The HBO series, The Leftovers, provides a thought-provoking platform for discussing Baudrillard's conceptualization of evil and the implications for contemporary pedagogical discourse about student (dis)engagement. The dystopic scenario of 2% of the world's population suddenly disappearing might help us rethink our own society, including education. Baudrillard distinguishes between a creative Evil force that can be positive or negative in its out…
Youth Conceptualizations of Evil and Implications for Social Studies Education
Villainification and Evil in Social Studies Education
Villainification is the process of creating single actors as the faces of systemic harm, with those hyperindividualized villains losing their ordinary characteristics. Like heroification, there is a simplified portrayal of historical actors, but villainification has particularly harmful consequences. We suggest that villainification obscures the way in which evil operates through everyday actions and unquestioned structures because of the focus o…
Responding to Worldview Threats in the Classroom
This study used two training sessions and two focus groups with 17 preservice teachers (aged 20-36) completing their first teaching practicum placement during their Bachelor of Education program at an urban research university in western Canada. The aim was to implement ideas from terror management theory (TMT) during their teaching practicum. Participants explored how to facilitate contentious issues so as to prevent defensive reactions when wor…
Baudrillard, hyperreality, and the ‘problematic’ of (mis/dis)information in social media
Teaching as an Immortality Project
Journal Article Teaching as an Immortality Project: Positing Weakness in Response to Terror Get access Cathryn Van Kessel, Cathryn Van Kessel Correspondence: Cathryn van Kessel, Department of Secondary Education, 551 Education South, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada.E-mail: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7450-5963 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Kevin Burke Kevin B…
Theorizing necropolitics in social studies education
This article engages with three commonly traversed social studies topics—depictions of violence and death from the French Revolution, during the Vietnam War, and regarding U.S. histories of racial segregation—through the lens of Achille Mbembe’s necropolitics (i.e., political and social machinations of power that determine who lives and who dies). In particular, this article theorizes how specific necropolitical concepts (e.g., necropower, the li…
The Transparency of Evil in The Leftovers and its Implications for Student (Dis)engagement
The HBO series, The Leftovers, provides a thought-provoking platform for discussing Baudrillard's conceptualization of evil and the implications for contemporary pedagogical discourse about student (dis)engagement. The dystopic scenario of 2% of the world's population suddenly disappearing might help us rethink our own society, including education. Baudrillard distinguishes between a creative Evil force that can be positive or negative in its out…
Thinking educational controversies through evil and prophetic indictment
This article is about evil and its function in educational discourse. The research posits, using work in postsecularism and particularly through an historical, legal, and theological read of prophetic indictment and the function of the jeremiad in educational policy, that the terms of educational debate are rendered in a legal rather than a deliberative discursive framework. This lends itself, then, to the creation of evil others opposed to one’s…
Youth Conceptualizations of Evil and Implications for Social Studies Education
The Transparency of Evil in The Leftovers and its Implications for Student (Dis)engagement
The HBO series, The Leftovers, provides a thought-provoking platform for discussing Baudrillard's conceptualization of evil and the implications for contemporary pedagogical discourse about student (dis)engagement. The dystopic scenario of 2% of the world's population suddenly disappearing might help us rethink our own society, including education. Baudrillard distinguishes between a creative Evil force that can be positive or negative in its out…
Villainification and Evil in Social Studies Education
Villainification is the process of creating single actors as the faces of systemic harm, with those hyperindividualized villains losing their ordinary characteristics. Like heroification, there is a simplified portrayal of historical actors, but villainification has particularly harmful consequences. We suggest that villainification obscures the way in which evil operates through everyday actions and unquestioned structures because of the focus o…
Teaching as an Immortality Project
Journal Article Teaching as an Immortality Project: Positing Weakness in Response to Terror Get access Cathryn Van Kessel, Cathryn Van Kessel Correspondence: Cathryn van Kessel, Department of Secondary Education, 551 Education South, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada.E-mail: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7450-5963 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Kevin Burke Kevin B…
Thinking educational controversies through evil and prophetic indictment
This article is about evil and its function in educational discourse. The research posits, using work in postsecularism and particularly through an historical, legal, and theological read of prophetic indictment and the function of the jeremiad in educational policy, that the terms of educational debate are rendered in a legal rather than a deliberative discursive framework. This lends itself, then, to the creation of evil others opposed to one’s…
Ma(r)king The Unthinkable
Culture is an integral part of social studies education, and is a generative line of inquiry when placed in conversation with existential concerns. This post qualitative study engages with terror management theory (and its inspiration, the writing of Ernest Becker) to think about culture in the context of extreme historical violence. In particular, the authors re/read accounts from the Nazi massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland (1941) and the Hutu…
Snatching Bodies, Snatching History/ies
This article engages in curriculum work regarding the theft of Black bodies and history/ies, the plundering of Black cemeteries, and sustained hegemonic efforts to use and reuse Black bodies for white/settler onto-epistemological advancements. In particular, this article draws from assemblages of violence and necropolitics to explore implications of postmortem racism on curriculum studies. By tracing the history of body snatching, we identify and…
Responding to Worldview Threats in the Classroom
This study used two training sessions and two focus groups with 17 preservice teachers (aged 20-36) completing their first teaching practicum placement during their Bachelor of Education program at an urban research university in western Canada. The aim was to implement ideas from terror management theory (TMT) during their teaching practicum. Participants explored how to facilitate contentious issues so as to prevent defensive reactions when wor…
Material and Affective (Re)shapings within Unspeakable/Uninterrupted Territories of Violence
How might we refuse historically censored, sustained, and whitewashed frames and forms of quotidian violence that drag our attention towards registers of inevitability and predictability? This conceptual article considers assemblages of violence in the context of historical and ongoing reverberations of antiblack racism in the United States. Specifically, the authors consider various material and affective intersections that produce movements wit…
Theorizing necropolitics in social studies education
This article engages with three commonly traversed social studies topics—depictions of violence and death from the French Revolution, during the Vietnam War, and regarding U.S. histories of racial segregation—through the lens of Achille Mbembe’s necropolitics (i.e., political and social machinations of power that determine who lives and who dies). In particular, this article theorizes how specific necropolitical concepts (e.g., necropower, the li…
(Con)spirituality as a curriculum of immortality
If we are listening to marketing hype, it seems that—with enough money—we can live longer, healthier lives. These products, however, are often no more than consumerist swindling steeped in pseudo-science and pseudo-spirituality. When viewed through the lens of terror management theory (TMT), mitigating the harms of (con)spiritual grifts is more than a problem of a lack of scientific literacy, anti-consumer education, and media literacy. Those who…
A Curriculum of Illusion and the Miraculous During DreadFul(l) Times
The current milieu feels dreadful and full of that dread: gun violence and cis-heterosexism in the United States (and elsewhere), as well as the global climate crisis. Given our dread-full situation, what might we do to “keep going” from an ethical standpoint? On our minds is what we are calling a curriculum of illusion and the miraculous, which weaves together Jean Baudrillard’s illusion with Robert Orsi’s call to reclaim the language of immanen…
Baudrillard, hyperreality, and the ‘problematic’ of (mis/dis)information in social media
Engaging Boldly to (Re)Think Methodology
In Methodology and Praxis: Thinking with Patti Lather, editors Gabriel Huddleston and Robert Helfenbein and their contributing authors offer both academic and personal insights into the works, theories, and life of Patti Lather. As readers, we are invited to learn not only about Lather’s extensive contributions to qualitative methodologies but also her influence on the personal lives of fellow academics. Rarely do we get to peak behind the veil o…
Sociology (11 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Political science (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Pedagogy (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Criminology (4 works) · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion (4 works) · Law (4 works)