The title of this collection of Madeleine Grumet’s key writings, The Unbearable Lightness of Curriculum, captures what she takes to be the anxiety and ambivalence that accompany our visions of what is possible in our lives and the lives of our children. Her work explores the tension that pervades curriculum, drenched in the material and cultural realities of our lives, yet aiming toward the horizon of what might be possible. The essays are organized in three sections. Situated Subjectivity, The Art of Curriculum, Subjectivity and its Discontents. The introduction to each section frames its issues in the situation from which they sprang, both acknowledging the relation of situation and subjectivity expressed in their writing, and, using this opportunity to bring in the politics of education as Grumet experienced them as a professor and as a dean of schools of education.

Introduction

Section I: Situated Subjectivity

2. Songs and Situations (Selected excepts). In G. Willis, Ed. Qualitative Evaluation. TC Press 1978, 276-301
4. Conception, Contradiction and Curriculum. In Bitter Milk: Women and Teaching, UMass Press, 1988 , 3-30
6. The Unbearable Lightness of Curriculum. InCollege of Liberal Studies monograph, U of Oklahoma, 2001 (local publication) 7-15
8. The Restitution and Reconstruction of Educational Experience. In M.Lawn and L Barton, Eds. Rethinking Curriculum Studies, Croom Helm/Wiley 1991, 115-130
10. To Shine like Fire that Mirrors Nothing: The Loneliness of the Liberal Art. In Studies in the Literary Imagination 31:1 181-192
12. The Pedagogy of the Green Robe published as "Scholae Personae". In J.Gallop, Pedagogy : The Question of Impersonation, Indiana Univ Press 1995, 36-45

13. Section II: The Art of Curriculum

14. Curriculum as Theatre: Merely Players. In Curriculum Inquiry, 8:1 Spring 1978
16. Restaging the Civil Ceremonies of Teaching. In Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies 19:1 39-54
18. Curriculum and the Art of Daily Life. In G. Willis and W. Schubert, Reflections from the Heart of Educational Inquiry, SUNY, 1991, 74-89
20. The Pulse of Art. In International Handbook of Research in Arts Education, ed. Liora Bresler. Dorderecht, The Netherlands:Springer. 2007 p.985-988
22. No One Learns Alone In N Rabkin and R Redmond. In Putting the Arts in the Picture, Columbia College, Chicago 2004, 49-80
24. Romantic Research Why We love to Read. National Reading Conference, Inc., 1992, pp. 33-47 (Invited chapter). Reprinted in Psychoanalysis and Education, ed. S. Appel, Greenwood Press, 1999. Reprinted in Love’s Return. Eds. Gail Boldt and Paula Salvio. New York: State University of New York Press. 2007.
26. Research: Why We Love to Read," In C. Kinzer and D. Leu, eds., Literacy Research, Theory and Practice: Views from Many Perspectives, 41 S, Yearbook of the National Reading Conference.
28. Lofty Actions and Practical Thoughts: Education with Purpose. In Liberal Education, AACU 81:1 1995, 4-11
30. The Politics of Curriculum Creativity. In Learning Landscapes, Spring 2009, Vol.2 , No.2 25-29

31. Section III Subjectivity and its Discontents

32. Feminism and Teaching: The Wave that Never Reached our Shore. Invited Address: Willystine Goodsell Award, April, 2008, Unpublished
34. Educated and Educating Women : The Reproduction of Smothering. In the Proceedings of the Society for Educating Women, 2013
36. The Beast in the Matrix. In B.Stern, Ed. Curriculum and Teaching Dialogues. 2007, Vol 9, nos. 1&2. p.235-246
38. On Daffodils that Come Before the Swallow Dares. In E. Eisner and A.Peshkin, Eds. Qualitative Evaluation, TCPress, 1990, 101-120
40. The Public Expression of the Citizen Teacher. In Journal of Teacher Education 2010 61: 21-34.
42. Already at Work in the World: Fictions of Experience in Teacher Education. In V. Ellis and J. Orchard, Eds., Learning Teaching From Experience, Bloombury 2014, 109-123
44. The Question of Teacher Education,I n Learning Landscapes, 8:1, 2014, 21-24

Epilogue