Join me in the panel “Social theory and philosophy: Post-compulsory and lifelong learning” at the University of Warwick’s 11th Annual Postgraduate Education Studies Conference. All are welcome!

AbSTRACT

Deeply-rooted emotion and embodiment are critical sites of knowledge that have been systemically de-legitimized in western institutions of learning (hooks, 2014). My research reclaims love as epistemology and applies it in community-based spaces—particularly writing workshops—as pedagogic practice. I begin by highlighting how to validate feelings ontologically and relationally and stress the political implications of leaning into love/grief in community (Lorde, 2018). I use theoretical frameworks outlined by feminist pedagogues such as bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Ursula K. Le Guin (Le Guin, 1989) to challenge what is considered “extraneous” in traditional western classrooms, arguing that love is crucial to dismantling colonial understandings of “legitimate knowledge” in favour of “knowledge in the making” intersecting with “selves in the making” (Ellsworth, 2005). This perspective has been widely applied pedagogically by writer/activist adrienne maree brown, whose texts “Emergent Strategy” (brown, 2017) and “Pleasure Activism” (brown, 2019)centre radical joy and love in learning spaces. To further situate my work, I rely on decolonial methodologies like storytelling and sharing (Smith, 2012) to honour the many forms in which learning has existed across cultures for centuries. Seeing knowledge as embodied process foregrounds pedagogic practices that cater to marginalized students historically excluded from western classrooms (Chavez, 2021). Based on my experiences teaching writing workshops, I share examples of exercises like map-making, list-building, self-portraiture, sketching feelings—recognizing that process (rather than product) is how ongoing meaning-making occurs. These methods provoke attention to emergence, holding emotions, and embracing love as ways of making sense in community.

Bibliography

brown,  adrienne maree. (2017). Emergent strategy. AK Press.

brown,  adrienne maree. (2019). Pleasure activism: The politics of feeling good. AK Press.

Chavez, F. R. (2021). The anti-racist writing workshop: Decolonizing the creative classroom. Haymarket Books.

Ellsworth, E. A. (2005). Places of learning: Media, architecture, pedagogy. RoutledgeFalmer.

hooks,  bell. (2014). Teaching To Transgress (0 ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203700280

Le Guin, U. K. (1989). Dancing at the edge of the world: Thoughts on words, women, places. Gollancz.

Lorde, A. (2018). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Penguin Books.

Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (Second edition). Zed Books.