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Artful Education and the Downward Journey

Facing Finitude and Death

Artful Education and the Downward Journey cover

Artful Education and the Downward Journey

Facing Finitude and Death

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Pre-order. Available 29 Oct 2026
$162.00 RRP $180.00 Website price saving $18.00 (10%)

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Description

This book considers whether and how various philosophies, practices and artworks might help people face, and give new faces to, finitude. Formal education typically emphasizes the journey upward, with ascending and healthy aspects of life like growth and flourishing being common educational aims. However, life also involves downward journeys of illness, decay and death. Written by contributors based in the UK and Ireland, it explores the educational potential in a range of spiritual and social practices as well as from cinema and literature that engage with downward journeys. The chapters cover written works by E.M. Forster, Hume, Nietzsche, and Robert Louis Stevenson; films such as Des Hommes et Les Dieux and Arrival, Living and My Life Without Me; and social practices and rituals including football and the Japanese tea ceremony. They argue that some artworks frame or narrate descent in ways that can educate audiences and reveal the folly in beating wings only upward. Downward journeys show falling or failing and fear of the suffocating dark unknown; but they may also provide glimmers of light, hope and amusement. Education full of art and artistry can prepare us to rise and fall, and rise and fall again, not simply to solve or heal, but to be present to what finitude teaches.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Preface
Introduction, James MacAllister and Ramsey Affifi (University of Edinburgh, UK) and Anne Pirrie (University of West of Scotland, UK)
1. Why 'Artful Education' in the Face of Finitude? James MacAllister and Ramsey Affifi (University of Edinburgh, UK) and Anne Pirrie (University of West of Scotland, UK)
2. Embracing the Downward Journey: Artful Death Education From Tragic Film
James MacAllister (University of Edinburgh, UK)
3. Framing the (In)Finite: Cinema's Artful Education, Alexis Gibbs (University of Winchester, UK)
4. Photography's Lessons from the Dead, Ian Munday (University of Galway, Ireland)
5. “Ending badly from the beginning”: What Robert Louis Stevenson's Life and Fiction Can Teach us About Human Finitude, Shari Sabeti (University of Edinburgh, UK)
6. Ecological Literacy and E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops, Sarah MacAllister (University of Bristol, UK)
7. Beauty Returning, Returning Beauty: Moving Through Ecologies of Death, Ramsey Affifi (University of Edinburgh, UK) and Juliette Bertoldo (University of Maynooth, Ireland)
8. Beautiful Transience: The Pedagogical Value of Japanese Tea Ceremony, Karsten Kenklies (Strathclyde University, UK)
9. Eckhart, Bildung, and Spiritual Poverty, David Lewin (Strathclyde University, UK)
10. “Weakness as fundamental reality”: An Exploration of the Pedagogy of Love in a Cistercian Community's Monastic Life and Des Hommes Et Les Dieux, Katja Frimberger (Strathclyde University, UK)
11. The Art of Dying: For the 21st Century Classroom, Harriet A. Harris (University of Edinburgh, UK)
12. The Difficulty of Mortality, Anne Pirrie (University of West of Scotland, UK) and Elizabeth O'Brien (Maynooth University, Ireland)
13. Education, Experience and Finitude: How Art and Play Can Equip us to Make the Most of Our Downward Journey, Aline Nardo (University of Edinburgh, UK)
14. Football, Death and Value in Life, Gale Macleod, Ian Normile and James MacAllister (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Conclusion: Artful Education and the Downward Journey, James MacAllister and Ramsey Affifi (University of Edinburgh, UK) and Anne Pirrie (University of West of Scotland, UK)
References
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 29 Oct 2026
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 256
ISBN 9781350470323
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 10 bw illus
Dimensions 234 x 156 mm
Series Philosophies of Education in Art, Cinema, and Literature
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

James MacAllister

Anthology Editor

Anne Pirrie

Anthology Editor

Ramsey Affifi

Ramsey Affifi is Lecturer in Philosophical and Eco…

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