Abstract

The chapter explores various ways in which the psychological category of “insanity” can be used to understand central and important aspects of education and learning. It delves into the affective state of insanity, metaphorically understood to be a mode of response to encountering nonhuman objects, forces and circumstances. It then goes on to illustrate this mode of response through a philosophical engagement with H. P. Lovecraft’s novella, At the Mountains of Madness. Drawing on the interpretive resources of Graham Harman’s Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy the chapter seeks to sound out Lovecraft’s literarily staged insights into the pedagogical value of insanity, where “insanity” is understood as a temporary state of disorientation, confusion and shift to non-normal modes of perceiving, thinking and acting in the world.