Htqe.2022.73

https://doi.org/10.22364/htqe.2022.73 | 1028-1041 | PDF

Including the Emotional Potential of Literature in Post-crisis Education

Skaidrīte Lasmane
University of Latvia, Faculty of Social Sciences
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2827-0470

Abstract. Contemporary situational circumstances, with the global Covid-19 pandemic crisis and the ongoing war that has resulted from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have brought about social, cultural, and psychological transformations that are, as of yet, little understood but already affecting different aspects of the contemporary school learning processes. Rational, analytical, cognitive, reflexive, and emotional experience are needed to ensure that difficulties within the crisis ecosystem do not cause a lessening of the human emotional experience in difficult times. Diverse emotional experiences are especially needed, the supply of which is reduced by both the limitations of interactivity imposed by the specifics of the media information space, which mostly reflects the realities of the crisis and are predominantly negative.
In the face of this protracted crisis and the implications of new communication technologies, the article explores some ways to manage emotional experiences, so as not to lose sight of the diversity of human relations. It looks to address how we can compensate for the minimization of diverse emotional experience in teaching and learning in situations of social crises. The article pays attention to the potential role of literature as a way to build sustainable post-crisis social relationships. It proposes to reevaluate the role of literature in education and explore its use not only as a cognitive source for rational and critical thinking but its potential for cultivating moral emotions that enhance social solidarity and civility.
The case studies it presents evaluate the interpretation and misinterpretation of some classical works of Latvian literature in schools and beyond, in the media and society.

Keywords: literary fiction, emotional experience, transformation, crisis, education.

Author Note
This research is funded by the Latvian Council of Science, project “Jeopardizing Democracy through Disinformation and Conspiracies: Reconsidering Experience of Latvia,” project No. lzp-2019/1-0278. 
Material is translated by Oskars Gruziņš

In: Human, Technologies and Quality of Education, 2022. Proceedings of Scientific Papers = Cilvēks, tehnoloģijas un izglītības kvalitāte, 2022. Rakstu krājums
Riga, University of Latvia, 2022. 1135 p. Ed. L. Daniela
https://doi.org/10.22364/htqe.2022
ISBN 978-9934-18-911-1