Tracing Ted Tetsuo Aoki’s Intellectual Formation

Book excerpt: Through careful examination of Ted Aoki’s life and work within its historical, societal and intellectual context, this text advances a new appreciation of the national distinctiveness of Canadian curriculum studies. The book draws unique comparison between Aoki’s writings and Heidegger’s concept of "being-in-the-world." In exploring Aoki’s narratives on momentous life events, the author attends to the interwoven, dynamic and poetic essence of the scholar’s intellectual formation and identifies a critically reflective style of theorizing. By contextualizing Aoki’s narrations on his momentous life events, the text engages with Aoki’s critical reflective and unique style of theorizing and foregrounds the prominent influence of Heidegger’s phenomenology and writings on Aoki’s thinking. A major contribution to understanding Aoki’s curriculum scholarship, this book is an important resource for researchers and post-graduate students working across curriculum studies discourse.