Educating with Style? Rethinking the Pedagogical Significance of (In)consistency Between Calvino and Deleuze

In this paper I try to 'rethink' consistency as an educational quality for the 3rd millennium, following Italo Calvino's choice to take it up in his lecture series Memos for the Next Millennium, and despite the fact that the (final) lecture devoted to this quality remained unwritten. After reflecting on how consistency already plays a certain role in Calvino's other lectures, I expand on the specific educational implications of this role's unresolved ambivalence, in order to argue that this ambivalence, properly understood, might be fully constitutive of the educational significance of consistency. To achieve such an understanding I turn to Gilles Deleuze and his concept of style as a 'practice' of consistency. Not only does a stylistic understanding of consistency offer interesting possibilities for a more constructive approach to the said ambivalence-between consistency as static stability and dynamic keeping-together- but as such it also speaks to a number of issues that are directly and fundamentally educational in nature.

Automated summary

This article attempts to rethink the importance of consistency as an educational quality for the 3rd millennium, drawing inspiration from Italo Calvino's lecture series and exploring the unresolved ambivalence of consistency's educational implications. By examining Gilles Deleuze's concept of style, the article suggests a more constructive approach to understanding the contradictions within consistency and emphasizes its direct and fundamental relevance to education.