Talkback Circuits: New Alphabets at School

Publication series Das Neue Alphabet (The New Alphabet), Volume 23
Editors: Anna Bartels, Laida Hadel, Daniel Neugebauer, Eva Stein
Publisher: Spector Books, Leipzig
ca. 90 pages, German and English edition
color illustrations, paperback with folded dust cover
ISBN DE: 978-3-95905-661-8
ISBN EN: 978-3-95905-662-5
Price: 10 €

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The language of tomorrow originates in the schools of today. This book looks at (colonial) alphabets in the school microcosm, centering on a Spanish course at the Johanna-Eck-Schule in Berlin and the project work carried out with Santiago Calderón and Aliza Yanes. The two artists present their own animated film images as a counter to the Eurocentric narratives offered by the class textbook which are rooted in colonialism. The students’ everyday lives are also determined by the informal use of language; here it is given a view of the pages in the schoolbooks and made audible some break-time conversations. How do the exchanges between the students, which are typically multilingual, tally with the monolingual transfer of knowledge? How does online hate speech affect people’s thinking? How can a syntax of body language be found? And how can the creative potential of memes and chat shorthand be transferred to educational practice?

With contributions by Santiago Calderón García and Aliza Yanes, Leila Haghighat, Franziska Pierwoss and Siska