Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

“A Zone of Deep Shadow”: Pedagogical and Familial Reflections on “The Clash of Civilizations”

  • Published:
Interchange Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper examines the media coverage of the murder of a young Muslim girl in Mississauga, Ontario in December 2007. We examine how that coverage moved from concerns for a terrible family event to the use of the language of Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” We explore the nature of this exaggeration that occurs in times of threat and the “hardening” and eventual clashing of identities that can follow. We interweave with these matters considerations of the pedagogical and familial consequences of such identity-exaggeration under threat. We propose that the provisional, negotiated, and casual conviviality of identities that precedes times of threat are cast into what Ivan Illich called “a zone of deep shadow.” We propose, also, that it is this locale of an interdependent, co-determining conviviality of identities that can profitably be the locus of rich and intellectually vital classroom conversations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • al-Zubaidi. (2007). Cited in, La Convivencia: The Peaceful and Productive Co-existence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Spain. (Author unknown). Retrieved October, 2007 from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/8636/Convivencia.html

  • Arendt H. (1969) Between past and future: Eight exercises in political thought. Penguin Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Author unknown. (2007). The meaning of Aqsa Parvez. National Post, December 12, 2007 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved August 4, 2008 from http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=162280

  • Berry W. (1986) The unsettling of America. Sierra Book Club, San Francisco, CA

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown W. (2006) Regulating aversion: Tolerance in the age of identity and empire. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Bush, G.W. (2001). Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, September 20, 2001. Retrieved July 14, 2008 from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html

  • Callahan R. (1964) America, education and the cult of efficiency. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL

    Google Scholar 

  • Daly M. (1978) Gyn/ecology: The metaethics of radical feminism. Beacon Press, Boston, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Dibdin, M. (1996). Cited from Dead lagoon: An Aurelio Zen mystery. Retrieved July 15, 2008 from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/664292/posts

  • Dussel E. (1995) The invention of the Americas: Eclipse of “the Other” and the myth of modernity. Continuum Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • El Akkad, O. & Bascaramurty, D. (2007). Aqsa’s slaying and the religionculture clash. Globe and Mail, December 13, 2007 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved July 15, 2008 from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/

  • Eltahawy, M. (2008). Caught in the clash of civilizations. International Herald Tribune. The Global Edition of the New York Times, January 18, 2008 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved July 15, 2008 from http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/18/opinion/edelta.php

  • English, K. (2007). Private tragedy and public issues. Toronto Daily Star, December 15, 2007 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved July 15, 2008 from http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/28579

  • Ferrero-Waldner, B. (2006). Clash of civilizations or dialogue of cultures: Building bridges across the Mediterranean. Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Anna Lindh Foundation Lecture, Alexandria, Egypt, 6 May 2006. Retrieved July 17, 2008 from http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/06/279&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

  • Gray J. (1995) Enlightenment’s wake. Routledge, London, UK

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gray J. (1998) False dawn: The delusions of global capitalism. Granta Books, London, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Henry, M. & Mitchell, B. (2007). Muslim teen was abused, friends say. The Toronto Daily Star, December 12, 2007 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved July 20, 2008 from http://www.thestar.com/article/284824

  • Hillman J. (1983) Healing fiction. Station Hill Press, Barrytown, NY

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntington, S. (1993, Summer). The clash of civilizations? Foreign Affairs [Electronic Version]. Retrieved July 17, 2008 from http://uniset.ca/terr/news/fgnaff_huntingtonclash.html

  • Huntington S. (1996) The west: Unique, not universal. Foreign Affairs 75(6): 28–46

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntington S. (2003) The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntington, S. (2006). Five years after 9/11, The clash of civilizations revisited, August 18, 2006. Retrieved July 17, 2008 from http://pewforum.org/events/index.php?EventID=125

  • Husserl E. (1970) Crisis of European science and transcendental phenomenology. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL

    Google Scholar 

  • Illich, I. (1980). Vernacular values. Retrieved July 7, 2008 from http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Vernacular.html#EMPIRE

  • Illich I. (1992) In the mirror of the past: Lectures and addresses. MarionBoyars, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Illich, I., with Cayley, D. (1992). Ivan Illich in conversation. Concord ON: The House of Anansi Press.

  • Jardine, D. (2008). On the while of things. In D. Jardine, S. Friesen, & P. Clifford, Back to the basics of teaching and learning: Thinking the world together (2nd ed. pp. 223-242). New York, Routledge.

  • Jardine, D. (in press). “ ‘I Am’ has sent me”: Arguments with myself and others on the subject of certain suspected allegories regarding democracy and education. In J. Wallin (Ed.), Democratizing educational experience: Envisioning embodying, enacting. Troy, NY: Educator’s International Press.

  • Jardine D., Friesen S., Clifford P. (2008) Back to the basics of teaching and learning: Thinking the world together 2nd edn. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Jardine, D., Naqvi, R. (in press). Learning not to speak in tongues: Thoughts on the librarian of Basra. Canadian Journal of Education.

  • Kay, J. (2007). The true enemy: Human tribalism. National Post, December 18, 2007 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved December 22, 2007 from http://www.nationalpost.com/story-printer.html?id=175169

  • Kincheloe J. (2007) How did this happen? The right-wing politics of knowledge and education. In: Kincheloe J., Steinberg S. (eds) What you don’t know about schools. Palgrave MacMillan, New York, pp 31–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Levering Lewis D. (2008) God’s crucible: Islam and the making of Europe, 570-1215. W.W. Norton, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lowney C. (2006) A vanished world: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in medieval Spain. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Mann, V., Glick, T., Dodds, J. (eds) (2007) Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in medieval Spain. George Brazillier, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Muller, J. (2008). Us and Them. Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008, 18-35.

  • Nandy A. (1983) Cultural frames for social transformation: A Credo. Alternatives 12: 113–123

    Google Scholar 

  • Naqvi R., Jardine D. (2007) “Some say the present age is not the time for meditation”: Thoughts on things left unsaid in contemporary invocations of “traditional education”. Journal of Educational Thought 41(3): 217–228

    Google Scholar 

  • Offman, C. (2007). Muslim clerics denounce girl’s death, but reiterate hijab’s importance. National Post, December 14, 2007 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved July 10, 2008 from http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=56e824c9-fd7e-401c-bf91-1a1721a37bb6&k=98221&p=2

  • Postel, D. & Drury, S. (2003, October). Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neo-cons, and Iraq. Danny Postel interviews Shadia Drury. Information Clearing House. Retrieved July 4, 2008 from http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm

  • Reston J. (2005) Dogs of God: Columbus, the inquisition and the defeat of the Moors. Doubleday, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Robert, R. (2007). Muslim teen’s death “not about culture” relative says. The National Post, December 12, 2007 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved April 4, 2008 from http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2007/12/12/aqsa-s-father-remanded-intocustody.aspx

  • Said, E.W. (2001). The clash of ignorance. The Nation, October 22, 2001 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved July 14, 2008 from http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011022/said

  • Smith, D.G. (1999a). Children and the gods of war. In D.G. Smith, Pedagon: Interdisciplinary essays in the human sciences, pedagogy and culture (pp. 137-142). New York: Peter Lang.

  • Smith, D.G. (1999b). Identity, self and other in the conduct of pedagogical action: An East/West inquiry. In D.G. Smith, Pedagon: Interdisciplinary essays in the human sciences, pedagogy and culture (pp. 11-26). New York: Peter Lang.

  • Smith D.G. (2006) Trying to teach in a season of great untruth: Globalization, empire and the crises of pedagogy. Sense Publishing, Rotterdam, NL

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, D.G. (2006b). Introduction. In D.G. Smith, Trying to teach in a season of great untruth: Globalization, empire and the crises of pedagogy (pp. xxi-xxvii). Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishing.

  • Smith, D.G. (2006c). Enfraudening in the public sphere: The futility of empire and the future of knowledge after “America.” In D.G. Smith, Trying to teach in a season of great untruth: Globalization, empire and the crises of pedagogy (pp. 1-13). Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishing.

  • Smith, D.G. (2006d). The farthest West is but the farthest East: The long way of Oriental/Occidental engagement. In D.G. Smith, Trying to teach in a season of great untruth: Globalization, empire and the crises of pedagogy (pp. 35-58). Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishing.

  • Smith, D.G. (2006e). Not rocket science. In D.G. Smith, Trying to teach in a season of great untruth: Globalization, empire and the crises of pedagogy (pp. 71-80). Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishing.

  • Smith D.G. (2008) March). From Leo Strauss to collapse theory: Considering the Neo-conservative attack on modernity and the work of education. Critical Studies in Education 49(1): 33–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White, P. & Mick, H. (2007). Teen death highlights cultural tensions. Globe Life, December 12, 2007. Retrieved May 27, 2010 from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/articles803083.ece

  • Wittgenstein L. (1968) Philosophical investigations. Blackwell’s, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Calgary, Box 305, Bragg Creek, AB, Canada, T0L 0K0

    David W. Jardine

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Calgary, 250 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, Canada, T2L 1N4

    Rahat Naqvi

  3. Carleton University, 1791 Bellmanor Court, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1T 2V7

    Eric Jardine

  4. The Fletcher School, Tufts University, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155-7082, U.S.A.

    Ahmad Zaidi

Authors
  1. David W. Jardine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rahat Naqvi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Eric Jardine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ahmad Zaidi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David W. Jardine.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Jardine, D.W., Naqvi, R., Jardine, E. et al. “A Zone of Deep Shadow”: Pedagogical and Familial Reflections on “The Clash of Civilizations”. Interchange 41, 209–232 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-010-9127-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-010-9127-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation