This article undertakes a critical comparative analysis of key themes in the work of Paulo Freire and Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is suggested that despite their apparent differences, Freire and Dostoevsky share much in common. The author argues that a careful reading of both Dostoevsky's novels and Freire's pedagogical texts can deepen our understanding of the significance of uncertainty, dialogue, love, and struggle in transformative education.

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The Double Vision of the Brothers Karamazov

Freire and Dostoevsky Uncertainty, Dialogue, and Transformation

Smerdyakov, the likely fourth brother—a bastard, an epileptic, a murderer, a suicide—is glaringly excluded from the tripartite Karamazov soul of the appetitive Dmitri, the rational Ivan, and the sp...

“Balaam’s Ass”: Smerdyakov as a paradoxical redeemer in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov

Asymmetry and Normativity: Levinas Reading Dostoyevsky on Desire, Responsibility, and Suffering

The premise of this essay is that the study of ethics is an essential component in teaching all forms of “non-market entrepreneurship,” that is, all forms of entrepreneurship not undertaken solely for commercial purposes. In non-market entrepreneurship, such as arts entrepreneurship, social enterprise, or social entrepreneurship, at least one other purpose instead of or in addition to profit motivates acting entrepreneurially. In this essay we show how we add an ethical component to teaching social entrepreneurship in a discussion-based seminar in an American university. The thrust of our effort is to require students read Fyodor Dostoevsky's “The Grand Inquisitor” and the Father Zossima portions from The Brothers Karamazov, originally published in Russian in 1863 as a seminal work in the golden age of Russian literature. Through the instructor's structured and directed discussion of the text, students are presented with the argument that a personal ethic of “loving humility” as embodied in the character of Father Zossima might serve as an appropriate ethical guide for non-market entrepreneurship.

Dostoevsky's “the grand inquisitor”: adding an ethical component to the teaching of non-market entrepreneurship

Through the medium of the novel and an accompanying essay, this project explores the relationship, particularly since the end of World War II, between the dominant (Anglo-Celtic) and non-dominant Australian cultural groups. I argue that upholding the dominance of Anglo-Celtic culture, particularly as a centre or “core” of Australian identity, is discriminatory and detrimental to the development of Australian society in general and the goal of multiculturalism in particular. Moreover, I question the thesis that Australia can have a “core” culture without marginalising the groups that do not reside within it. Instead of projecting Anglo-Celtic culture as the archetypal Australian identity and thereby reinforcing its hegemony, I argue that we should allow migrant cultures to impart their influence on Australian culture and identity. Only then can we facilitate a national identity representative of all Australians—a bone fide multiculturalism.
Anglo-Celtic Australia has a history of discriminating against non-Anglo-Celtic Australians and my novel, while focusing on the post-war migrant boom, attempts to articulate this antipathy as a continuum that stretches from white settlement to the present. The characters in my novel are symbols of my interpretation of the Australian cultural milieu and they express my main concern with race as a marker for national identity. I illuminate the irony inherent in the Australian ideals of tolerance and egalitarianism by juxtaposing these national myths with the treatment of, and antipathy toward, migrants and Australia’s indigenous.
Although my novel might be considered social realist, I was influenced by a range of authors and philosophers and I do not attempt to subvert the socio-economic hierarchy, as is the intent of many social realist novels. Indeed, I resist any categorisation of my novel as such, by, at times, questioning both poles of the political spectrum.
The theoretical bases that drove the narrative in my novel were influenced by the theses of sociologists, academicians and political and social philosophers that speak, directly or indirectly, to my interest in race, identity and the Australian cultural dynamic. I do not, however, attempt to provide an antidote to the cultural antipathy I chart. I seek merely to uncover and question it.

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The Double Vision of the Brothers Karamazov

Citations

Freire and Dostoevsky Uncertainty, Dialogue, and Transformation

“Balaam’s Ass”: Smerdyakov as a paradoxical redeemer in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov

Asymmetry and Normativity: Levinas Reading Dostoyevsky on Desire, Responsibility, and Suffering

Dostoevsky's “the grand inquisitor”: adding an ethical component to the teaching of non-market entrepreneurship

A novel "The dues of St. Fitticks", and, essay "Paying your dues in the lucky country : Anglo-Celtic Australian attitudes to migrants"