Advance Praise for Bringing Forth a World: Engaged Pedagogy in the Japanese University
“In Bringing Forth a World: Engaged Pedagogy in the Japanese University, the editors, Joff Bradley and David Kennedy, have assembled an insightful collection of chapters that challenge the status quo of teaching in Japanese universities. The forward-looking volume sees the future of higher education pedagogy embracing socially-situated knowledge construction and co-created meaning. The authors contribute in different ways to breaking down generational barriers and developing stronger links with the process of signification in language, literature and literacy. Those interested in innovations and challenges in Japanese higher education will certainly benefit from this volume.”
– Jim McKinley, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL, University College London Institute of Education
“The work here gets right to the core of important academic problems by situating criticisms deeply inside the Japanese university system, while searching for ways out of the systemic and intellectual constraints students, teachers and even, perhaps, bureaucrats and staff want to escape. The chapters here confront classroom issues that impact individual students. What each of these chapters do is crack different points in the ice that inhibits the discussion that many academics would like to undertake, but too often shy away from.”
– Michael Pronko, Professor of American Literature, English Department, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
“This volume tackles the daunting and almost insurmountable problem of apathy among information-addicted students who coast through education systems across the planet at the cost of in-depth and serious engagement with knowledge as such. To break the cyclical, nihilistic passage of nonlearning on the Möbius strip of mass-produced and mass-consumed education is a Herculean task but, taking Japan as their cradle for experimentation, Bradley and Kennedy do a commendable job of making ground against the tidal wave of mediated nonsense that bombards our digitised, burnt out senses understood as modern learning. Perhaps there is still hope beyond the tormented shrine of the university lectern?”
David R. Cole, Associate Professor in Education, Western Sydney University, Australia