The Subject as Vibrant Matter

In the article Hartmut Rosa’s concept ‘resonance’ and Jacques Rancière’s concept ‘le partage du sensible’ are explored through an aesthetic and musical interpretation of teaching. The main aim is to bring understanding into how educational practices, in particular teaching practice, can bring life into subject matter, and construe it as meaningful, significant, and important in times of social acceleration and alienation (Rosa, 2015; Stiegler, 2010). Besides texts from Rosa and Rancière, the article draws on discussions from music philosophy (Bucht, 2009; Lingis, 2004), and educational philosophy (Benner, 2015; Mollenhauer, 2014; Uljens, 1998). The article suggests that Rosa’s concept of ‘resonance’ and Rancière’s concept of ‘le partage du sensible’, read together and against each other, bring insights into discussions about the phenomenological nature of teaching, described as a sort of experiential frequency-modulation that aims for resonant relationships between students and the world. While Rancière’s aesthetics can be used to highlight the abstract logics and politics of educational relations, Rosa’s sociology of resonance provides a valuable complement that grounds teaching practice in lived experience. Resonance implies, according to Rosa, an aspect of constitutive inaccessibility, which requires that both subject and world are sufficiently “closed” or self-consistent so that both sides can speak “in their own voice”, while also remaining open to be affected or reached by each other. Interpreting this resonant state educationally, and from the perspective of Rancière’s aesthetics, turns teaching into a resonance-enabling practice where students, as unique subjects, are allowed to confront the teaching content in its pure materiality; to hear it sing with its own voice, key, and rhythm.