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(Non-)Formal Education in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Novels: Mort’s Apprenticeship, Tiffany’s Coming of Age, Susan’s Learning Path and the Unseen University

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Terry Pratchett's Narrative Worlds

Part of the book series: Critical Approaches to Children's Literature ((CRACL))

Abstract

Maxi Steinbrück’s chapter discusses systemic elements of Discworld educational institutions (or the lack thereof). Employing a theory of education approach, Steinbrück uses the Discworld as an example of how literary texts can serve as sources of knowledge for educational science, and what potential insights literature can hold for educational theorising in particular.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Terry Pratchett, Hogfather (London: Corgi, 1997 [1996]), 40.

  2. 2.

    Gideon Haberkorn and Verena Reinhardt, ‘Magic, Adolescence, and Education on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld’, in Supernatural Youth: The Rise of the Teen Hero in Literature and Popular Culture, ed. Jes Battis (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013), 45f.

  3. 3.

    See UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report (2016), accessed 9 October 2016, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002457/245752e.pdf, 73, 150.

  4. 4.

    See, for example, Randolph Shaffner, The Apprenticeship Novel (New York: Lang, 1984).

  5. 5.

    See Thomas Jeffers, Apprenticeships (New York/Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 49.

  6. 6.

    Giovanna Summerfield and Lisa Downward, ‘Introduction’, in New Perspectives on the European Bildungsroman, eds Giovanna Summerfield and Lisa Downward (London/New York: Continuum, 2010), 1.

  7. 7.

    Hans Wulff, ‘Held und Antiheld, Prot- und Antagonist’, in Weltentwürfe in Literatur und Medien, eds Hans Krah and Claus-Michael Ort (Kiel: Ludwig, 2002), 442. See also Gero von Wilpert, Sachwörterbuch der Literatur (Stuttgart: Alfred Körner, 2001), 33.

  8. 8.

    Pratchett, Mort (London: Corgi, 1988 [1987]), 13f.

  9. 9.

    Pratchett, Mort, 15.

  10. 10.

    Pratchett, Mort, 18f.

  11. 11.

    Pratchett, Mort, 45.

  12. 12.

    Pratchett, Mort, 49f.

  13. 13.

    Arno Bammé, Eggert Holling and Wolfgang Lempert, Berufliche Sozialisation (München: Hueber, 1983), 3.

  14. 14.

    Wolfgang Lempert, ‘Berufliche Sozialisation und berufliches Lernen’, in Handbuch der Berufsbildung, eds Rolf Arnold and Antonius Lipsmeier (Wiesbaden: VS, 2006), 414.

  15. 15.

    Pratchett, Mort, 243.

  16. 16.

    See, for example, Pratchett, Mort, 186f.

  17. 17.

    Pratchett, Mort, 47.

  18. 18.

    See Jürgen Jacobs, ‘Bildungsroman ’, in Handbuch der literarischen Gattungen, ed. Dieter Lamping (Stuttgart: Alfred Körner, 2009), 56.

  19. 19.

    Susanne Tschirner, Der Fantasy- Bildungsroman (Meitingen: Corian, 1989), 48, 51.

  20. 20.

    Ortrud Gutjahr, Einführung in den Bildungsroman (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007), 8.

  21. 21.

    See also Andrew Butler, ‘Terry Pratchett and the Comedic “Bildungsroman ”’, Foundation 67 (1996), 58.

  22. 22.

    Juliana Froggatt, ‘Children in the Discworld Series’, in An Unofficial Companion to the Novels of Terry Pratchett, ed. Andrew M. Butler (Oxford/Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood World Publishing, 2007), 64.

  23. 23.

    See, regarding this last novel of Pratchett’s, also Marion Rana, ‘Shedding the “Light Fantastic” on Terry Pratchett’s Narrative Worlds: An Introduction’, in this book.

  24. 24.

    Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men (London: Corgi, 2004 [2003]), 16.

  25. 25.

    ‘She’d read the dictionary all the way through. No one told her you weren’t supposed to’ (Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 12).

  26. 26.

    Caroline Webb, Fantasy and the Real World in British Children’s Literature (New York/London: Routledge, 2015), 33.

  27. 27.

    Elisabeth Gruner, ‘Teach the Children: Education and Knowledge in Recent Children’s Fantasy’, Children’s Literature 37 (2009), 224.

  28. 28.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 33.

  29. 29.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 25.

  30. 30.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 16f.

  31. 31.

    See Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 26.

  32. 32.

    Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky (London: Corgi, 2005 [2004]), 24.

  33. 33.

    See Bärbel Frischmann, ‘Aspekte philosophischer Bildungskritik’, in Bildungstheorie in der Diskussion, ed. Bärbel Frischmann (Freiburg/München: Karl Alber, 2012), 159.

  34. 34.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 25.

  35. 35.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 49

  36. 36.

    Klaus Plake, Schule als Konstrukt der Öffentlichkeit (Wiesbaden: VS, 2010), 195.

  37. 37.

    Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky, 88.

  38. 38.

    See Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky, 106.

  39. 39.

    Janet Brennan Croft, ‘The Education of a Witch’, Mythlore 27: 3/4 (2009), 134. See also Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky, 108.

  40. 40.

    Haberkorn, and Reinhardt, ‘Magic, Adolescence, and Education on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld’, 49.

  41. 41.

    See Maxi Steinbrück, ‘Wie viel Dumbledore braucht die Pädagogik?’, Pädagogische Rundschau 70: 3 (2016), 325–336.

  42. 42.

    See Janet Brennan Croft, ‘Nice, Good, or Right’, Mythlore 26: 3/4 (2008), 155.

  43. 43.

    See Eileen Donaldson, ‘Earning the Right to Wear Midnight’, in The Gothic Fairy Tale in Young Adult Literature, eds Joseph Abbruscato and Tanya Jones (Jefferson: McFarland, 2014), 159.

  44. 44.

    Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky, 142.

  45. 45.

    ‘They do real magic’ (Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky, 143).

  46. 46.

    Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky, 142.

  47. 47.

    Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight (London: Corgi, 2011 [2010]), 400.

  48. 48.

    Helmut Fend, Theorie der Schule (München: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1980), 2.

  49. 49.

    Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight, 401.

  50. 50.

    See Maxi Steinbrück, ‘Hogwarts & Co’, Interjuli 7: 2 (2015).

  51. 51.

    See Cordelia Borchardt, Vom Bild der Bildung (Münster: LIT, 1997), 15, 253.

  52. 52.

    See, for example, Victoria Stachowicz, Universitätsprosa (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2002), 162–170; Ulrike Dubber, Der englische Universitätsroman der Nachkriegszeit (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1991), 39–64.

  53. 53.

    Borchardt, Vom Bild der Bildung, 43, 47.

  54. 54.

    Pratchett, Soul Music (New York: HarperPrism, 1995), 5.

  55. 55.

    Pratchett, Soul Music, 50.

  56. 56.

    Pratchett, Soul Music, 4.

  57. 57.

    Pratchett, Soul Music, 12.

  58. 58.

    Pratchett, Soul Music, 12.

  59. 59.

    Pratchett, Soul Music, 13.

  60. 60.

    Pratchett, Soul Music, 4.

  61. 61.

    Pratchett, Soul Music, 15.

  62. 62.

    Pratchett, Thief of Time (London: Corgi, 2002 [1994]), 33.

  63. 63.

    See Pratchett, Thief of Time, 37.

  64. 64.

    See Pratchett, Thief of Time, 34.

  65. 65.

    Pratchett, Thief of Time, 88.

  66. 66.

    Pratchett, Thief of Time, 122.

  67. 67.

    Pratchett, Thief of Time, 89.

  68. 68.

    Pratchett, Thief of Time, 92.

  69. 69.

    See John Hattie, Visible Learning (London: Routledge, 2008).

  70. 70.

    Penny Hill, ‘Unseen University’, in Terry Pratchett, eds Andrew M. Butler, Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (Baltimore: Old Earth Books, 2004), 89.

  71. 71.

    Pratchett and Stephen Briggs, Turtle Recall (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 369.

  72. 72.

    Pratchett and Briggs, Turtle Recall, 369.

  73. 73.

    Pratchett, Equal Rites (London: Corgi, 1989 [1987]), 189.

  74. 74.

    Hill, ‘Unseen University’, 92.

  75. 75.

    Pratchett and Briggs, Turtle Recall, 371f.

  76. 76.

    Pratchett, Equal Rites, 172f.

  77. 77.

    Pratchett, Unseen Academicals (London: Corgi, 2010 [2009]), 32.

  78. 78.

    Pratchett, Unseen Academicals, 59.

  79. 79.

    Pratchett, Unseen Academicals, 59.

  80. 80.

    Pratchett and Briggs, Turtle Recall, 374.

  81. 81.

    See Andrew M. Butler, ‘Unseen University’, in An Unofficial Companion to the Novels of Terry Pratchett, ed. Andrew M. Butler (Oxford/Westport: Greenwood World Publishing, 2007), 391.

  82. 82.

    See Pratchett and Briggs, Turtle Recall, 370.

  83. 83.

    Williams, ‘Change the Story, Change the World’, 6.

  84. 84.

    Williams, ‘Change the Story, Change the World’, 6.

  85. 85.

    See Pratchett, Equal Rites, 150.

  86. 86.

    See Pratchett, Equal Rites, 47.

  87. 87.

    See Pratchett, Equal Rites, 91f.

  88. 88.

    Pratchett, Equal Rites, 92.

  89. 89.

    See Pratchett, Equal Rites, 181f.

  90. 90.

    Petra Stanat and Susanne Bergann, ‘Geschlechtsbezogene Disparitäten in der Bildung’, in Handbuch Bildungsforschung, eds Rudolf Tippelt and Bernhard Schmidt (Wiesbaden: VS, 2010), 522.

  91. 91.

    Gruner, ‘Teach the Children’, 217.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany

    Maxi Steinbrück

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  1. Interjuli, Lorch, Germany

    Marion Rana

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Steinbrück, M. (2018). (Non-)Formal Education in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Novels: Mort’s Apprenticeship, Tiffany’s Coming of Age, Susan’s Learning Path and the Unseen University. In: Rana, M. (eds) Terry Pratchett's Narrative Worlds. Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67298-4_6

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