Autobiography Without an “I”: Currere for the Era of a Porous Self

This paper attempts to bring currere, the autobiographical modality of curriculum theorizing initiated by William Pinar, into conversation with new materialist theories of subjectivity. Specifically, Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman subjectivity, Jane Bennett’s vital materialist self, and Stacey Alaimo’s trans-corporeality are forwarded as markers of “the era of the porous self,” where the material boundaries of the human form are not as static as they once seemed. When the self is seen as porous, the stable “I” quickly becomes misleading. As such, this paper attempts to write autobiographically without evoking an “I”—an attempt at currere informed by posthumanism—an experiment toward currere for the era of a porous self.