Wim Wenders's Road Movie Philosophy

What is education? Most of the time, we have little patience for this question because we take the answer to be obvious: we identify education with school learning. This book focuses on education outside of the school context as a basis for criticizing and improving school learning. Following the examples of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Dewey, Arcilla seeks to harmonize schooling with a more pervasive education we are all naturally undergoing. He develops a philosophical theory of education that stresses the experience of being led out—a theory latent in the Latin term, “educere”—by examining the road movies of Wim Wenders. This book contributes both to our understanding of another crucial kind of education our schooling could better serve, and to our appreciation of what unifies and distinguishes Wenders’s achievements in cinema.

[Wim Wenders's Road Movie Philosophy] is written in service of the resuscitation of our culture and the reclaiming the role of art. It reminds me why it is meaningful to watch films, especially those that are related to one's life as quest. This is undoubtedly a book that contributes to what Cavell calls philosophy as the education of grownups. It is an encouraging and inspiring call to teachers and students who are in search of the meaning of life., Wim Wenders's Road Movie Philosophy is an original, insightful, though provoking book. It should serve as a foundation text for others seeking to incorporate reflection on films in educational analysis. The book is highly recommended, not just for admirers of Wenders's work, but for all who have an interest in the mysterious, fascinating phenomenon we call 'education'., Likely to be of great interest to educationalists, teachers, and philosophers of education, thanks to the genuine potential of the work's interdisciplinary approach., René V. Arcilla has written a provocative introduction to Wim Wenders' road movies. The leading insight is that we have lost the root-meaning of "education." He wants to shift our conception of "education" away from class-room learning and toward the sort of broad expansion of self that comes through being "on the road," on a path or journey into the unknown. The German Bildungsroman traces such self-expansion through travel, and so do Wenders' road movies.

René V. Arcilla is Professor of Philosophy of Education at New York University's Steinhardt School, USA. He is past-president of the Philosophy of Education Society and the author of For the Love of Perfection: Richard Rorty and Liberal Education (1995) and Mediumism: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Modernism for Existential Learning, (2010) and co-editor of A Life in Classrooms: Philip W. Jackson and the Practice of Teaching (2007).