{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/132667"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/132667","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"The place of suffering in higher education: pedagogy of suffering revisited","abstract":"This dissertation begins from a simple asymmetry that quietly shapes contemporary higher education. Universities have learned to speak with precision about social and historical suffering through well-developed pedagogies of justice, yet they often fall silent, or turn to medicalization, when faced with the personal and existential suffering that inhabits students’ ordinary lives. Such curricular silence equips graduates to analyze structures while leaving them without an inner language for loss, failure, confusion and the slow work of living. Education risks partitioning the person as it assigns anguish to counseling alone and neglects its own capacity for meaning making. Against this partition, I unfold a Pedagogy of Suffering grounded in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, in conversation with Buddhist wisdom and Nietzsche’s untimely counsel. Suffering is treated not as a defect to be erased but as a human phenomenon that can become thinkable, speakable and shareable through disciplined interpretation. I name this cultivated capacity hermeneutic resilience: the practiced ability to bring mute suffering into language, to undergo Verwinden as an interpretive labor through which understanding is slowly reconfigured. To render this pedagogy workable rather than merely aspirational, I articulate a framework for discerning when and how to teach, and when to refer. It calibrates the phenomenon along three coordinates of intensity, duration and domain, traces a five-phase movement from muteness toward expression, reflection, the emergence of a new self-relation and eventual integration, and specifies conditions under which difficulty becomes educative rather than depleting. These principles take concrete form in mediated engagements with texts, carefully structured narrative practices and the formation of communities of interpretation, together with ethical safeguards and clear boundaries with therapeutic care. The aim is complement, not substitution. By conceiving engagement with suffering as an interpretive and educational activity, higher education can recover a more balanced curriculum, preparing students not only for work and citizenship but for the quieter art of living meaningfully amid inevitable difficulty.","abstract_html":"This dissertation begins from a simple asymmetry that quietly shapes contemporary higher education. Universities have learned to speak with precision about social and historical suffering through well-developed pedagogies of justice, yet they often fall silent, or turn to medicalization, when faced with the personal and existential suffering that inhabits students’ ordinary lives. Such curricular silence equips graduates to analyze structures while leaving them without an inner language for loss, failure, confusion and the slow work of living. Education risks partitioning the person as it assigns anguish to counseling alone and neglects its own capacity for meaning making. Against this partition, I unfold a Pedagogy of Suffering grounded in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, in conversation with Buddhist wisdom and Nietzsche’s untimely counsel. Suffering is treated not as a defect to be erased but as a human phenomenon that can become thinkable, speakable and shareable through disciplined interpretation. I name this cultivated capacity hermeneutic resilience: the practiced ability to bring mute suffering into language, to undergo Verwinden as an interpretive labor through which understanding is slowly reconfigured. To render this pedagogy workable rather than merely aspirational, I articulate a framework for discerning when and how to teach, and when to refer. It calibrates the phenomenon along three coordinates of intensity, duration and domain, traces a five-phase movement from muteness toward expression, reflection, the emergence of a new self-relation and eventual integration, and specifies conditions under which difficulty becomes educative rather than depleting. These principles take concrete form in mediated engagements with texts, carefully structured narrative practices and the formation of communities of interpretation, together with ethical safeguards and clear boundaries with therapeutic care. The aim is complement, not substitution. By conceiving engagement with suffering as an interpretive and educational activity, higher education can recover a more balanced curriculum, preparing students not only for work and citizenship but for the quieter art of living meaningfully amid inevitable difficulty.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Lee, Jiyoung"],"institution":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Burbules, Nicholas C.","Bresler, Liora","Taylor, Rebecca","Thurston, Stephanie Mota"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-12","date_published":"2025-12","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:07Z","subjects":["Pedagogy of Suffering","Philosophical Hermeneutics","Higher Education","Hermeneutic Resilience","Hans-Georg Gadamer","Existential Suffering"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2025 Jiyoung Lee"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132667","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Burbules, Nicholas C.","Bresler, Liora","Taylor, Rebecca","Thurston, Stephanie Mota"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Lee, Jiyoung"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025-12","2025-11-30"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Pedagogy of Suffering","Philosophical Hermeneutics","Higher Education","Hermeneutic Resilience","Hans-Georg Gadamer","Existential Suffering"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2025 Jiyoung Lee"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132667"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This dissertation begins from a simple asymmetry that quietly shapes contemporary higher education. Universities have learned to speak with precision about social and historical suffering through well-developed pedagogies of justice, yet they often fall silent, or turn to medicalization, when faced with the personal and existential suffering that inhabits students’ ordinary lives. Such curricular silence equips graduates to analyze structures while leaving them without an inner language for loss, failure, confusion and the slow work of living. Education risks partitioning the person as it assigns anguish to counseling alone and neglects its own capacity for meaning making. Against this partition, I unfold a Pedagogy of Suffering grounded in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, in conversation with Buddhist wisdom and Nietzsche’s untimely counsel. Suffering is treated not as a defect to be erased but as a human phenomenon that can become thinkable, speakable and shareable through disciplined interpretation. I name this cultivated capacity hermeneutic resilience: the practiced ability to bring mute suffering into language, to undergo Verwinden as an interpretive labor through which understanding is slowly reconfigured. To render this pedagogy workable rather than merely aspirational, I articulate a framework for discerning when and how to teach, and when to refer. It calibrates the phenomenon along three coordinates of intensity, duration and domain, traces a five-phase movement from muteness toward expression, reflection, the emergence of a new self-relation and eventual integration, and specifies conditions under which difficulty becomes educative rather than depleting. These principles take concrete form in mediated engagements with texts, carefully structured narrative practices and the formation of communities of interpretation, together with ethical safeguards and clear boundaries with therapeutic care. The aim is complement, not substitution. By conceiving engagement with suffering as an interpretive and educational activity, higher education can recover a more balanced curriculum, preparing students not only for work and citizenship but for the quieter art of living meaningfully amid inevitable difficulty.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2027-12-01","The student, Jiyoung Lee, accepted the attached license on 2025-11-29 at 20:40.","The student, Jiyoung Lee, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-11-29 at 20:43.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-11-30 at 12:43.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22981 on 2026-02-19 at 18:46:07"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The place of suffering in higher education: pedagogy of suffering revisited"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Burbules, Nicholas C.","Bresler, Liora","Taylor, Rebecca","Thurston, Stephanie Mota"],"dc:creator":["Lee, Jiyoung"],"dc:date":["2025-12","2025-11-30"],"dc:description":["This dissertation begins from a simple asymmetry that quietly shapes contemporary higher education. Universities have learned to speak with precision about social and historical suffering through well-developed pedagogies of justice, yet they often fall silent, or turn to medicalization, when faced with the personal and existential suffering that inhabits students’ ordinary lives. Such curricular silence equips graduates to analyze structures while leaving them without an inner language for loss, failure, confusion and the slow work of living. Education risks partitioning the person as it assigns anguish to counseling alone and neglects its own capacity for meaning making. Against this partition, I unfold a Pedagogy of Suffering grounded in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, in conversation with Buddhist wisdom and Nietzsche’s untimely counsel. Suffering is treated not as a defect to be erased but as a human phenomenon that can become thinkable, speakable and shareable through disciplined interpretation. I name this cultivated capacity hermeneutic resilience: the practiced ability to bring mute suffering into language, to undergo Verwinden as an interpretive labor through which understanding is slowly reconfigured. To render this pedagogy workable rather than merely aspirational, I articulate a framework for discerning when and how to teach, and when to refer. It calibrates the phenomenon along three coordinates of intensity, duration and domain, traces a five-phase movement from muteness toward expression, reflection, the emergence of a new self-relation and eventual integration, and specifies conditions under which difficulty becomes educative rather than depleting. These principles take concrete form in mediated engagements with texts, carefully structured narrative practices and the formation of communities of interpretation, together with ethical safeguards and clear boundaries with therapeutic care. The aim is complement, not substitution. By conceiving engagement with suffering as an interpretive and educational activity, higher education can recover a more balanced curriculum, preparing students not only for work and citizenship but for the quieter art of living meaningfully amid inevitable difficulty.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2027-12-01","The student, Jiyoung Lee, accepted the attached license on 2025-11-29 at 20:40.","The student, Jiyoung Lee, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-11-29 at 20:43.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-11-30 at 12:43.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22981 on 2026-02-19 at 18:46:07"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132667"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2025 Jiyoung Lee"],"dc:subject":["Pedagogy of Suffering","Philosophical Hermeneutics","Higher Education","Hermeneutic Resilience","Hans-Georg Gadamer","Existential Suffering"],"dc:title":["The place of suffering in higher education: pedagogy of suffering revisited"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:07Z"}