“All lessons are delayed. Very few of us actually receive the lesson right there, when it is delivered to us.” –Al Filreis

Al Filreis (@Afilreis) is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the founder and Faculty Director of The Kelly Writers House, a non-profit, community organization dedicated to creative writing and the literary arts. He is also author of such books as Counter-revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-1960 and Modernism from Right to Left.

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Al discuss the underpinnings today’s educational framework (2:45); improving our educational process (20:00); self-learning (30:00); curation of content (44:00); Twitter and our ongoing societal dialogue (1:01:00); and pedagogy and the polis (1:17:00).

For more from Al, check out The Kelly Writers House, his PoemTalk podcast, or “The end of the lecture as we know it.”

Education-oriented links:

Other links:

This episode was recorded at Kelly Writers House on the UPenn campus, with the help of Wexler Studio coordinator Zach Carduner. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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