Beyond 'Presentism': Re-imagining the Historical, Personal, and Social Places of Curriculum

Precisely titled, this powerful collection constitutes a "chronotope," an erudite enactment of interstices within and among historical time, spiritual place, and political culture, a recollection focused forward to those "hybrid" generations (in Canadian classrooms) whose frontier is haunted by forts populated by not always their ancestors, inscribed in their national, regional, aboriginal identities. Homophobic, hygienic, the curriculum is always already inhabited by the language of the Other, propelling us toward "post-post" being, forested in difference, rooted in images, refracted through mirrors and windows. In constructing this crucial collage of decolonization, the contributors summon us to study with them the place we inhabit. WILLIAM F. PINAR, Professor and Canada Research Chair, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University Of British Columbia, Canada