Learning and experience: Aesthetics of multimodal texts in Higher Education

Abstract

This paper invites readers to reconsider the role of Art in the learning of social sciences in higher education based on the ability of the arts to promote understanding among students about their world of life.

The new pathways opened up by multimodality offer access to vast repositories of images such as Flickr (Davies, 2007; Castañeda, 2009), and museums that exhibit high quality reproductions of their art collections (Google Art Project). Furthermore, students can express themselves by combining their own images with text (multiliteracies –The New London Group, 1996; Leander, K & Boldt, G., 2012). Multimodal literacy represents a powerful tool to observe and record of all kinds of interesting events for social science students that can be shared and debated on social media. Moreover, following John Dewey (1980) about aesthetic experience, the new form of literacy, as result of combining imagens and texts, represents an excellent way to trigger sensible and aesthetic feelings.