Beyond the collapse of language? Photographs of children in postwar Europe as performances and relational objects

in Paedagogica Historica (2017), 53(6),

This paper explores photographs of children, taken after 1945 by the Swiss photographer Werner Bischof (1916–1954), as visual objects and social agents. In the summer of 1945, Bischof embarked on his ... [more ▼]

This paper explores photographs of children, taken after 1945 by the Swiss photographer Werner Bischof (1916–1954), as visual objects and social agents. In the summer of 1945, Bischof embarked on his first journey through war-ravaged Western Europe – specifically Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands – to visually capture the lives of men, women, and children who had experienced the destruction, cruelties and trauma of World War II. Bischof’s photographic mission focused on children in particular. His ambitions drew upon the power of photography to present, represent, and perform, to make and articulate histories, to evoke emotions, and to relate to and resonate with various audiences. This very agency of photography, which has been argued by Bischof and also serves as a central hypothesis of this paper, is intensified when a photographer works with children and thus enhances and more strongly emphasises photography’s inherent and irreducible agency. The paper looks at how Bischof’s photographs, as performances, not only evoked but also disturbed and disrupted narratives of war-ravaged Europe. [less ▲]

Learning How to See and Feel: Alfred Lichtwark and His Concept of Artistic and Aesthetic Education

in Paedagogica Historica (2017)

On Display: Visual Politics, Material Culture, and Education

Book published by Waxmann (2016)

Puppets on a string in a theatre of display? Interactions of images, text, material, space and motion in The Family of Man (ca. 1950s-1960s)

in Thyssen, Gert; Priem, Karin (Eds.) Modes and Meaning: Displays of Evidence in Education (2016)

Body_Machine? Encounters of the Human and the Mechanical in Education, Industry and Science

in History of Education (2016)

This paper unveils the body-machine as a key element of dynamic mental maps that have come to shape both educational praxis and research. It traces and analyses instances in which the human and the ... [more ▼]

This paper unveils the body-machine as a key element of dynamic mental maps that have come to shape both educational praxis and research. It traces and analyses instances in which the human and the mechanical encountered each other in metaphorical, material and visual forms, thereby blurring to some extent the boundaries between them while capturing and mobilising specific forms of knowing and acting. The paper studies firstly, how certain ‘orienting frames of reference’ and associated ‘experimental systems’ managed to materialise around the body-machine and penetrate theory and praxis; and, secondly, what visual and textual sources related to a vocational school may reveal about where and how the body-machine has come to operate in education, industry and science. The paper centres on early twentieth century photographs and analyses these not only as media presenting, representing and interrogating common thought and practice but also as agents of meaning-making around the body-machine. [less ▲]

"We seek revelation with our eyes": Engaging with school cultures through montage

in Encounters: Journal of Inter-Cultural Perspectives (2016), 17

Seeing, hearing, reading, writing, speaking, and things: On silences, senses and emotions during the ‘zero hour’ in Germany

in Paedagogica Historica (2016), LII(III), 286-299

Facts for Babies: Visual Experiments at the Intersection of Art, Science and Consumerism in Education

in Priem, Karin; te Heesen, Kerstin (Eds.) On Display: Visual Poltics, Material Culture, and Education (2016)

Nonformal Education on Display

in Smeyers, Paul; Bridges, David; Burbules, Nicholas C. (Eds.) et al International Handbook of Interpretation in Educational Research (2015)

Körper_Maschinen? Die Verschmelzung von Mensch und Technik in Pädagogik, Industrie und Wissenschaft

in Caruso, Marcelo; Mietzner, Ulrike; Wiegmann, Ulrich (Eds.) Jahrbuch für Historische Bildungsforschung (2015)

This paper unveils mutually constituent material, visual and metaphorical expressions of encounters between the human and the mechanical. It investigates circumstances and ways in which these expressions ... [more ▼]

This paper unveils mutually constituent material, visual and metaphorical expressions of encounters between the human and the mechanical. It investigates circumstances and ways in which these expressions have come into existence, and captured and mobilised new forms of knowing and acting. The paper explores firstly, how certain ‘orienting frames of reference’ and associated ‘experimental systems’ have managed to materialise around the body-machine and penetrate theory and praxis; and, secondly, what visual and textual sources related to a vocational school reveal about where and how the body-machine has come to operate in education, industry and science. The paper thereby analyses photographs not only as media presenting, representing and interrogating common thought and practice but rather as agents adding further layers to networks of meaning around the body-machine. It shows how the body-machine in metaphorical, material and visual ways became a key element of dynamic mental maps underlying educational practices and research. [less ▲]