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Currere and Praxis
e‑ISSN 3065-4572 Open Access · CC BY 4.0
Vol. 3 · Issue 3 · 2026 Oct 1, 2026 Special Issue: 50th Anniversary of Currere

Currere and (Il)legibility: Refusing the synthetic moment

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Adrian M. Downey Corresponding Mount Saint Vincent University Adrian.Downey@msvu.ca Canada
Pages213-231 PublishedOct 1, 2026 LicenseOpen Access
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VOL 3 · ISS 3 · 2026 Special Issue: 50th anniversary of Currere View issue

Abstract

In this essay, I attempt to palpate both the possibilities and limits of currere as a method of autobiographical writing and curriculum theorizing. I am specifically interested in subversive and resistant expressions of currere. Structurally, the paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I describe the project of the essay in more detail and explicate its focus on the legibility of lived experience enabled through, and limited by, the currere method. In the second, I share a letter written to a university administrator about a non-credit program of which I was a part. Though ultimately aimed at showing currere’s potential, that section also highlights the limitations of academic institutions, in which I include currere. In the third section, my particular focus is on the way currere’s subversion of empirical research’s tacit dominance in education is truncated by its pursuit of legitimacy. Finally, in a concluding section, I render a refusal of Pinar and Grumet’s synthetic moment. This refusal, I suggest, is generative, and may even be redemptive to subversive and resistant expressions of currere. I end this paper with my own refusal to tie together the essay in a synthetic moment, preferring to keep things fractured, fragmentary, and underdetermined.

Keywords

#Currere #refusal #curriculum studies #legibility

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