The Aura of Professing: deterritorialization of authority towards communitas and enthusiasm

Abstract:

The article characterizes the teaching authority as a product of patriarchal and Christian tradition, according to which the teacher’s performance would establish discipline and silence. Just like the aura (Benjamin, 2017) of a work of art decays through technical advance, so would the teacher's aura: the democratization/secularization of education, by unlinking knowledge from the divine, generates deterritorialization of authority. In response, means of dialectically reverting the aura in teaching are sought here in works of art and philosophy. These point toward the construction of communitas in learning, in which professing becomes an aesthetic and collective experience, marked by the presence of an embodied enthusiasm.

Keywords:
Aura; Teaching Authority; Communitas; Enthusiasm; Critical Pedagogy