A Philosophical Inquiry into Subject English and Creative Writing

Oli Belas author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:22nd Nov '22

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A Philosophical Inquiry into Subject English and Creative Writing cover

While engaging with the current political-educational climate of England, this book offers a timely contribution to debates around questions of knowledge in relation to education and school-level English by drawing together theories of individual and disciplinary knowledge.

The book provides a philosophical conception of knowledge – as fundamentally embodied at the level of the individual, and a matter of cultural form at the level of shared or "common" knowledge – and an analysis of the implications of this for schooled English. The research draws from various related fields including literary criticism, philosophy (of knowledge and of symbolic form), and phenomenology. The book rethinks general notions of knowledge and lays out the problems that exist within knowledge and language systems in education, especially secondary and university levels.

This highly relevant and informative book offers an insightful resource for academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of education studies, educational policy and politics, philosophy of education, and literature studies.

"This lively, thoughtful and well-written book draws both on its author’s practical experience and philosophical ideas to develop its important, fascinating argument about the role of creative writing in the discipline of English. Every chapter is full of insight, and the book should advance the discussion of creativity in the study of English."

- Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

"Oli Belas’s new book offers an intelligent and lively account of school-level English in the UK, and the need to rethink its core approaches and philosophies. […] … the book deliberately wrestles with its own attempts to bring thought to language via writing. It therefore achieves an intimacy and insight not always available in academic writing, and gently encourages its reader to re-think their own writerly practice. […] In sum: this is a gem of a book. It is comprehensive, imaginative, scholarly, incisive, and fun. In A Philosophical Inquiry, Belas’s advocacy for writing as practice – his call that in the teaching of English we re-centre the person as well as the text and thus recalibrate what the study of this subject is actually for - is given impressive depth and urgency through his own achievement of this wonderfully writerly and provocative book. […] This reviewer is certainly still under the spell of this surprising and gorgeous book."

- Áine Mahon, Associate Professor in the School of Education, University College Dublin, Ireland


"This lively, thoughtful and well-written book draws both on its author’s practical experience and philosophical ideas to develop its important, fascinating argument about the role of creative writing in the discipline of English. Every chapter is full of insight, and the book should advance the discussion of creativity in the study of English."

- Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

"Oli Belas’s new book offers an intelligent and lively account of school-level English in the UK, and the need to rethink its core approaches and philosophies. […] … the book deliberately wrestles with its own attempts to bring thought to language via writing. It therefore achieves an intimacy and insight not always available in academic writing, and gently encourages its reader to re-think their own writerly practice. […] In sum: this is a gem of a book. It is comprehensive, imaginative, scholarly, incisive, and fun. In A Philosophical Inquiry, Belas’s advocacy for writing as practice – his call that in the teaching of English we re-centre the person as well as the text and thus recalibrate what the study of this subject is actually for - is given impressive depth and urgency through his own achievement of this wonderfully writerly and provocative book. […] This reviewer is certainly still under the spell of this surprising and gorgeous book."

- Áine Mahon, Associate Professor in the School of Education, University College Dublin, Ireland

ISBN: 9780367487362

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 376g

146 pages