Artful Education and the Downward Journey: Facing Finitude and Death (Philosophies of Education in Art, Cinema, and Literature)

This book considers whether and how various philosophies, practices and artworks might help people face, and give new faces to, finitude.Formal education typically emphasizes the journey upward, with ascending and healthy aspects of life like growth and flourishing being common educational aims.However, life also involves downward journeys of illness, decay and death. Written by contributors based in the UK and beyond, it explores the educational potential in a range of spiritual and social practices as well as from cinema and literature that engage with downward journeys.The chapters cover written works by E.M. Forster, Hume, Nietzsche, and Robert Louis Stevenson; films such as Des Hommes et des Dieux and Arrival, Living and My Life Without Me; and social practices and rituals including football.The authors argue that some artworks frame or narrate descent in ways that can educate audiences and reveal the folly in beating wings only upward.Downward journeys show falling or failing and