Like Letters in Running Water
A Mythopoetics of Curriculum
Studies in Curriculum Theory Series

Like Letters in Running Water explores ways in which fiction (prose, drama, poetry, myth, fairytale) yields transformative insights for educational theory and practice. Through a series of intensely original, powerful essays drawing on curriculum theory, literary analysis, psychology, and feminist theory and practice, Doll seeks to confront a commonly held bias that reading literary fictions is "mere" entertainment (not a learning experience). She suggests that fiction has immense teaching power because it connects readers with their alliances within themselves and this connection attends to social, outer issues addressed by traditional pedagogies with greater, deeper awareness. Her elaboration in this book of the concept of currere--the lived experience of curriculum--through literature, drama, and myth is a major contribution to the field of curriculum theory.

Contents: Preface: Yin and Yang. Introduction: Fiction as Food. Part I: Like Letters Carved in Rock. The Character of Wood or Brick. Cold Eyes, Steel Bits, and Metal Ovens: Havens of Hate. Bluebeard's Cellar: A Native Son's Underworld. "All Pulp Removed": Sexual Repression's Revenge. Part II: Like Letters Written in Sand. Good Girls/Bad Girls. The Glass Coffin. The P(r)ose of Clothes. Light Daughter/Dark Goddess. Part III: Like Letters Written in Running Water. The Suchness of Suffering. Circles, Loops, and the Wheel of Comedy. Spider Woman. Vegetative Fantasy and the Greening of Imagination.