Unspoken assumptions, deep holes and boundless expectations

Abstract

This study examines the different institutional, disciplinary, and pedagogical factors that come into play when teaching literary works with the goal of fostering dialogue, understood in the sense of civic communication and tolerance. Drawing on an Action Research approach, the analysis probes a specific experience teaching the diverse English-language short story tradition in the Canadian and German university context. The results show that to maximize the potential of teaching literary works for nurturing dialogue, instructors must navigate among multiple and at times contradictory forces reflecting institutional and disciplinary teaching priorities, divergent conceptualisations of dialogue, theoretical incongruities, varied literary and critical traditions, and complex mediation techniques.