Transformative Learning with a Social Imagination: Where Fact and Fiction Meet

Abstract

This article explores the intersection of transformative learning (TL), the sociological imagination, and the arts, with a focus on literature and aesthetic experience. It critiques the emphasis on psychological priority of frameworks in TL, arguing instead for a richer integration of the sociological imagination as articulated by thinkers such as C. Wright Mills, Alfred Schutz, and Oskar Negt. The author contends that social imagination is essential to TL and is often facilitated through engagement with art, music, and literature. Works such as The Handmaid's Tale and King Lear exemplify how fiction can evoke disorienting dilemmas, prompt critical reflection, and foster empathy. Drawing on John Dewey and Maxine Greene, the article emphasizes the pedagogical power of art to awaken consciousness, identify social injustice, and explore alternative perspectives. Negt's concept of "imploitation" is introduced to highlight how neoliberalism compromises the imagination, while "obstinacy" is posited as an already existing resistance to cultural suppression. The article calls for a reimagining of TL that includes dialectical thinking, aesthetic rupture, and sociopolitical action, positioning the arts not as supplementary but as central to transformative learning and democratic renewal. Through this lens, imagination becomes a powerful catalyst for both personal and social transformation.

Full text

Transformave Learning with a Social Imaginaon:
Where Fact and Ficon Meet
Ted Fleming
Teachers College Columbia University, USA
Abstract
This arcle explores the intersecon of transformave learning (TL), the sociological
imaginaon, and the arts, with a focus on literature and aesthec experience. It criques
the emphasis on psychological priority of frameworks in TL, arguing instead for a richer
integraon of the sociological imaginaon as arculated by thinkers such as C. Wright
Mills, Alfred Schutz, and Oskar Negt. The author contends that social imaginaon is
essenal to TL and is oen facilitated through engagement with art, music, and
literature. Works such as The Handmaid’s Tale and King Lear exemplify how con can
evoke disorienng dilemmas, prompt crical reecon, and foster empathy. Drawing on
John Dewey and Maxine Greene, the arcle emphasizes the pedagogical power of art to
awaken consciousness, idenfy social injusce, and explore alternave perspecves.
Negt’s concept of “imploitaon” is introduced to highlight how neoliberalism
compromises the imaginaon, while “obsnacy” is posited as an already exisng
resistance to cultural suppression. The arcle calls for a reimagining of TL that includes
dialeccal thinking, aesthec rupture, and sociopolical acon, posioning the arts not
as supplementary but as central to transformave learning and democrac renewal.
Through this lens, imaginaon becomes a powerful catalyst for both personal and social
transformaon.
Keywords: Transformave Learning; Sociological Imaginaon; Art; Dialecc; Imaginaon
Many adult educators rely on art to prompt crical thinking or support crical pedagogy in adult
educaon (Kokkos & Fleming, 2024). Others teach about and through art (Lawrence, 2022). A
great deal of educaon, including adult educaon, has been preoccupied with more funconal
priories and the agenda of lifelong learning (Fleming, 2021a), emphasizing technical
knowledge, and learning that supports the economy (European Commission, 2023). In contrast
art and art educaon oers an alternave. We have never been without art: John Dewey wrote
that “even in the caves, human habitaons were adorned with colored pictures that kept alive
to the senses experiences” of nature (1934, p. 7). Art is a way of “poinng out what is
signicant” in our lives (Dissanayake, 1992, p. 70) and engages the emoons. The arts exercise

the imaginaon. I want to explore imaginaon and make connecons between adult learning
and the arts and in parcular with literature.
Many people experience art in the great museums of the Western World (Gulla, 2009, p.
475) where long queues of visitors indicate the popularity of art in the popular imaginaon. But
John Dewey argued against the “museum concepon of art” because it separates “art from the
objects and scenes of ordinary experience” (Dewey, 1934, p. 6). The tourist gaze, Maxine
Greene (1995, p. 31) suggests, is like conformity to the “norms of convenonal admiraon.” The
arts restore the connecon between the arst and viewers’ lives, forming a bridge between the
viewer’s experience and the art. Art is not always in a museum and the term art captures a
wider range of creave forms.
Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood, 1996) explores highly dystopian
polical possibilies oering insights about how the world may be today. It can be
transformave to explore, through con, imagined experiences of women in a male-
dominated world. Such creave works can inspire criques of oppression and help imagine and
make connecons between social systems and individual experience. Crical reecon requires
imaginaon.
Music also has the power to transform. It connects emoons with the intellect. It helps
name the world (Freire, 1972). It has been central to how many people coped with COVID-19
(Hernandez-Ruiz, 2022). Peter Alheit (Smilde, Page, & Alheit, 2014) produced empirical evidence
showing that music can help those suering from demena. Bruce Springsteen (2016) writes
eloquently about the importance of music in his autobiography. Of Bob Dylan he says: “Dylan
had dely melded the polical and personal in a way that added resonance and power to both.
I agreed the polical is personal and vice versa” (2016, p. 327). In more detail he writes (2016,
p. 294):
In my wring I was increasingly interested in the place where ‘This Land is Your Land’
and ‘The River’ intersected, where the polical and personal came together to spill clear
water in to the muddy river of history…. I thought perhaps mapping that territory, the
distance between the American dream and the American reality, might be my service….I
hoped it might give roots and mission to our band…

I am interested in the connecon between the personal and the polical.
Music and the arts in general have always played a prominent part in arculang crical
perspecves and supporng social change. It is not easy to recall major social changes in our
society that did not have its own music, poetry and theatre. Protest music gives voice to the
interest in idenfying the sounds and words of social transformaon. These exercises in creave
and sociological imaginaon prompt this study.
Art helps to make things signicant and plays a role in human evoluon (Dissanayake,
1988). Educaon has an interest in crical pedagogy that has made a clear opon for a form of
crical and highly raonal invesgaon that is somemes challenging for many people. In the
process, the imaginaon, and in parcular the sociological imaginaon, has been neglected.
This is an opportune moment to balance the agenda to focus on the sociological imaginaon as
it informs crical pedagogy.
The Plan
This paper will explore the theorecal background of the sociological imaginaon. It will
be idened as a jusable grounding for a crical approach to TL. The paper relies on a
number of the allies who have explored the social imaginaon somemes through art. TL
provides the understanding of what is meant by adult learning as we move toward TL as a
pedagogy of social imaginaon (Fleming, 2018; Fleming, Kokkos, & Finnegan, 2018). Many
scholars have explored the aesthec experience, including Adorno (1977), Brookeld & Holst
(2011), Buerwick & Lawrence (2023) and Marcuse (1978). The main allies in this paper are
John Dewey (1934) and Maxine Greene (1973, 1988, 1995) - classical American philosophers of
educaon who provide a foundaon for understanding how art interacts with sociological
imaginaon. They are revisited in order to assess their contemporary relevance for TL based on
their history of working with the arts as an access route into imagining sociologically. I also rely
on C Wright Mills and Alfred Schutz for whom the sociological imaginaon was a core concept in
their sociology. Remarks are made on the transformave pedagogy of the crical theorist Oskar
Negt - a recent German scholar of the social imaginaon (Fleming, 2022a). The paper concludes
with praccal ideas and reecons about how the sociological imaginaon and the arts, as in
literature, might reinvigorate TL.

Transformave Learning
Mezirow relied on the psychological imaginaons of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg,
Herbert Fingaree, Roger Gould and others for the development of TL and also on the
sociological imaginaons of Karl Marx, Jürgen Habermas (Murphy & Fleming, 2010) and Paulo
Freire. Both psychological and sociological imaginaons were relied upon, but the sociological
imaginaon may have been neglected. Finnegan suggests that TL (Hoggan, et al., 2016, p. 49)
may have underplayed the importance of the sociological imaginaon in what Mezirow
borrowed from Habermas (p. 59). This may have caused relavely low levels of work done
undertaken by TL scholars on “social jusce”, and on connecng crical sociology, polical
philosophy and social class with TL (Finnegan, 2023, p. 127). This paper – along with reclaiming
the potenal of the arts for the imaginaon - aempts to reintegrate the sociological
imaginaons of C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) and Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) with TL. It is
intended to progress the development of TL in areas that have been neglected (Fleming,
Kokkos, & Finnegan, 2019). Though aware of Schutz and Mills, Mezirow did not integrate their
work on the sociological imaginaon with TL. These allies are selected even in the knowledge
that the concept of sociological imaginaon may be a contested one in sociology (Plamer, 2022).
The Sociological Imaginaon of C Wright Mills
For many C Wright Mills is the originator of the concept, sociological imaginaon. It
means a study of the historical context of social events with regard to the meaning those events
for the individual’s inner life. It takes into account “how individuals, in the welter of their daily
experience, oen become falsely conscious of their social posions” (Mills, 1959, p. 5).
Sociological imaginaon connects individual experiences and people’s problems with broader
structures of society. This connecon is important in the phases of transformaon which makes
connecons between one’s individual problems and broader social issues.
In The Sociological Imaginaon, Mills (1959) understands so that “neither the life of the
individual - nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both” (p. 3)
and we only know our own chances in life by “becoming aware of those of all” (Mills, 1959, p.
5). Biography and history (of a society) are grasped and connected by the sociological
imaginaon thus allowing us to “shi perspecve from the polical to the psychological” (Mills,

1959, p. 7). Having over used the psychological imaginaon (which has been the case in TL) the
soluon is not to abandon it, or only use the sociological imaginaon, but to integrate them.
The second phase in Mezirow’s TL involves making connecons between one’s individual
problems (troubles) and (social) issues. This provides an opportunity to integrate the
sociological imaginaon of Mills with TL. This points to a way of addressing criques of TL that
suggest, and convincingly argued, that TL had an inadequate concept of the social (Fleming,
2016; Fleming, Kokkos & Finnegan, 2019 ). Social science must include “both troubles and
[social] issues, biography and history, and the range of their intricate relaons” (Mills, 1959, p.
226).
Mills (1959, pp. 195) outlines how “intellectual cramanship” is required to integrate
the sociological imaginaon in studying reality. He intended to keep the “imaginaon spurred”
(p. 211) with a “playful mind” (p. 211) and a erce drive to make sense of the world (p. 211) and
“release the imaginaon” (p. 215). Mills (1959, p. 186) describes the work of social sciensts:
What he ought to do for the individual is to turn personal troubles and concerns into
social issues and problems open to reason - his aim is to help the individual become a
self-educang man [sic], who only then would be reasonable and free. What he ought to
do for the society is to combat all those forces which are destroying genuine publics and
creang a mass society…his aim is to help build and to strengthen self-culvang
publics.
Clearly Mills connects his ideas with supporng vibrant public spheres; the supporng
infrastructure of democracy. This logically leads to a discussion about the public sphere and
democracy, but that is the topic for a dierence arcle.
The Sociological Imaginaon of Alfred Schutz
Mezirow (2003, p. 326) relied more on Alfred Schutz, quong him in at the 5th TL
Conference at Teachers College in 1979. In spite of this, Schutz has not had an impact on TL, and
rarely referenced at any of the 15 Transformave Learning Conferences. Schutz,, like Habermas
has contributed important work on the concept of the lifeworld; dened by Schutz as the
preconscious and taken-for-granted presupposions, and understandings that strongly inuence
how reality is experienced (Schutz, 1970). This includes the linguisc and cultural constructs

within which we interpret reality (Fleming, 2022a). The lifeworld is subject to a
“sociopathological form of internal colonizaon” by the system (Habermas, 1987, p. 305) and
for Mezirow it refers to “the prevailing paradigms or collecvely held sociolinguisc meaning
perspecves” (Mezirow, 1991, p. 161). For Mezirow lifeworld refers to uncrically accepted
frames of reference and unquesoned assumpons that inform thinking and acons.
Wildemeersch and Leirman (1988) applied the concept to TL and this allows us refer to
acons that have become roune and unquesoned in guiding our acons and support
convenonal social goals, values, acons and wishes. Cing their work, Mezirow (1991) refers to
the possibility of introducing a sociological dimension to TL. He (1991) cites Wildemeersch and
Leirman referring to the process of transforming problemac frames of reference, inuenced by
factor in the learner’s life including “autobiography antecedents, gender race and class
dierences or educaonal elements” as well as “sociological aspects related to the educaonal
process” (Wildemeersch & Leirman, 1988, p. 22). Mezirow nd this an unexplored “provocave
observaon” (1991 , p. 162). Yet, he declines his own invitaon to explore this sociological
dimension. The lifeworld (frames of reference) gets transformed in TL.
The concept of typicaon (Schutz, 1967), borrowed from Schutz, was crucial in
Mezirow’s elaboraon of TL. Schutz used it to describe how people are categorized in order to
beer understand them in the process meaning making. Typicaons act as form of recipe
knowledge or handy unquesoned projecons onto others as to how we perceive them. For
Mezirow, our ways of typifying are unquesoned sets of meanings that make sense – unl they
do not. Typifying uses imaginaon to abstract from reality. We make meaning by taking for
granted our beliefs in the world¸- by the “suspension of doubt” (1967, p. 229). We are always
pre-acquainted with the world through socially given meanings as a “stock of knowledge at
hand”, that is “biographically determined” (p. 247). These form a “socially approved set of rules
and recipes for dealing with reality” (p. 34). They are the “sediment of previous experiences” (p.
33) and are open to change in TL.
The sociologically imaginaon also involves brackeng. We put in brackets “the doubt
that the world and its objects might be otherwise than it appears” at the moment of meaning
making (Schutz, 1967, p. 46). Brackeng requires an acve sociological imaginaon and the

brackeng (of doubt) in TL involves holding some “beliefs in abeyance in order to allow
ourselves to access an experience from outside our usual frame of reference” (Mezirow, 1991,
149). Mezirow rearms the “precarious” nature of all frames of reference (Mezirow, 1991, p.
149). Again, TL has not integrated these insights and the sociological imaginaon escapes
aenon of TL scholarship.
Other concepts from the sociology of Schutz (1967) include role taking (the ability to see
the self through the eyes of others) and mulple realies (the experience of being able to
interpret experiences from dierent perspecves). Mezirow (1979) suggested that mulple
realies were suggesve of frames of reference or provinces of meaning (Schutz, 1970), but
never idened them as involving a sociological imaginaon.
Schutz (1945, p. 571) theory of sociological imaginaon includes a concept of dialecc
thinking that is also neglected in TL scholarship. Dialeccal thinking involves a dynamic
relaonship between individual actors and social structures; between objecve reality and
subjecve phenomenon; between structure and agency (Fleming, 2023). We can now assert
that personal problems, and disorienng dilemmas, are necessarily connected to broader social
issues. This has implicaons for TL. If this dialecc connecon between the personal and the
social is ignored, we misunderstand both individual problems and their social contexts (Fleming,
2014). An early stage of TL involves making connecons between one’s own individual problems
and broader social issues. That connecon is dialeccal. A number of the other phases of TL
must also be also reimagined (Fleming, 2024b).
The polical is personal – and they are also connected dialeccally (Fleming, 2022b). For
example, the acons one takes as the essenal nal phase of TL are now idened as
dialeccally interconnected acons at personal and social levels. This requires that one
perceives how internal oppressions and external injusces operate dialeccally. This crical
reconstrucon of TL moves it toward a crical theory of adult learning. Interseconality has
become a framework within which disadvantage (and advantage) is explored. According to
Crenshaw (1989) the term describes how mulple disadvantages are compounded in a complex
web of discriminaon termed interseconal. I suggest that this concept of interseconality,
when applied to the expansion of TL being proposed here allows us to at least postulate that

not only are the internal-external connecons dialeccal, but it may be that they also have an
interseconal impact. I suggest that the term intraseconality as a concept to describe the
internal dimension of the dialeccal relaonship. This ts with the concept of imploitaon
ulized by Negt.
Oskar Negt: Sociological Imaginaon for Transformave Social Change
Oscar Negt was a crical theorist in the Frankfurt School tradion (Langston, 2024) and
published with his movie-making colleague Alexander Kluge (Kluge, 2020; Negt, 2010). Negt’s
rst book (1971), Sociological imaginaon and exemplary learning, provoked considerable
discussion in European workers’ educaon circles. He asserts that individual experience cannot
be properly understood unless it is seen in dialeccal relaonship with one’s social
environment. Immediately, this conrms the posion arculated above that disorienng
dilemmas are more complex than Mezirow’s version (1991). Without the dialeccal relaonship
between individual experience and social contexts each axis is misconstrued. In the TL literature
the dialeccal nature of these connecons is absent. We must avoid connuing the falsely
dichotomizing of the social and personal aspects of TL.
Negt’s (1971, p. 27) teaching acvity supports what he calls exemplary learning and he
explicitly links learning with the sociological imaginaon of Mills. He organized instruconal
materials that addressed workers’ interests and class consciousness with a view to them taking
emancipatory acons. Uniquely, among crical theorists Negt (and Kluge)
1
present teaching
materials and instruconal methods as part of their pedagogy of the sociological imaginaon
(Kluge & Negt, 2014).
Kluge and Negt state that our imaginaons have been compromised by neoliberalism
which subverts our inner resources. This required a new concept, and quong Bertolt Brecht,
they use his concept of imploitaon to describe this process. Kluge and Negt (2014, p. 445) state
how the exploitaon of neoliberalism also operates in the inner world: “Since the object of
exploitaon is put inside them, they are, so to speak, vicms of ‘imploitaon’ (Einbeutung)” that
prevents understanding the real conscious experience of oppression and how systems
1
I follow the order in which their names appear when cing co-authored publicaons, e.g., Negt & Kluge, (2014)

undermine “workers’ imaginaon” (Negt & Kluge, 2016, p. 35). They call imaginaon the
“producve force of the brain” (Negt & Kluge, 2016, p. 37) adding that it is neglected and
“barricaded into the gheos of the arts, dreaming, and the ‘delicate feelings’” (p. 36). In typical
expressive language they see this undermined imaginaon as the “vagabond, the unemployed
member of the intellectual facules” (Negt & Kluge, 2016, p. 37). According to Kluge and Negt
an obstacle is erected against emancipatory pracces when imaginaon, this producve force of
the brain, is divided (imploited) so that it cannot obey its own laws of operaon. The
imaginaon cannot imagine and an important tool for the “self-emancipaon of the workers” is
lost (Negt & Kluge, 2016, p. 37).
But all is not lost. To the rescue comes their original concept of obsnacy describing an
extraordinary capacies to not only survive imploitaon but to have the potenal to remain
awake (Kluge, & Negt, 2014). Mills (1959, p. 197) and Schutz (1967, p. 212, 1970, p. 72)
previously wrote that the sociological imaginaon is linked with being “awake”. Maxine Greene
followed and wrote repeatedly about the connecon between the arts, imaginaon and their
essenal role in becoming wide-awake. In a world where “woke” has become a pejorave term,
wide-awakeness becomes a requirement for TL and democrac living. The struggle for
recognion, the resilience of learners and the drive for TL are mulple expressions of obsnacy
and a deeply engrained posture of being wide awake (Fleming, 2024a).
Negt’s pedagogy of exemplary learning involves, thinking independently, dialeccally,
systemically, with sociological imaginaon, ulizing crical reecon. As a teacher of adults he
engages in a process of analyzing and bringing into awareness the historical process of how
learners’ interests are dened for them and how relaonships of power are experienced, so that
they can learn about their roles in society (Negt, 1973). Negt goes beyond the teaching of
competencies, that dominate the lifelong learning and skills for all agenda of the EU. The
European Pillar of Social Rights “proclaims everyone’s right to educaon, training and lifelong
learning, enabling individuals to parcipate fully in society and to manage successfully labor
market transions” (European Commission, 2023). Other policy iniaves of the EU European
Year of Skills aim to “give a fresh impetus to lifelong learning” (European Commission, 2023).

In contrast, Negt emphasizes understanding “workers existence as a social problem”
(Negt, 1971, p. 4), involving learners analyzing social situaons, in order to understand the
causes of these situaons and informing acons to change them. Negt and Kluge (2016) assert
that experience is the most important thing that “workers actually produce” (p. xlviii). Negt’s
exemplary learning involving an exercise in sociological imaginaon and assists in re-imagining
the lived experiences of learners and the submerged possibilies that arise through exemplary
learning. Negt’s educaon goes beyond views of educaon that emphasize personal growth that
may lead to ng into the social structures of the current world (Negt & Kluge, 2016). It goes
beyond the EU policy mantras of skills for all and lifelong learning.
There is a dearth of teaching materials in TL literature that would support TL. Kluge and
Negt (2014), in contrast, collect an archive of pedagogical methods for facilitang the
exploraon of how things could be dierent. Using literature, science con, sare, fairy-tales,
lm, documentaries and a wide range of innovave materials they support the crical and
sociological imaginaons of learners. These materials support curiosity, imaginaon and help
queson what is taken for granted. Though these materials are not easily accessible and require
study and reecon they do reect the depth of the challenging involved in supporng TL.
In contrast to TL’s rather tame polical interest, Negt’s exemplary learning, when
integrated with TL, helps encourage TL toward social and polical arenas. Negt provides a
framework for an historical and material interpretaon of subjecvity that is produced by
capitalist systems as well as a source for a new more just and caring society. This learning
demands sociological imaginaon. Our allies in this study (Mills, Schutz, and Negt) are aware
that social change is dicult, involving what Kluge (2017) calls in his book tle (quong Weber),
a slow and powerful Drilling through hard boards. This is a rare and consequenal excursion
into adult learning theory and pracce by a scholar linked to the Frankfurt School.
The Sociological Imaginaon of Maxine Greene
Maxine Greene, took a philosophical posion consistent with that of Schutz and is the
most explicit philosopher of educaon addressing the arts and learning and the sociological
imaginaon – calling her research centre at Teachers College the Centre for Social Imaginaon
(Ayers, 1995). She was strongly inuenced by John Dewey (as was Mezirow). I rmly locate the

concept of “in-between” as important in her work. Her understanding of freedom emphasised
the social nature of people and quong Dewey, who in turn quoted Jeerson to the eect that
“man, was created for social intercourse” (Dewey, 1940, p. 24)” (Greene, 1988, p. 27). Public
spaces were part of the American way of overcoming individualism when people could “come
together in village squares and meeng halls and arculate their concerns in such a way as to
constute a live, consequenal public sphere” (1988, p. 27). In pursuit of freedom and a
sociological imaginaon she imagined public spaces as “in-between” where together freedom
could be imagined, pracced, lived and achieved and where what should be would be
actualized. The in-between involved transcending the worn-out dualisms of public and private,
the self and others and what is from what ought to be. Thinking, collaboraons, discussions and
exercising of power together allow what she called “reaching beyond” the individual (1988, p.
12). Though Greene criqued the failure of educaonal thought and pracce that faced “hollow
formulaons” and “myscaons” and “fundamentalisms” but even the “most variegated, most
crical, most imaginave” approaches are sucient (1988, p. 126). She proposed a “praxis of
educaonal consequence that opens the spaces necessary for the remaking of a democrac
community” (p. 126). The missing space is an “in-between” (p. 116) space bridging the
individualisc and dominant philosophy with the common or shared world that is required for
human ourishing and freedom. In almost poec prose she idenes a sociological imaginaon
required to work in those in-between spaces that bridges the gap between oneself and those
who are (perceived to be) unlike oneself. The in-between space allows for empathy, a space to
repair, renew and reimagine a more inclusive future.
For Greene the social imaginaon is the ability to change the focus of aenon from
oneself to community, from the individual good to the common good. Working together on
shared projects (in educaon) may provide opportunies to imagine the other, the opposite, as
sharing a common element and even shared iniaves and goals for their lives so that
possibilies may arise and can be imagined about living and transforming the current divided
world. This awakening of the social imaginaon is fundamental for Greene. How is the “in-
between” imagined for Greene? Through art. It awakens the possibility of a beer world.

This in-between is reached through the arts and imaginaon. The arts expose the engaged
imaginaon to new points of view and perspecves that prompt thoughts about how things
could be dierent. These imagined possibilies may turn to acon, heal fractured relaonships
and awaken the learner to the potenal of a dierent society. Educaon as a conjoint process
(Dewey, 1916) underlines especially through the arts that people are always in relaon with
others. Greene’s language is more direct when she asserts that it is only by means of educaon
“that individuals can be provoked to reach beyond themselves in their intersubjecve space. It
is through and by means of educaon that they may become empowered to think about what
they are doing” (Greene, 1988, p. 12). Of course, the outcome in “collecve acon” (Greene,
1988, p. 125) gives “freedom a concrete existence in their lives” (Greene, 1975b, p. 4). Nothing
is more strongly stated than the urgency to “break with the mechanical life, to overcome their
own submergence in the habitual” (1978, p. 46). This is a form of becoming themselves and
turning their aenon from what is actual to what is potenal, always requiring a sociological
imaginaon. It helps break through what Greene calls “the crust of convenonalized and
roune consciousness” (1973, p. 183). Quong C. Wright Mills (1959, p. 215), Greene (1995)
asserts that engagements with art “release the imaginaon” and work toward “wide
awakeness” (1995, p. 50). Greene looks to the arts as the best way of exploring and valuing
mulple realies. This is the core of her educaonal philosophy with a transformave intent
(1995).
Greene denes the sociological imaginaon as the capacity to invent visions of what
should be and what ought to be. This Releasing the Imaginaon (1995) in an intersubjecve and
interpersonal world – a social world – our individual selves are always in dialeccal process of
developing. Imaginaon is what reveals hidden possibilies, and catch a glimpse of what is not
yet but is possible.
Imaginaon is as important in the lives of teachers as it is in the lives of their students,
in part because teachers incapable of thinking imaginavely or of releasing students to
encounter works of literature and other forms of art are probably also unable to
communicate to the young what the use of imaginaon signies. If it is the case that
imaginaon feeds one’s capacity to feel one’s way into another’s vantage point, these

teachers may also be lacking in empathy. (Greene, 1995, pp. 35-36)
When we, either as teachers or learners, understand how experience is inuenced by social
structures, there emerges the possibility of what Maxine Greene (1995) - quong Schutz – calls,
breaking through the inera of convenon when people “are enabled to explain their ‘shocks’
and reach beyond” (p. 39). Such a pedagogy, Greene connues, “oers life; it oers hope; it
oers the prospect of discovery; it oers light” (1995, p. 133). These moments can help engage
one’s sociological imaginaon in the process of social transformaon (Negt & Kluge, 2016) and
TL.
The Case for Exploring Art
For Dewey, each person is capable of being an arst and through art convey to others
messages that smulate reecon on what it means to live purposefully. Engaging with art
prompts reecon with an eye toward the future - to a way of life that is fair and just and, more
democrac. Art is the “most complex expression of longing and aspiraons of a society”
(Dewey, 1934, p. 105). Dewey knew that in busy lives there is a danger that “we dri” (1934, p.
40). He thought that when experience becomes “slack…that it is not an experience” and these
“experiences are anesthec” (p. 40). For Dewey the “humdrum” and the submission to the
“convenonal” are real enemies of art and of the imaginaon needed in order to be alive in
society (1934, p. 40). This is Dewey’s most denive statement about the power of arts;
works of art are the only media of complete and unhindered communicaon between
man and man [sic] that can occur in a world full of gulfs and walls that limit community
of experience (1934, p. 105).
Dewey (1934) sees art as the launching pad for changing society. Art provides a compelling
vision that there are mulple perspecves and points of view and mulple realies that enliven
educaonal philosophies.
Art pokes at the unexamined life. “Philosophy is said to begin in wonder and end in
understanding. Art departs from what has been understood and ends in wonder” (Dewey, 1934,
p. 270). Indeed, a work of art expresses “something one had oneself been longing to express”
(Dewey, 1934, p. 105). He railed against “complete uniformity” as when experience has become
“roune and mechanical” (1934, p. 272). That leads to a place without either consciousness or

awareness. Art has a role in the crical consciousness that we associate with Freire, the wide-
awakeness of Greene, and the transforming of experience by Mezirow - and in the tradion of
crical theory, e.g. Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno – less so in Habermas and Honneth
(Fleming, 2011, 2022b). However, in what is a unique contribuon to this topic Honneth (2023)
oers a view of art as hiving two dimensions. Firstly, art is assigned the task of “bringing to our
aenon the undiminished complexity of an object's qualitave properes” because it “brings
us closer to us than any other way of knowing an object” (p. 65), “conceptually
incomprehensible complexity" of an object (p. 64) but at the same me it is intended to show
us a certain, reserved and respecul atude towards him” p. 65) akven Besmmbarkeit (p.
65)and secondly, art also has the ability to challenge our usual ways of thinking and
understanding. It deconstructs "melts away" [spielerischen Verüssigung] our xed ideas and
interpretaons, pung us in a state where we're open to new “playfully imagined possibilies,
the freedom of self-exploraon” (p. 66). This openness allows us to experiment with dierent
perspecves and explore our own idenes more freely (p. 64). This comments on Seel and
Schiller by Honneth point toward the power of the aesthec experience to highlight the
complexity of reality; the ability to support open-mindedness and as away of facilitang self-
discovery (to explore who we are).
Art as an Experience
The most important kind of learning involves reconstrucng (Dewey, 1934) or
transforming experience (Dissanayake, 1992). When we look at Picasso’s Guernica and see the
broken weeping women with dead babies and become aware of the tragic experiences of those
mothers and mothers today, art then becomes an experience. Not all art is such. Some is co-
opted and uncrical and on occasion far too abstract and inaccessible. If we can, with Picasso,
imagine these scenes, we can then imagine Ukraine today, or Gaza and in this way increase the
ability to imagine a beer world - a world in which there will be no more wars that make
women scream and weep like that - no bombs, no dead children. To open eyes and ears and
imaginaon to art helps us to hear the deeply held desires within each person that a beer
world is possible (Greene, 1995). Such art may elicit empathy, indignaon, and make social

acon an invited response. Even the most violent stories told through art are conveyed to the
viewer in the most non-violent ways which may be what Dewey means when he calls art “the
beauty parlor of civilizaon” (1934, p. 344).
There are excepons when art conveys the brutality of the world in a brutally realisc
way. I am thinking again of King Lear and the movie Trainspong (Figment Films, 1996) and the
more recent Nelix series Adolescence. Art has the ability to take ordinary objects and present
them back to the viewer as a queson – and so transformaons may begin. Events (somemes
ordinary) and feelings are expressed by the arst and the viewer, who is also familiar with such
experiences, may enter onto the bridge created between arst and viewer. This is an in-
between space – a bridge is a really useful image of an in-between space - way of Images
encountered as an experience challenge assumpons. In powerful ways, art can expose
destrucve behaviors and invite dialogue and prompt quesons.
Even today, at mes of mass migraons to Europe and America, arsts can elicit
empathy for those who must leave home and make long and risky journeys with hope and
dreams. Khaleo Housseini’s Sea Prayer (2018) helps imagine the hopes and dreams of a father
who is migrang with his son to create a beer life. The boat people they join are in between
and there the father allows us share his fragile dreams and hopes. Painngs of Jacob Lawrence
(2015) in The Great Migraon series at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) tell
stories of the exodus of African Americans from the South to northern and western cies of the
US starng during World War I. Lawrence disls the stories of millions into inmate vignees.
Dewey was clear that through art people can parcipate in the shaping of change in
society. For both Dewey and Greene such engagements broaden awareness of how things are,
and, through imaginaon, limitaons are brought into focus and maybe addressed. The
movaon to change may lead to acons. This is in keeping with the “limit situaons” of Freire
(1972, p. 71).
Dewey and Greene’s engaging with art and Mezirow’s TL have in common the shared
expectaons that learning is grounded in experience and involves the transformaon of
experience. For Dewey, engagements involve the having of an experience. For Dewey (1916)
“the educaonal process is one of connual reorganizing, reconstrucng and transforming” (p.

50) and again educaon is “the reorganizaon or reconstrucon of experience which adds to
the meaning of experience, and which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent
experience” (p. 76). For Mezirow, TL also involves transforming experience because “meaning is
making sense of or giving coherence to our experience” (1991, p. 110) and TL changes the
meanings to which we have access in our interpreng of our experience. In transformaon
theory, a transformed frame of reference is by denion more “inclusive, dierenated,
permeable (open to other points of view), and integrated meaning perspecve, the validity of
which has been established through raonal discourse…” (1991, p.7). Dewey suggests the same
- there is always “knowledge of something else” (1934, p. 122), and Greene (1995, p. 43)
frequently asserts how incomplete our dialogues are in educaon “because there is always
more to be discovered.” “There is always more” (Greene, 1995, p. 131).
Experience as Rupture
Disorientaon is a key concept in Mezirow’s theory and in many experiences of literature
and other arsc experiences disrupon arises. Dewey, according to Morse (2011, p. 22), has a
“philosophy of rupture.” In making meaning Dewey asserted that “seled states are ‘undone,’
and this ‘undoing’ is the primary force in the meaning- making process” (Morse, p. 16). Rupture
“is an important part of Dewey’s philosophy” (Morse, 2011, p. 13), and meaning in life is
achieved through antagonisms and disrupons. Dewey held that discord (rupture) brings a
creave force to the pursuit of meaning, even an andote to despair (Morse, 2011). There is no
such thing as a nal selement, a nal denive meaning because every selement introduces
the condions for a “new unseling” (Dewey, 1938, p. 35). Dewey is associated with the
connuity of experience (Fleming, 2021b, 2022a), and parallel to this connuity of experience
he gives priority to the experience of rupture as part of the process of making meaning. This is a
relavely unexplored concept in TL and even when it is explored (Cox & John, 2016; Scully-Russ,
et al., 2022; Teen, Roberts, & Challies, 2020; Watkins, 2019) there is no reference to its origins in
Dewey. We learn from Mezirow (1991) that transformaon is achieved through rupture - as in a
disorienng dilemma. Unseling experiences are akin to the puzzling experience one oen nds
in engagements with art. However, not all experience is a source of disequilibrium or rupture, or
indeed of transformaon.

Having what Alma (2020, p. 34) calls “an experience” can elicit a problemac response
and an experience may result from encountering a work of art. In the rhythm of everyday life,
we only become aware of what Dewey calls an experience in “problemac” situaons that are
beyond implicit understanding. We are no longer part of an event or situaon in a taken for
granted way. We are conscious of a rupture (Alma, 2020, p. 34). Experiences of art (Alma, 2020)
are parcularly eecve ways of confronng us with rupture, as frames of reference lt out of
balance by the aempt to make meaning of an aesthec experience. This may prompt a
disorienng dilemma. Alma (2020) insighully asserts that “all art depends on fricon with what
we take for granted” and “breaking through our habitual ways of looking at the world” (p. 39).
According to Adorno (1977) encounters with great art make “recipients lose their foong” (p.
244). The idea of being o-balance in this way may be a beer way of understanding the now
over-used concept of disorienng dilemma.
Art frequently explores the experiences of people who have suered at the hands of
democracy gone wrong and in the process are confronted with trauma and evil. In that
discursive process we may discover our own “social imaginaon” (Dewey, 1938, p. 293). Arsts
direct our aenon to injusces; they oer a bridge between their feelings about the world and
our re- awakening; viewers may be forced to see possibilies that are denied by the wrongs of
the world. This may support us imagining the wrongs being made right. To exercise the
imaginaon in experiencing art may enable learners to pick up the signals deep within us as
individuals and as members of communies that know that a beer world is possible (Greene,
1995). Picasso spoke more forcefully about painng;
You have to wake people up. To revoluonize their way of idenfying things. You’ve got
to create images they won’t accept…. Force them to understand they’re living in a prey
queer world. A world that’s not reassuring. A world that’s not what they think it is.
(Malraux, 1974, p. 110)
Art can also unlock the imaginaon of the far right, and in Nazi Germany the regime
hollowed out the aesthec principles of the Western arsc tradion. A recent exhibion of
Degenerate Art at the Picasso Museum in Paris told the story of the ”Entartete Kunst”
(degenerate art] a propaganda exhibion held in Munich in 1937. Nazi leaders sought to control

Germany not only polically, but also culturally. The regime restricted the type of art that could
be produced, displayed, and sold. In 1937, Joseph Goebbels (Propaganda Minister) organized
the conscaon and exhibion of so-called “degenerate” art; the kinds of art the regime
deemed unacceptable and degenerate. The work of about 100 arsts (including, Kadinsky and
Klee) were presented in a seng designed to elicit the disgust of the public. Already arsts such
as Van Gogh, Chagall, and Picasso had been declared degenerate and so a threat to the Nazi
project and methodically purged from collecons and museums (See US Holocaust Memorial
Museum, 2025).
On the other hand, Nazi art aimed to steer the public’s conscience in the direcon
required by the state. Cinema was a malleable medium and the “art” of the Nazi cinema
prescribed what viewers must think - a blueprint for conformity in thought and acon according
to Adorno (1977). In contrast, the art, that we are discussing, calls on the imaginaon to
imagine and think of ways of making lives beer. We “look to art as a document, a catalyst, a
transformave process that causes us to act morally and with care and kindness” (Goldbla,
2006, p. 33).
Meanwhile the declared degenerate (Free University of Berlin, 2022) and famous
German arst Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945)
2
drew images and carved sculptures of closeness,
care, and tenderness (Kearns, 1976). She depicted the impact of poverty, hunger, and war on
the working class, illustrang the struggle against tyranny and oppression. Her subjects are war,
slaughtered children, and their parents. She poses the queson as to how to be a woman in a
world at war, in poverty, and anguish. She answers this way: with fear, intelligence, dignity, and
courage. She “feels everything” (Kearns, 1976, p. 193). She cries out in order to prevent more
deaths. Crical reecon that involves empathy also requires imaginaon that leads to
empathy. Picasso says it best: “I make painngs that bite. Violence, clanging
cymbals…explosions…. A good painng - any painng - ought to bristle with razor blades”
2
Insert something about the tomb of the unknown soldier in Berlin. We remember the people who had to die

(Malraux, 1974, p. 139). Rupture is an under-appreciated and under-explored aspect of art, of
experience, of TL and of adult educaon.
Artworks have the power to prompt discussions about the situaons exposed in them,
and “reveal how democracy looks when rights are deprived” (Goldbla, 2006, p. 20). The
engaged viewer (or learner), relying on memories and experiences of their own, may suggest
how insight can be achieved so that acons become imperaves. Minds and hearts are alerted
to the work required; the work of learning. It should not be a surprise that so much art is on the
side of democracy or at least suggests how it is threatened and what it promises as a possibility.
Dewey, more than most educators, looks to the arts as a way to:
to exemplify democracy: the arst makes available to everyone, modeling
transformave processes based on personal and public experiences that society must
embrace to foster the growth of its cizenry. (Goldbla, 2006, pp. 32-33)
Transformave Teaching Through Art: Literature
Adorno (1977), Dewey (1934), Greene (1995), and today Dissanayake (1988), Lawrence
(2015) and many others agree in idenfying some basic prerequisites for teaching through arts.
Reading literature for crical purposes requires close aenon to the text, the story, the context
and the many other aspects that make that literature a work of art. As Honneth indicated it
alerts us to the ne granular nature of human experience, emoons and the texture of human
relaonships and the mulple perspecves that fuel the narrave. It also requires an
engagement with one’s own emoonal reacons and thoughts; it requires the ability to make
connecons; and above all it requires the literature to have the capacity to provide an
experience with art, The literature may have opportunies to maintain the interest of the
reader and engage with connecng the narrave with their own. Though there are examples
(Shor, Freire, in the literature as to how to proceed with providing experiences that may prompt
reecon of a crical and imaginave kind, this secon proposes an engagement with literature
as an example.
In fore-fronng literature as the art form for crical invesgaons there is an overlap
between literature as art with its ability to reveal the complexity of life in a granular and
detailed way and literature as narraves that allows us explore issues of identy and social

change. In many ways for those who focus on art as in painngs there is the advantage that it
avoids the limitaons of language that one may encounter in literature (Lawrence, 2022). But
literature does have the advantage of being in touch with current interests in narrave and
story. The intent here is to focus on the reading of literature rather than the telling of stories.
Through history, and in parcular through the history of the English novel, the authors
have cast a descripve and oen crical eye on important historical and social events in the
author’s society – and beyond. For instance, the origins of feminist movements rest on early
literature English novel. For example, the Samuel Richardson’s Pamela from 1740 sheds light on
social issues that transcended the novel for the me such as gender roles, early false-
imprisonment, and class barriers as they were experienced in the eighteenth century. The
acon of the novel is told through leers and journal entries from Pamela to her parents. Such
literature facilitates perspecve taking – part of the skill set that supports TL (Mezirow, 1978).
Through the imaginaon of the author and the reader the process is enhanced, emoons
heightened and more acutely felt, and above all empathy is expressed. I am placing some
emphasis on early English novels to highlight how literature from the beginning was clearly a
prompt for social descripons, analysis and crique. The blistering social crique of Tom Jones
by Henry Fielding in 1749 and of English society in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719 along
with the more obviously feminist posions arculated in Jane Eyre by Charloe Brontë in 1847.
The list seems endless, and this is before we open the modern or even present list of socially
aware con wring. There is a smorgasbord or palee of amazing literature. And this is not to
menon at all the Great American Novels that, in the words of De Forest they would "paint the
American soul" and capture "the ordinary emoons and manners of American existence"
(Showalter, 2014). These works of con are at the core of most American liberal arts rst year
course on American culture. Today we are fortunate to have such a rich tapestry of con that
connues the tradions of the early novel taking on new forms and indeed frequently increased
complexity. The Song of Solomon and Beloved (Morrison), The Color Purple (Walker), Capital
(Lancaster) and The Mandibles (Shriver) all are just reminders of a rich and accessible heritage.
Who can forget To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) or The Great Gatsby (Sco Fitzgerald)?

Such con, and not all con, can trigger disorienng dilemmas, encourage dialogue
and discussion, vividly paint current realies and frame future possibilies. Public debates can
arise as a consequence and diering points of view on contenous issues raised and discussed.
The ability to see from dierent perspecve is pracced and encouraged in all great literature.
Those with dierent values, customs and points of view can be presented in ways that heighten
interest and empathy and this can lead, through imaginaons, to thinking about future dierent
possibilies and acons. Literature can ignite crique in ways that are oen less threatening
(not guaranteed) than the real-life situaons described. As Honneth (2023) expressed, art can
both illuminate reality in all its complexity, diversity and granularity as well as invite the reader
to process the possibility of change that may be social change or change in one’s own identy
(or both).
Shakespeare’s King Lear takes the reader on a dystopian tour of complex relaonships
between members of his family and their duty. It imagines what may become of those who
choose power. The King, Lear, commands that each daughter confess their love and loyalty to
him in return for inhering their share his kingdom. Gonerill and Regan famously lie and cheat
in order to convince Lear, gain inuence and polical power. The youngest daughter, Cordelia,
Lear’s favourite, cannot lie, is kind, loving and genuinely so. By not playing the game, she is
disinherited and excluded not only from polical power (land ownership) but also from familial
relaonships. Readers, or theatre goers, might wish to explore the challenges of achieving
power and holding it as well as the interpersonal dimensions of holding that power along with
the gendered nature of all these issues. Without neglecng the stories of the men in the play,
the three daughters of Lear alter the narrave of these women’s lives. Gonerill, Regan, and
Cordelia, reveal views about women in the world at that me and while being agenc in the
narrave of the play, they dominate the male characters, including their partners.
It could be argued that each daughter inherited a version of the ruthless and toxic male
power of Lear, though Cordelia chose the opposite rather than a similar version. Lear does not
build his kingdom on foundaons of aecon and aachments but rather on property, blind
loyalty and dishonesty.

Cordelia remains (as the play ends as blameless as at the beginning, but with maybe
more care, and aecon for her father. Nevertheless, even if this was within a ourishing male
dominated world. How might one relate today to toxic presentaons of power? This queson
can be posed for individuals in families, for groups and organizaons; at work; in society; and in
universies who try to navigate current tensions between freedom and polical imperaves.
When nally, and tragically, all three daughters lie dead on the stage with their dead father, the
king, the audience is le to wonder how to change within such realies. How can women be as
subversive as this and sll be destroyed. In real world situaons where toxic leadership seems
to be increasingly immune to change, or even to the movaon to transform, how can we
survive? How can jusce, care and fairness thrive? This play and many other literary works help
us confront complex human emoons and social issues, foster a deeper understanding of the
human condion. Authority can be quesoned, power exposed, identy explored, social
structures examined, as literature is so eecve at externalizing inner chaos. King Lear may
facilitate the “going beyond” that Greene talks about. Going beyond broken relaonships and
violated trust, transcending intergeneraonal conicts, explore issues of inated ego, mental
health, vulnerabilies and fragilies of self. The chaos explored in Lear is a more common
experience today when there seems to be a breakdown in social order and authority, the
exercise of irresponsible power, increased inequalies, authoritarianism and the consequences
of failures in ethical leadership.
Final Thoughts
The key idea that we tried to capture here is that imagining things being otherwise may
be “the rst step toward acng on the belief that they can be changed” (Greene, 1995, p. 22).
Approaching art from the vantage point of one’s own lived experience and acve engagement,
and relying on one’s own empathy, we can begin to know in “ways that bring about change”
(Greene, 1995, p. 68). To the extent that this is carried out using synergec transformave
teaching methods within a variety of learning groups, further possibilies suggest themselves,
and as a result of debate and interacons it is possible to strengthen the ability of members to
create and capture emancipatory insights and construct meaningful ways of acng. Working in
this way requires, it seems, experse in teaching.

It just may be that students know that in their engagements with art, our hearts and
minds, feelings, and thoughts, our emoonal and raonal sides are integrated. This is why art is
so dangerous, in a world that values the disconnecons of these human dimensions and where
Dewey and Greene worked against these false dichotomies. Using literature, especially science
con, sare, fragments of literature, lm and documentaries Negt encourages the dangerous
thoughts of crical intelligence. In a book tle Kluge (1996) calls this pedagogy Learning
Processes with a Deadly Outcome.
These familiar owers, these well-remembered bird notes, this sky with its ul
brightness, these furrowed and grassy elds, each with a sort of personality given to it
by the capricious hedge, such things as these are the mother tongue of our imaginaon,
the language that is laden with all the subtle inextricable associaons the eeng hours
of our childhood le behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass
today might be no more than the faint percepon of wearied souls, if it were not for the
sunshine and grass of far-o years, which sll live in us and transform our percepon
into love. George Eliot in The Mill on the Floss.
References
Adorno, T. (1977). Aesthec theory. Connuum.
Alma, H. (2020). Art and religion as invitaon: An exploraon based on John Dewey’s theory
of experience and imaginaon. Perichoresis, 18(3), 33–45.
hps://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2020- 0015
Atwood, M. (1996). The handmaid’s tale. Vintage.
Ayers, W. (1995). Social imaginaon: A conversaon with Maxine Greene. Internaonal Journal
of Qualitave Studies in Educaon, 8(4), 321-22.
Brookeld, S., & Holst, J. (2011). Radicalizing learning. Jossey-Bass.
Buerwick, S., & Lawrence, R. L. (2023). Stories of hope, imaginaon, and transformave
learning: A dialogue. New Direcons for Adult and Connuing Educaon, 2023(177),
51–60. hps://doi.org/10.1002/ace.20478
Cox, A. J., & John, V. M. (2016). Transformave learning in post-apartheid South Africa:

Disrupon, dilemma, and direcon. Adult Educaon Quarterly, 66(4), 303-318.
hps://doi.org/10.1177/0741713616648376
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersecon of race and sex: A black feminist crique
of andiscriminaon doctrine, feminist theory and anracist polics. University of
Chicago Legal Forum 1989(1) 8.
hp://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and educaon. Macmillan.
Dewey, J. (1934). Art and experience. Paragon.
Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The theory of inquiry. Henry Holt.
Dewey, J. (1940). Presenng Thomas Jeerson. In J. Dewey, (Ed.), The living thoughts of Thomas
Jeerson. David McKay Co.
Dissanayake, E. (1988). What is art for? University of Washington Press.
Dissanayake, E. (1992). Homo aesthecus: Where art comes from and why. Free Press.
Eliot, G. (2015). The mill on the oss. Oxford: OUP.
European Commission, (2023). Proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the
Council on a European Year of Skills 2023.
hps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52022PC0526
Figment Films (Producer), & Doyle, D. (Director). (1996). Trainspong. Chanel 4 Television.
Finnegan, F. (2023). A many-splendored thing? Transformave learning for social jusce.
New Direcons for Adult and Connuing Educaon, 2023, 119–133.
hps://doi.org/10.1002/ace.20483
Fleming, T. (2011). Recognion in the work of Axel Honneth: Implicaons for transformave
learning theory. In M. Alhade-Jones & A. Kokkos, (Eds.), Transformave Learning in
Time of Crisis: Individual and Collecve Challenges (pp. 95-101). New York: Teachers
College.
Fleming, T. (2014). Axel Honneth and the struggle for recognion: Implicaons for
transformave learning. In A. Nicolaides and D. Holt (eds.). Spaces of transformaon and
transformaon of space. Proceedings of the 11th Internaonal Transformave Learning
Conference (pp. 318-324). New York: Teachers College.

Fleming, T. (2016). The crical theory of Axel Honneth: Implicaons for transformave learning
and higher educaon. In V. Wang (Ed.), Theory and Pracce of Adult and Higher
Educaon (pp. 63-85). Lile Rock, AK: Informaon Age Publishing.
ISBN 978-1-68123-601-8
Fleming, T. (2018). Mezirow and the theory of transformave learning. In V. Wang, (Ed.), Crical
Theory and Transformave Learning, (pp. 120-136). Hershey, PA, IGI Global.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-6086-9.ch009
Fleming, T. (2021a). Models of Lifelong Learning: An overview. In M. London (Ed). Oxford
Handbook of Lifelong Learning, 2nd edion, (pp. 1-26). New York: Oxford University
Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197506707.013.3
Fleming, T. (2021b). Toward a crical theory of transformave learning: Learning from Oskar
Negt. Internaonal Journal of Adult Educaon and Technology, 12(1), 1–16.
hps://doi.org/10.4018/IJAET.2021010101
Fleming, T. (2022a). Transforming everyday experience: Transformave learning, disorienng
dilemmas and Honneth’s theory of recognion. Journal for the Theory of Social
Behaviour, 52(4), 563–578. hps://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12355
Fleming, T. (2022b). Transformave learning and crical theory: Making connecons with
Habermas, Honneth, and Negt. In A. Nicolaides, S. Eschenbacher, P.T. Buergelt, Y. Gilpin-
Jackson, M. Welch, & M. Misawa (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of learning for
transformaon (pp. 25-43). Palgrave Macmillan.
Fleming, T. (2023). Transformave learning and experience. Internaonal Journal of Adult
Educaon and Technology, 14(1), 1-13. hps://doi.org/10.4018/ijaet.324930
Fleming, T. (2024a). Experience and sociological imaginaon: Transforming the researcher’s
learner identy. European Journal for Research on the Educaon and Learning of
Adults, 15(1), 13–26. hps://doi.org/10.3384/rela.2000-7426.4841
Fleming, T. (2024b). The sociological imaginaon and transformaon theory: A tribute to Oskar
Negt. In L. Fabbri, M. Fedeli, P. Faller, D. Holt, & A. Romano, (Eds.), (2024). Proceedings of
the XV Biennial Internaonal Transformave Learning Conference (pp. 365-371).
University of Siena, Italy.

Fleming, T., Kokkos, A., & Finnegan, F. (Eds.). (2019). European perspecves on transformaon
theory. Routledge.
Free University of Berlin, (2022). "Freie Universität Berlin Database "Entartete Kunst".
hps://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/db_entart_kunst/index.html
Accessed April 18, 2025.
Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin.
Goldbla, P. (2006). How John Dewey’s theories underpin art and art educaon.
Educaon And Culture, 22(1), 17–34. hps://doi.org/10.1353/eac.2006.0001
Greene, M. (1973). Teacher as stranger: Educaonal philosophy for the modern age.
Wadsworth.
Greene, M. (1975a). Curriculum and consciousness. In W. Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum theorizing.
McCutchen.
Greene, M. (1975b). Educaon, freedom, and possibility: Inaugural Lecture as William F. Russell
Professor. Teachers College Columbia University.
Greene, M. (1988). The dialeccs of freedom. Teachers College Press.
Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imaginaon: Essays on educaon. the arts, and social change.
Jossey-Bass.
Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicave acon, Volume 2: The crique of
funconalist reason. Polity.
Heaney, S. (1998). Opened ground: Poems 1966-1996. Faber & Faber.
Hernandez-Ruiz, H. (2022). Music for Mental Health during the Pandemic. Save the Music
Foundaon Newsleer.
hps://www.savethemusic.org/blog/music-for-mental-health-during-the-pandemic/
Hoggan, C., Mälkki, K., & Finnegan, F. (2016). Developing the theory of perspecve
transformaon: Connuity, intersubjecvity, and emancipatory praxis. Adult Educaon
Quarterly, 67(1), 48-64. hps://doi.org/10.1177/0741713616674076
Honneth, A. (2023). Seel und Schiller. Zeitschri für Ästhek Und Allgemeine Kunstwissenscha
68 (2):62-67. DOI hps://doi.org/10.28937/9783787345656_8
Housseini, K. (2018). Sea prayer. Riverhead.

Kearns, M. (1976). Käthe Kollwitz: Woman and arst. The Feminist Press at City
University.
Kluge, A. (1996). Learning processes with a deadly outcome. Duke University Press.
Kluge, A. (2017). Drilling through hard boards: 133 Polical stories. University of Chicago
Press.
Kluge, A. (2020). Alexander Kluge: Homepage. hps://www.kluge-alexander.de/
Kluge, A., & Negt, O. (2014). History and obsnacy. Zone Books.
Lawrence, J. (2015). Jacob Lawrence’s migraon series and other visions of the great
movement north. Website of The Museum of Modern Art.
hps://www.moma.org/calendar/ exhibions/1495 (Accessed Jan, 25, 2024).
Lawrence, R. L. (2022). Imaginave perspecves on transformave learning. In A.
Nicolaides, S. Eschenbacher, P.T. Buergelt, Y. Gilpin-Jackson, M. Welch, & M.
Misawa (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of learning for transformaon (pp. 645–658).
Palgrave Macmillan.
Langston, R. (2024, March 8). Oskar Negt (1934-2024). [Web blog post]. Retrieved from
hps://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/oskar-negt-1934-2024
Malraux, A. (1974). Picasso’s mask. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Marcuse, H. (1978). The aesthec imaginaon: Toward a crique of Marxist aesthecs. Beacon.
Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspecve transformaon. Adult Educaon, 28(2), 100-110.
hps://doi.org/10.1177/074171367802800202
Mezirow, J. (1979). Perspecve transformaon: Toward a crical theory of adult educaon.
Unpublished preprint/dra. Copy in possession of author.
Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformave dimensions of adult learning. Jossey-Bass.
Mezirow, J. (2003). Epistemology of transformave learning. In C. A. Wiessner, S. R. Meyer,
N. L. Pal, & P. G. Neaman (Eds.), Transformave learning in acon: Building bridges
across contexts and disciplines. Proceedings of the IV Internaonal Conference on
Transformave Learning, pp. 326-333. Teachers College.
hps://drive.google.com/le/d/1qwxxjoN1qMTonpX7VOfWgc1US3vkOxxe/view
Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imaginaon. Oxford University Press.

Morse, D. J. (2011). Faith in life: John Dewey’s early philosophy. Fordham University Press.
Murphy, M., & Fleming, T. (2010). Communicaon, deliberaon, reason: An introducon to
Habermas. In M. Murphy & T. Fleming (Eds), Habermas, crical theory and educaon.
(pp. 11-24). Routledge.
Negt, O. (1971). Soziologische Phantasie und Exemplarisches Lernen: Zur Theorie und Praxis
der Arbeiterbildung, [Sociological imaginaon and exemplary learning: On the theory
and pracce of workers’ educaon]. Europäische Verlagsanstalt.
Negt, O. (1973). Don’t go by numbers, organize according to interests!: Current quesons of
organizaon. New German Crique, 1, 42-51.
Negt, O., & Kluge, A. (2016). Public sphere and experience: Analysis of the bourgeois and
proletarian public sphere. Verso.
Palmer, N. (2022). The sociological imaginaon within teaching sociology: 1973–2020. Teaching
Sociology, 51(1), 1-12. hps://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X221098452
Showalter, E. (February 20, 2014). "Can the Great American Novel survive?". Prospect. Archived
from the original on March 17, 2014.
hp://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/end-of-the-dream-can-the-great-
american-novel-survive/
Schutz, A. (1945). On mulple realies. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 5(4), 533-
576. hps://doi.org/10.2307/2102818
Schutz, A. (1967). Collected papers I: The problem of social reality. Marnus Nijho.
Schutz, A. (1970). On phenomenology and social relaons: Selected wrings. University of
Chicago Press.
Scully-Russ, E., Cseh, M., Hakimi, L., Philip, J., Lundgren, H., & Ralston, D. J. (2022). So you say
our work is Essenal: Essenal workers and the potenal for transformave learning in
the wake of COVID-19 social and economic disrupon. New Direcons for Adult and
Connuing Educaon, 2022, 93–103.
hps://doi-org.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/10.1002/ace.20455
Smilde, R., Page, K., & Alheit, P. (2014). While the music lasts: On music and demena. Eburon

Academic Publishers.
Springsteen, B. (2016). Born to run. Simon & Schuster.
Teen, R., Roberts, L., & Challies, E. (2020). Disrupon as opportunity for transformaon? Insights
from water supply contaminaon in Havelock North, New Zealand. Local Environment,
25(10), 810–827. hps://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2020.1839030
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, (2025).
hps://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/arcle/degenerate-art-1
Wildemeeersch, D. & Leirman, W. (1988). The facilitaon of the lifeworld transformaon. Adult
Educaon Quarterly, 39, 19-33.
Worley, Virginia (2002). The importance of Maxine Greene’s public place “In Between”.
Philosophy of Educaon 58, 402-404. hps://philpapers.org/rec/WORTIO-4