Ficto-Currere, Post-Truth, and Subversive Uncertainty

Abstract

Emerging from the author’s experience teaching in a Bachelor of Education program, this paper begins by questioning the practice of inventing stories for class discussion. It then moves on to discuss post-truth politics before engaging the concept of ficto-currere as articulated by curriculum scholar Morna McDermott McNulty. While both concepts pull away from factual detail, they do so with different claims to truth. Ficto-currere, as a form of fiction, makes no claim to truth, while post-truth narrativizing often does. The author suggests that the distinction, though obvious, is significant in maintaining a subversive frame to ficto-currere. The author further articulates ficto-currere as a potential response to post-truth by way of Brian Massumi’s writing on affect. The author concludes by gesturing toward the subversive potential of embracing uncertainty in teaching and inquiry.