Martha Nussbaum’s work on cosmopolitanism could suggest a possible political goal of a
cosmopolitan patriotism. But in the transtextual arena, we begin to appreciate the
multiple logics of the ideology of national liberation as both a political and cultural force.
What difference does literature make in colonial or post-colonial relations? The
transtextual arena might suggest that it is as important to the functioning of colonialism
as, say, colonial education policies.
Conclusion
From our experiences in Culture, Politics and Post-Colonialism and The Cold
War: Culture, Politics and Foreign Policy, we learned some important theoretical
implications for studying teacher knowledge and for studying interdisciplinarity. An
interdisciplinary pedagogical content knowledge differs fundamentally from Shulman’s
initial conceptualization of PCK: interdisciplinary teaching requires instructors to
acquire a unique and fluid pedagogical content knowledge that is not strictly rooted in
disciplinary knowledge bases and methodological structures. Indeed, the very subject
matter content to be taught may not be fixed and is often contested. As such, content as
process emerges as a focal point in interdisciplinary teaching. What is key in any
interdisciplinary pedagogy is that it enables students to draw on prior experiences and
knowledge bases, to integrate new vocabularies and frames, and to share in the
construction and reconstruction of subject matter, potentially the generation of
transdisciplinary knowledge.
13
See D.C. Phillips, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faces of
Constructivism,” Educational Researcher, Vol. 24, No. 7 (October 1995): 5 – 12, on the
difference between individual cognitive aspects of constructivism and public
knowledge/disciplinary constructivism.
19
Convention