This collection of work is an analysis and investigation into Maxine Greene, the most important philosopher of education in the United States today. The book opens and concludes with Greene's own autobiographical statements.

Maxine Greene is the most important philosopher of education in the United States today. The author of Teacher as Stranger (1973), Landscapes of Learning (1978), Dialectic of Freedom (1988), and Releasing the Imagination (1995), Greene has influenced tens of thousands of teachers in North America as well as her colleagues in philosophy of education, teacher education, and curriculum studies. While widely cited, Greene has not - until now - been the subject of sustained scholarly analysis and investigation. William F. Pinar has organized a systematic study of Greene's contribution from several points of view: studies of the four books; studies of the intellectual and aesthetic influences upon her theory; and her influence on the various specializations within the broad field of education: the teaching of English, arts education, philosophy of education, curriculum studies, religious education, cognitive theory, and theory of teaching. The book opens and concludes with Maxine Greene's own autobiographical statements.

"This remarkable set of essays defines the role of imagination in general education, arts education, aesthetics, literature, and the social and multicultural context.... The author argues for schools to be restructured as places where students reach out for meanings and where the previously silenced or unheard may have a voice. She invites readers to develop processes to enhance and cultivate their own visions through the application of imagination and the arts. Releasing the Imagination should be required reading for all educators, particularly those in teacher education, and for general and academic readers." —Choice "Maxine Greene, with her customary eloquence, makes an impassioned argument for using the arts as a tool for opening minds and for breaking down the barriers to imagining the realities of worlds other than our own familiar cultures.... There is a strong rhythm to the thoughts, the arguments, and the entire sequence of essays presented here." —American Journal of Education "Releasing the Imagination gives us a vivid portrait of the possibilities of human experience and education's role in its realization. It is a welcome corrective to current pressures for educational conformity." —Elliot W. Eisner, professor of education and art, Stanford University "Releasing the Imagination challenges all the cant and cliché littering the field of education today. It breaks through the routine, the frozen, the numbing, the unexamined; it shocks the reader into new awareness." —William Ayers, associate professor, College of Education, University of Illinois, Chicago

"This volume offers a Naming praxis with which teachers might more closely align with their ethical ideals in the midst of their daily practice and relationships with students. Framed ontologically in Maxine Greene's existential-phenomenological notion of Becoming, the author explicates Greene's Naming as a praxis within her own early teaching experiences through the interpretive methods of currere and teacher lore. This study evolves in epistolary conversation with Maxine Greene, teacher colleagues, and new teachers. It demonstrates the possibilities of applying critical reflective and discursive dialogue to the tensions of a teacher's life of practice in order to identify the obstacles to and the opportunities of the Becoming of the teacher and the student(s) in the educational encounter"--

Special 2018 Edition From the new Introduction by Janet L. Miller, Teachers College, Columbia University: "Maxine Greene never claimed to be a visionary thinker. But forty years later, her trepidations detailed throughout 1978's Landscapes of Learning now appear unnervingly prescient. Witness and treasure Landscapes as evidence of her matchless abilities to inspire myriad educators and students worldwide." “I would suggest that there must always be a place in teacher education for ‘foundations’ people, whose fundamental concern is with opening new perspectives on the many faces of the human world.” —Maxine Greene The essays in this volume demonstrate clearly that Maxine Greene is herself an example of the kind of “foundations” specialist she hopes to see: someone who can stimulate, inform, and bring new insights to teachers, students, curriculum planners, administrators, policymakers—indeed all those concerned with education in its broadest sense. These essays, a number of them based on lectures presented to various professional organizations, reveals her dedication to learning and teaching, as it reveals her belief in the potential of each individual person. A philosopher whose orientation is largely existential and phenomenological, she seeks to demystify aspects of today’s technological society, to question taken-for-granted notions of social justice and equality, and to elucidate conflicts between youth and age, the poor and the middle class, minorities and Whites, male and female. As a humanist, she calls for self-reflectiveness, wide-awakeness, and personal transformation within the context of each person’s own lived world—each one’s particular landscape of work, experience, and aspiration. Recognizing the multiple realities that compose experience, the many landscapes against which sense-making proceeds, the essays are grouped in four sections: intellectual and moral components of emancipatory education; social issues and their implications for approaches to pedagogy; artistic-aesthetic considerations in the making of curriculum; and the cultural significance of women’s predicaments today. All are richly illuminated by examples; all are written with grace and passion; all will help readers achieve greater self-understanding and critical consciousness. “This is a significant book.”—Phi Delta Kappan “Maxine Greene forces us to consider what we can do even in a limited way and to begin to understand where we have failed.” —Cross Currents

Maxine Greene, one of the leading educational philosophers of the past fifty years, remains an idol to thousands of educators, according to the New York Times. In The Public School and the Private Vision, first published in 1965 but out of print for many years, Greene traces the complex interplay of literature and public education from the 1830s to the 1960s--and now, in a new preface, to the present. With rare eloquence she affirms the values that lie at the root of public education and makes an impassioned call for decency in difficult times, once again a key theme in education circles. A new foreword by Herbert Kohl shows how the work resonates for contemporary teachers, students, and parents.

Since the 1960s, British multi-media artist Peter Greenaway has shocked and intrigued audiences with his avant-garde approach to filmmaking and other artistic ventures. From early experimental films to provocative features, Greenaway has deployed strategies associated with structuralist cinema, only to challenge or critique the very limits of that cinema and of film in general. In this collection of essays, scholars from a variety of disciplines explore various postmodern and poststructuralist aspects of Greenaway's films, starting with his early shorts and delving into his feature-length works, including The Draughtman's Contract, The Belly of an Architect, A Zed and Two Noughts, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, The Baby of M%con, and The Pillow Book. Other artistic productions, including his paintings and installations are also discussed. These essays examine the filmmaker's position within British and avant-garde cinema and his interest in constructing and deconstructing representational systems. In the years since the first edition of this book, Greenaway has enjoyed continued success in creating hybridized media projects for the stage and screen, as evidenced by additional essays for this revised edition. A new chapter addresses how Dutch political events and Dutch art have been crucial in shaping Greenaway's aesthetic, focusing on The Draughtsman's Contract, the 1991 opera Writing to Vermeer, and Nightwatching, the audio-visual installation and 2007 film of the same name, which were inspired by Rembrandt's Night Watch. Also new to this collection is an essay that examines Greenaway's most ambitious endeavor to date, The Tulse Luper Suitcases, which exists as four feature films, multiple websites, an online game, several books and installations, and a number of theatrical events. Peter Greenaway's Postmodern/Poststructuralist Cinema, Revised Edition explores the cultural, historical, and philosophical implications of this hybrid artist whose paintings, drawings, exhibitions, installations, and operatic productions are an intrinsic part of his work in film. This collection of diverse essays, which includes two texts by Greenaway, two interviews with the director, and a revised filmography, will interest students, teachers, critics and lovers of both postmodern art and cinema.