Orality, writing, and school: a pedagogical reading of Emmanuel Levinas' unpublished works
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.361225Keywords:
teaching, orality, writing, school, phenomenologyAbstract
This article examines the distinction between orality and writing in the work of Emmanuel Levinas as a key to understanding the genesis of his notion of teaching. The analysis seeks to lay the groundwork for a pedagogical reading of his thought, arguing that this requires reading beyond Totality and Infinity, where teaching is stripped of its pedagogical content. The exploration of unpublished writings and Levinas’ texts devoted to Jewish education enables the reconstruction of his ideas on school and reading, as well as an examination of the influence of the Talmudic tradition upon his conception of scriptural interpretation. From this foundation, it is concluded that reflections on the pedagogical aims of the École Normale Israélite Orientale and on the tradition of Torah reading permeate his unpublished texts, thereby offering a framework that contextualises and justifies the appearance of certain pedagogical terms within them. In this regard, the article opens a new avenue for interpreting Levinas' unpublished works through an educational lens and demonstrates that, whilst it is possible to recover a pedagogical dimension in his work, this dimension was configured prior to the writing of Totality and Infinity.
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