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Abstract

This study aims to articulate a conception of curriculum as play while envisioning a transdisciplinary stage of curriculum theorizing. It is motivated by concerns over the dominance of technoscience and persistent difficulties in communication between existential and scientific traditions within the curriculum field. Recognizing that these challenges possess both historical depth and contemporary relevance, this study demonstrates the indispensability of transdisciplinarity and spirituality for the further advancement of curriculum thinking, embodied in a conception of curriculum as play. My argument follows a threefold structure, progressing from transdisciplinarity to spirituality, and finally to play. Through an exploration of competing concepts of transdisciplinarity, I demonstrate the advantages and validity of Basarab Nicolescu’s axiomatic methodology of transdisciplinarity, which accommodates both science and spirituality. Then, to illustrate how transdisciplinarity and spirituality align and enrich one another, I draw on Mahāyāna Buddhism as a theoretical instance, examining the ontological, epistemological, and logical dimensions of Buddhist spirituality within Nicolescu’s methodological framework. On this basis, I undertake a transdisciplinary hermeneutics of key aspects of spirituality, including the primacy of consciousness over matter, the concept of complementarity, and an understanding of human existence as play, drawing on insights from quantum physics, new biology, cognitive science, and philosophical hermeneutics. I then explore concepts and theories of play, with a focus on Donald Winnicott’s theory and its resonances with transdisciplinarity and spirituality. Building on this foundation, I conclude by presenting an understanding of curriculum as play, serving as an initial theoretical instance of the transdisciplinary stage of curriculum, which enables the restoration of spirituality in education without compromising rationality.