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Teaching Difficult Knowledge in the Arts and Humanities
Wednesday June 4, 2025 11:00am - 11:50am MDT
Shields 113
Difficult knowledge are educational narratives that reference “incommensurability, historical trauma, and social breakdowns” (Pitt and Britzman 2003) Presenting difficult knowledge in arts and humanities courses results in unique opportunities for students to come to understand themselves as social subjects through encounters with foundational civil ruptures both familiar and distant to their own experiences. At the same time, representing difficult knowledge raises several ethical questions related to the incongruity of narrative and experience, students’ emotional well-being, and resistance to ideas that are perceived as challenges to myths of social cohesion in the United States.  
In this session we will discuss the possibilities and potiential pitfalls of centering difficult knowledge in arts and humanities classrooms (though the discussion can also be applied to other disciplines). We will then work collaboratively to discuss what kinds of difficult knowledge we currently present in our classrooms as well as devise collective best-practice strategies for navigating this content with our students.  
 
Pitt, Allice and Deborah Britzman. “Speculations on Qualities of Difficult Knowledge in Teaching and Learning: An Experiment in Psychoanalytic Research.” Qualitative Studies in Education 16/6 (2003): 755-776. 
Speakers
avatar for Nate Ruechel

Nate Ruechel

Instructor of Music, Humanities, and General Education, College of Southern Idaho
Dr. Nate Ruechel is a cultural historian who specalizes in American music. He teaches classes in ancient and modern humanities, popular music, music appreciation, and general education at the College of Southern Idaho
Wednesday June 4, 2025 11:00am - 11:50am MDT
Shields 113
  Humanistic and Artistic

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