Teaching to Transgress

Engaged Pedagogy Embraces the Whole Person

Engaged Pedagogy embraces the whole person. It goes beyond just sharing information - it cares for the intellectual, spiritual, and emotional growth of students. This approach challenges the traditional separation of mind and body, encouraging both teachers and students to engage as authentic, whole selves in the learning process.

Engaged Pedagogy recognizes that learning is not just an intellectual exercise, but a transformative experience that involves the entire being. It creates a space where students can take risks, share their experiences, and develop a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them. This mutual exchange of knowledge and vulnerability empowers both teachers and students, fostering a dynamic, collaborative learning environment.

By embracing the whole person, Engaged Pedagogy rejects the notion of the "banking system" of education, where students are seen as passive receptacles of information. Instead, it encourages a dialogical exchange where everyone is actively engaged in the co-creation of knowledge. This approach not only respects the unique experiences and perspectives of each individual, but also allows for the emergence of new, transformative ways of thinking and being.

Examples from the Context:

• The author was "most inspired by those teachers who have had the courage to transgress those boundaries that would confine each pupil to a rote, assembly-line approach to learning" and who "approach students with the will and desire to respond to our unique beings."

• The author was deeply touched by the work of Paulo Freire and Thich Nhat Hanh, who challenged the "banking system" of education that treats students as mere "consumers of information" rather than engaging their whole selves.

• The author believes that "to teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin."

• The author's "engaged pedagogy" involves "a movement against and beyond boundaries" and enables "transgressions" - going beyond the traditional confines of the classroom to connect with students as whole persons.

Transformation Through Critical Pedagogy

The author advocates for a critical pedagogy that transforms the classroom into a space of radical possibility. This approach rejects the traditional "banking" model of education, where students passively absorb information, and instead embraces teaching as a practice of freedom.

The goal is to create a dynamic learning environment that respects the unique experiences and perspectives of all students. By validating personal narratives and diverse ways of knowing, the author empowers marginalized voices and challenges dominant structures of power. This allows students to think critically, rethink assumptions, and develop new visions for the world.

Ultimately, the author sees the classroom as the most radical site for this transformative process. By embracing the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual growth of students, educators can foster a community of engaged learners who are motivated to transgress boundaries and work towards social justice. This is the essence of education as the practice of freedom.

Here are some examples from the context that support the key insight of transformation through critical pedagogy:

• The author discusses how Paulo Freire's thought gave her the support to challenge the "banking system" of education, which is rooted in the notion that students just need to consume information fed to them by the professor.

• The author describes an interchange with a student named Gary, where through critical thinking and analyzing texts, Gary experienced "education as the practice of freedom." This example demonstrates how the author's engaged pedagogy values student expression and empowers students.

• The author emphasizes that engaged pedagogy does not just seek to empower students, but also allows professors to grow and be empowered through the process. The author states that professors must be willing to be vulnerable and share their own narratives and experiences in the classroom.

• The author cites Chandra Mohanty, who writes that resistance lies in "self-conscious engagement with dominant, normative discourses" and the "active creation of oppositional analytic and cultural spaces" in teaching and learning. This illustrates how the author's critical pedagogy aims to transform educational institutions.

Creating Community in the Classroom

Creating a Classroom Community

Building a strong classroom community is essential for effective, liberatory learning. When students feel valued and are encouraged to actively contribute, the learning environment becomes dynamic and transformative.

At the heart of this approach is recognizing the value of each individual voice. Providing opportunities for students to share their perspectives, whether through written reflections or verbal discussions, ensures that no one remains invisible. This act of recognition and inclusion is a powerful way to build community.

Additionally, embracing diverse ways of knowing and communicating is crucial. Encouraging students to use their native languages and vernacular speech, rather than insisting on a single standard, creates a more inclusive space. This openness to difference challenges the notion of the "oppressor's language" and empowers students to bring their full selves to the learning process.

Ultimately, the goal is to foster a sense of shared commitment and common good that binds the classroom community together. By creating an environment where students feel safe to take intellectual risks and engage with challenging ideas, the classroom becomes a radical space of possibility - a place where education can truly become the practice of freedom.

Here are examples from the context that support the key insight of creating community in the classroom:

• The author describes how in their classes, students keep journals and write paragraphs during class that they read aloud to each other. This "ensures that no student remains invisible in the classroom" and allows everyone to "hear each other (the sound of different voices), to listen to one another, [which] is an exercise in recognition."

• The author states that even if a student's voice "cannot be heard in spoken words, by 'signing' (even if we cannot read the signs) they make their presence felt." This ensures all students are acknowledged and included.

• The author explains that requiring students to make a verbal contribution, even if they are reluctant, "transforms the classroom" by facilitating the "sharing of ideas and information" and helping students and professors "learn to accept different ways of knowing, new epistemologies, in the multicultural setting."

• The author emphasizes the importance of "recognizing the value of each individual voice" and creating a "feeling of community" that "binds" the class together through a "shared commitment and a common good" - the desire to learn.

• The author contrasts this approach to the "banking system of education" where students are seen as "passive consumers" rather than active participants in the learning process.

Addressing Race and Class in Education

Educators must actively confront issues of race and class in the classroom. This means acknowledging the diverse backgrounds and experiences of students, and creating pedagogical approaches that challenge the dominance of bourgeois values and make space for more inclusive and equitable learning.

One key strategy is to recognize the value of different "cultural codes" - the varied ways of knowing and communicating that students bring. Professors must be willing to learn these codes themselves, and encourage students to share their unique perspectives and modes of expression, even if they differ from the standard academic norms.

This shift away from a "banking" model of education, where students are passive recipients of knowledge, towards a more collaborative, dialogic approach can be uncomfortable. Professors must be prepared to manage tensions and conflicts that arise as old paradigms are challenged. However, this discomfort is a necessary part of the transformative process of building a truly inclusive learning community.

Ultimately, addressing race and class in education is not just about diversifying curricula or student populations. It requires a fundamental rethinking of the purpose and structure of the classroom, to center the voices and experiences of marginalized groups. This is essential for creating an educational system that serves the needs of all students, not just the privileged few.

Here are examples from the context that support the key insight of addressing race and class in education:

• The author discusses how in her feminist theory classes, students express "rage against work that does not clarify its relationship to concrete experience, that does not engage feminist praxis in an intelligible way." This shows the need to connect academic material to students' lived experiences and struggles.

• The author notes that at some colleges, all the courses on black history or literature are taught solely by white professors. She believes students would learn even more from a "progressive black professor" who could bring a "unique mixture of experiential and analytical ways of knowing" - a "privileged standpoint" that cannot be acquired through just books or observation.

• The author encourages students to use their "first language" and "black vernacular speech" in the classroom, rather than just standard English. This allows students to maintain connection to their cultural identities and challenges the dominance of bourgeois, white norms.

• The author describes how when her black students started using diverse language and speech, "white students often complained" because they "could not comprehend the meaning." The author saw this as an opportunity for the white students to "listen without 'mastery'" and experience hearing non-English words, crucial lessons in a "white supremacist" society.

Language as Resistance and Liberation

Language is a powerful tool for resistance and liberation. Marginalized groups, especially Black communities, have a long history of transforming the "oppressor's language" into a counter-language that disrupts conventional linguistic boundaries and creates new ways of knowing.

By altering the grammar, sentence structure, and meaning of the dominant language, these communities assert their agency and reclaim language as a space of resistance. This "broken English" or "black vernacular" becomes a means to forge intimacy, build political solidarity, and develop alternative epistemologies that challenge the status quo.

In the classroom and academic settings, the use of diverse languages and speech patterns is often suppressed or trivialized. However, embracing these linguistic differences is crucial for creating truly inclusive and liberatory spaces. Listening without the need for "mastery" or "interpretation" allows us to learn from the passion of experience and the privileged standpoint of those who have lived the realities of oppression.

Language is not merely a neutral tool - it is a battleground where the struggle for power and self-determination is waged. By reclaiming and transforming the "oppressor's language," marginalized communities assert their humanity and create new possibilities for collective healing and resistance.

Here are key examples from the context that support the insight of language as resistance and liberation:

• The author describes how enslaved Africans in the "New World" took "broken bits of English and made of them a counter-language" that "ruptured standard usage and meaning" of the oppressor's language, making it "more than the oppressor's language."

• The author gives examples of how the "incorrect usage of words" and "incorrect placement of words" in the English used by enslaved Africans and their descendants reflected "a spirit of rebellion that claimed language as a site of resistance."

• The author highlights how black vernacular speech, including in forms like rap music, has the "power to intervene on the boundaries and limitations of standard English" and create "alternative cultural production and alternative epistemologies."

• The author shares her own experience of integrating Southern black vernacular speech into her academic writing and teaching, despite resistance from editors and students, as a way to reclaim this "space of resistance."

• The author cites June Jordan's call for a language that "hurtle[s], fly[s], curse[s], and sing[s], in all the common American names, all the undeniable and representative participating voices of everybody" as opposed to the "language of the powerful" that "lose[s] all respect for words."

• The author emphasizes the importance of creating spaces where "diverse voices can speak in words other than English or in broken, vernacular speech" as a way to disrupt the dominance of standard English and the "cultural imperialism that suggests one is worthy of being heard only if one speaks in standard English."

Role of Eros and Eroticism in Education

The author advocates embracing eros and eroticism in education to transform the learning experience. Eros, the mysterious force that drives self-actualization, can provide an epistemological grounding for how we acquire knowledge. By allowing eros to infuse the classroom, professors and students can invigorate discussions and excite the critical imagination.

Traditionally, the academy has denied the body's presence, treating the mind as the sole focus of education. However, the author argues this mind-body split is a harmful legacy that must be overcome. Passion, desire, and love have a rightful place in the classroom, as they can empower students and inspire transformative learning.

The author shares personal experiences of witnessing the power of education for critical consciousness, where students' perceptions and actions were fundamentally altered. This transformative process can be frightening, as it challenges the false dichotomy between the academy and the outside world. Yet it is precisely this integration of theory and practice, mind and body, that the author champions as essential for restoring passion to teaching and learning.

Key Insight: Role of Eros and Eroticism in Education

The author champions the incorporation of eros and eroticism to enhance the learning experience, contrary to the traditional denial of bodily presence in the classroom. This revolutionary approach aims to rekindle passion in education, promoting a learning environment that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging.

Examples:

• The author recounts witnessing a transformative experience in a course on black women writers at Yale's African American Studies department, where a student's decision to wear her hair "natural" rather than straightened was a direct challenge that the author had to face and affirm. This embodied change was a testament to the power of education for critical consciousness.
• The author reflects on reading student journals over 10 years, repeatedly encountering "romantic" expressions of love for the class and the professor, suggesting the presence of eros in the pedagogical process.
• The author emphasizes the "passion of experience" and "passion of remembrance" as privileged standpoints that can enhance learning, as exemplified by the testimony of Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchu, whose words convey the lived reality and suffering behind her political struggle.

Quotes

Let's take a look at some key quotes from "Teaching to Transgress" that resonated with readers.

There are times when personal experience keeps us from reaching the mountain top and so we let it go because the weight of it is too heavy. And sometimes the mountain top is difficult to reach with all our resources, factual and confessional, so we are just there, collectively grasping, feeling the limitations of knowledge, longing together, yearning for a way to reach that highest point. Even this yearning is a way to know.

The quote speaks about the limitations of our knowledge and understanding, which can sometimes feel overwhelming. However, it suggests that even this longing and yearning to reach a higher level of comprehension is a valuable way of knowing. It emphasizes the collective nature of learning, where we struggle together and learn from each other's experiences.

As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence.

The quote means that the level of enthusiasm and engagement in a classroom is closely tied to the degree of attentiveness and appreciation shown towards each individual's thoughts and experiences. By fostering a learning environment where everyone's voice is valued and recognized, we create a more dynamic and transformative space for education.

The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy

illeducators often view the classroom as a traditional, rigid space. However, it has the potential to be a place of radical change and growth. By recognizing the value of individual voices, embracing diverse ways of knowing, and fostering a sense of shared commitment, educators can transform the classroom into a dynamic, inclusive community. This radical approach challenges dominant structures and empowers marginalized voices, making education a practice of freedom.

Chapter Notes

Introduction: Teaching To Transgress

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Tension between Teaching and Writing: The author initially felt trapped in the academy after being granted tenure, as her true passion was writing rather than teaching. She had always assumed she would become a teacher, even though her dream was to be a writer.

• Transformative Education in Segregated Black Schools: In the author's all-black grade schools, the teachers were committed to nurturing intellect and using education as a form of antiracist struggle and counter-hegemonic resistance against white racist colonization. The teachers knew their students deeply and contextualized their learning within the framework of their family and community experiences.

• Shift with Racial Integration: When the author's schools were racially integrated, the education system shifted from being about the "practice of freedom" to merely reinforcing white domination. Obedience, rather than a "zealous will to learn," was expected of black students in the desegregated, white-dominated schools.

• Developing a Critical Pedagogy: The author's negative experiences in traditional classrooms, combined with her discovery of Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy and feminist thinking, led her to develop her own pedagogical practices focused on creating an exciting, engaging, and liberatory learning environment.

• Importance of Classroom Community: The author emphasizes the need to acknowledge and value the presence and contributions of all students in the classroom, rather than just focusing on the professor's role. Generating excitement and a sense of community is crucial for creating an effective learning environment.

• Challenges in Implementing Critical Pedagogy: The author describes a particularly difficult class where factors like time of day and resistant students made it challenging to create the desired learning community. This experience led her to recognize the limitations of the professor's ability to single-handedly transform the classroom.

• Reaching a Diverse Audience: The author intends these essays to be an intervention, addressing the urgent need for changes in teaching practices and conveying the pleasure and joy she experiences in teaching. She uses diverse language and styles to communicate with a wide range of readers, including both students and professors.

• Teaching as a Performative Act: The author views teaching as a performative act that offers the space for change, invention, and spontaneous shifts. She emphasizes the importance of engaging with students as active participants in the learning process, rather than treating the classroom as a spectacle.

1. Engaged Pedagogy

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Engaged Pedagogy: This is an approach to teaching that respects and cares for the "souls" of students, going beyond just sharing information to supporting their intellectual and spiritual growth. It is more demanding than conventional critical or feminist pedagogy, as it emphasizes the well-being of both students and teachers.

• Freire's "Banking System" of Education: This refers to the traditional approach where students are seen as passive consumers of information fed to them by the professor, rather than active participants in the learning process. Freire advocated for "conscientization" or critical awareness and engagement in the classroom.

• Thich Nhat Hanh's Holistic Approach: Nhat Hanh's philosophy of "engaged Buddhism" emphasizes a union of mind, body, and spirit in the learning process, in contrast to the mind-body split often promoted in academia.

• The Rarity of Self-Actualized Professors: The chapter notes that it is uncommon for professors to be seen as "healers" or to have a responsibility to be self-actualized individuals, as the academic profession often reinforces compartmentalization and a separation of public and private life.

• The Importance of Vulnerability: Engaged pedagogy requires professors to be willing to be vulnerable and share their own experiences and narratives, rather than functioning as "all-knowing, silent interrogators." This helps eliminate power imbalances and creates a more collaborative learning environment.

• Resistance through Pedagogical Practices: Professors who embrace self-actualization and engaged pedagogy can use their teaching as a site of resistance, by transforming curricula to challenge dominant discourses and create alternative spaces for learning.

2. A Revolution of Values: The Promise of Multicultural Change

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Racial Desegregation and Conflict: The author describes their experience with racial desegregation in high school, where black students had to bear the burden of integrating white schools, leading to hostility, rage, and a sense of being on the margins rather than at the center.

• Interracial Friendships and Challenges: The author recounts a close friendship with a white male classmate, Ken, and the struggles they faced in maintaining that friendship across racial lines, including facing threats and hostility from others.

• Commitment to Social Transformation: The author and their friends were passionately committed to a vision of social transformation rooted in a belief in radical democracy and freedom for all, focusing on ending racism.

• Lack of Meaningful Change: The author reflects that in the years since, they have encountered many people who claim to be committed to freedom and justice, but whose values and habits of being actually help maintain a culture of domination.

• The Need for a "Revolution of Values": The author cites Martin Luther King Jr.'s call for a "true revolution of values" to accompany the scientific and freedom revolutions, shifting from a "thing"-oriented society to a "person"-oriented one.

• Resistance to Multicultural Change in Academia: The author describes the backlash and resistance faced in academia when trying to implement changes to promote cultural diversity and new ways of knowing, with some professors reverting to old biases and traditions.

• Embracing Struggle and Sacrifice: The author emphasizes the need to commit fully to transforming the academy to reflect cultural diversity, learning from other social movements, and being willing to embrace struggle and sacrifice in the face of conflict and setbacks.

3. Embracing Change: Teaching in a Multicultural World

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Transforming Classroom Pedagogy: The chapter emphasizes the need for teachers to transform their teaching styles and approaches to reflect a multicultural perspective, moving away from the traditional "single norm of thought and experience" that has historically dominated classrooms.

• Addressing Teacher Fears: The chapter acknowledges the fears and concerns that many teachers have about shifting their pedagogical paradigms to embrace a multicultural approach, and the importance of providing training and support to help teachers navigate this process.

• Importance of Dialogue and Confrontation: The chapter highlights the value of creating spaces for open and honest dialogue, where teachers can express their fears and concerns, and engage in "constructive confrontation and critical interrogation" around issues of race, gender, and other forms of bias in education.

• Tokenism vs. Genuine Transformation: The chapter critiques the tendency for educators to engage in tokenistic gestures of inclusion, such as adding a single work by a marginalized author to a syllabus, without meaningfully interrogating the biases and power structures that shape traditional curricula and pedagogical approaches.

• Embracing Student Voices: The chapter emphasizes the importance of creating classroom environments that actively recognize and value the diverse voices and perspectives of students, moving away from the "banking system of education" where students are passive recipients of knowledge.

• Building Community and Shared Commitment: The chapter suggests that a key aspect of transformative pedagogy is the cultivation of a sense of community and shared commitment to learning, which can help create a climate of openness and intellectual rigor.

• Navigating Discomfort and Resistance: The chapter acknowledges the discomfort and resistance that both teachers and students may experience when engaging with new ways of thinking and knowing, and the importance of practicing compassion and recognizing the pain that can come with shifting paradigms.

• Addressing Whiteness: The chapter emphasizes the need to critically examine and discuss the role of "whiteness" in shaping educational norms and practices, even in classrooms that may not have significant racial diversity.

• Empowering Students as Change Agents: The chapter suggests that students are often more willing than their teachers to embrace the challenges of a multicultural education, and can play a key role in driving the transformation of classroom practices and curricula.

• Transformative Pedagogy as Liberatory Education: The chapter presents the vision of a truly liberatory liberal arts education, where teaching practices are radically transformed to create a climate of free expression and the empowerment of diverse ways of knowing and being.

4. Paulo Freire

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Freire's Influence on hooks' Development as a Critical Thinker: hooks felt deeply identified with the marginalized groups that Freire wrote about, as she was coming from a rural southern black experience and was struggling to articulate her resistance to the colonizing forces she experienced. Freire's work gave her a language to think about the construction of an identity in resistance.

• Conscientization and Decolonization: hooks sees a strong link between Freire's concept of "conscientization" - the process of developing a critical awareness of one's social reality through reflection and action - and the process of decolonization that she is concerned with, particularly for African Americans living in the white supremacist culture of the United States.

• Praxis and Transformative Action: hooks emphasizes Freire's insistence that conscientization must be joined with meaningful praxis, or reflective action, in order to bring about real transformation. She critiques progressive movements that fail to have lasting impact due to a lack of understanding of this concept of praxis.

• Navigating Freire's Sexist Language: hooks acknowledges the sexism in Freire's language and the construction of a "phallocentric paradigm of liberation," but argues that this does not negate the immense value and insights she has gained from his work. She sees a need for a nuanced critique that does not simply dismiss the work.

• Personal Connection to Freire's Work: hooks' rural southern black experience and early education in segregated black schools gave her a deep personal connection to the themes of Freire's work, particularly around the importance of literacy and education for liberation. This made his work resonate with her in a way that early feminist texts did not.

• Freire's Openness to Critique: hooks appreciates Freire's willingness to engage with and respond to feminist critiques of his work, seeing this as an example of the open-mindedness and commitment to ongoing learning that she strives for in her own intellectual and academic practice.

• The Profound Impact of Freire's Presence: hooks describes a profound personal experience of meeting and interacting with Freire, which she felt went beyond just the impact of his written work. She speaks of the "hallowed atmosphere" and sense of peace, love, and courage that Freire's presence evoked, which has continued to inspire her in her own work.

5. Theory as Liberatory Practice

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Theory as a Healing and Liberatory Practice: The author came to theory because they were hurting and wanted to understand and make sense of their pain. Theory became a "location for healing" and a way to imagine possible futures where life could be lived differently.

• Theorizing as a Childhood Practice: The author engaged in theorizing and critical thinking from a young age, challenging the status quo and questioning authority, which was met with punishment and repression from their family.

• Appropriation and Devaluation of Marginalized Voices in Feminist Theory: The author discusses how the production of feminist theory in academic settings has often led to the appropriation and devaluation of work by women of color, lesbians, and other marginalized groups, which is then deemed "not theoretical enough."

• The Divide Between Theory and Practice: The author critiques the use of highly abstract, jargon-heavy "feminist theory" that is inaccessible to many, arguing that it serves to divide and exclude, rather than enable and empower feminist practice.

• Anti-Intellectualism in Black Communities: The author reflects on the dismissal of intellectual work and theorizing within some Black communities, where there is a preference for "action" over "talk." The author argues that this anti-intellectualism undermines collective struggle and resistance.

• Reclaiming Theory as Necessary Practice: The author emphasizes the need to actively claim theory as a necessary practice within revolutionary feminist and Black liberation movements, celebrating and valuing theory that can be shared through oral and written narratives.

• Feminist Theory as Transformative and Inclusive: The author discusses their approach to writing feminist theory in an accessible style, with the goal of reaching diverse audiences and catalyzing social change. They share examples of how their work has been embraced and affirmed by incarcerated Black men, testifying to the power of feminist theory to transform consciousness.

• Theorizing from the Location of Pain and Struggle: The author emphasizes the importance of creating feminist theory that speaks to the pain and struggles of marginalized communities, offering healing and liberatory strategies, and charting new theoretical journeys.

6. Essentialism and Experience

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Critique of Feminist Scholarship on Race and Gender: The author critiques feminist scholarship that fails to interrogate the racist and sexist perspectives from which it is written, often excluding or marginalizing the experiences and perspectives of Black women and women of color.

• Critique of Diana Fuss's Treatment of Black Feminist Critics: The author takes issue with Fuss's dismissive and devaluing treatment of the work of Black feminist critics, particularly her selective engagement with only a few Black feminist scholars while ignoring the broader body of work.

• Essentialism and the Classroom: The author engages with Fuss's critique of essentialism in the classroom, arguing that Fuss's analysis fails to account for how systems of domination and privilege shape the dynamics of the classroom, and how the assertion of "the authority of experience" can be a strategic response to marginalization.

• Pedagogy and the Valuing of Experience: The author proposes pedagogical strategies that affirm the value of students' personal experiences and create a classroom environment where experience is not used to silence or exclude, but rather to enhance collective learning.

• The "Passion of Experience": The author introduces the concept of the "passion of experience," which encompasses the complexity and depth of knowledge that comes from lived experiences, particularly those rooted in suffering and marginalization. This is presented as a "privileged standpoint" that cannot be fully accessed through detached observation or analysis alone.

• The Importance of Diverse Standpoints: The author emphasizes the need to engage multiple perspectives and standpoints, including those rooted in personal experience, in order to gather knowledge more fully and inclusively. The metaphor of needing flour (experience) alongside other ingredients (analytical knowledge) is used to illustrate this point.

7. Holding My Sister’s Hand: Feminist Solidarity

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Racist Fears and Patriarchal Perspectives: Historically, racist fears that relationships between black men and white women would dismantle the white patriarchal family structure heightened the sense of taboo around such relationships, even as individuals chose to transgress boundaries. However, these relationships did not fundamentally threaten white patriarchy or further the struggle to end racism.

• Servant-Served Relationship between White and Black Women: In a racially segregated Southern town, there was no intimacy, deep closeness, or friendship between black and white women. The point of contact between them was one of servant-served, a hierarchical, power-based relationship unmediated by sexual desire, where white women asserted their racial dominance over black women.

• White Women's Efforts to Maintain Racial Dominance: White women's efforts to maintain racial dominance were directly connected to the politics of heterosexism within a white supremacist patriarchy. They saw black women as competitors in the sexual marketplace and devised strategies to reinforce racial difference and assert their superior positions.

• Black Women's Resentment and Repressed Rage: Black slave women harbored understandable resentment and repressed rage about racial oppression, particularly the overwhelming absence of sympathy shown by white women in circumstances involving sexual and physical abuse of black women, as well as situations where black children were taken away from their enslaved mothers.

• Continued Barriers after Abolition of Slavery: The abolition of slavery had little meaningful positive impact on relations between white and black women. Without the structure of slavery, white women were even more concerned that social taboos uphold their racial superiority and forbid legalized relations between the races.

• Perceptions of White Women by Black Women: Many black women who have worked as servants in white homes see white women as maintaining childlike, self-centered postures of innocence and irresponsibility at the expense of black women. They often critique white women from a non-feminist standpoint, emphasizing the ways in which white women were not worthy of being on pedestals.

• Lack of Meaningful Dialogue and Confrontation of Racism: Contemporary discussions of relationships between black women and white women rarely take place in integrated settings. White women often ignore the depth of enmity between the two groups or see it as solely a black female problem, rather than exploring the reasons such hostility exists.

• Conditions for Positive Relationships: Positive relationships between black and white women in feminist settings are characterized by honest confrontation and dialogue about race, as well as reciprocal interaction, where white women approach women of color with knowledge about racism, not with guilt, shame, or fear.

• Overcoming Fear and Rage: Black women need to explore their collective attachment to rage and hostility towards white women, while white women need to examine the particular fears that inhibit meaningful bonding with black women. Creating spaces for the open expression and transformation of these emotions is necessary for forging meaningful ties.

• Collective Responsibility for Feminist Movement: Producing work that documents ways barriers are broken down, coalitions formed, and solidarity shared is not the exclusive task of white or black women; it is collective work. Both groups must actively participate in the effort to create a context where open critical dialogue can occur, without fear of emotional collapse.

8. Feminist Thinking: In the Classroom Right Now

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Changing Composition of Feminist Classrooms: The feminist classrooms today are no longer predominantly white, female, or US-based. They now have a more diverse student population in terms of race, gender, and nationality, which presents new challenges for feminist teachers.

• Skepticism about Feminism among Black Students: Many black students, both female and male, are skeptical about the relevance of feminist thinking and movement to the black experience and liberation struggle. They often question whether feminism is primarily for white women and whether black women have already been liberated.

• Confronting Differences and Conflicts in the Classroom: The diversity in the feminist classroom can lead to conflicts and tensions, as black students may feel estranged and their perspectives may be seen as deflecting attention from feminist concerns. Feminist teachers must learn to use these conflicts as a catalyst for new thinking and growth.

• Challenges for Black Feminist Teachers: Black women teachers committed to feminist politics may welcome the diverse student body, but they also recognize the difficulty of teaching Women's Studies to black students who approach the subject with doubt about its relevance.

• Exploring Feminist Theory with Black Female Students: The author's experience of teaching a private reading course on feminist theory with a group of black female students revealed their concerns about the potential negative consequences of embracing feminism, such as isolation and criticism from their peers, especially black men.

• Importance of Feminist Consciousness for Black Liberation: Despite the challenges, the black female students in the private reading course recognized the necessity of developing a feminist consciousness as part of the collective development of black consciousness and the future of black liberation struggle.

• Strategies for Survival and Resistance: The black women students believed that the black woman who overcomes the challenges of sexism and racism holds the key to liberation and has important strategies for survival and resistance that need to be shared within black communities.

9. Feminist Scholarship: Black Scholars

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Lack of Attention to Gender Differences in Scholarship on Black Experience: The author was shocked to find that much of the scholarly work on black life, particularly from disciplines like sociology and psychology, did not account for gender differences in black social relations. The experience of black men was often universalized as representative of the "black experience."

• Challenges in Establishing a Feminist Standpoint in Black Scholarship: The author faced resistance from both white feminists and the black community when trying to incorporate a feminist perspective into her scholarship on black women's experiences. White feminists were threatened by the focus on race, while many in the black community saw it as a betrayal.

• Gradual Acceptance of Feminist Scholarship on Black Women: Over time, as feminist movement progressed, black women and women of color were able to challenge the universalization of the category "woman" and create a revolution in feminist scholarship. This allowed for more complex discussions of gender and acknowledgment of differences in female status based on race and class.

• Ambivalence among Black Women Academics towards Feminist Politics: Many black women academics chose to focus on gender issues without explicitly aligning themselves with feminist politics, either due to uncertainty about the benefits for black women or a desire to maintain alliances with black male scholars.

• Emergence of Feminist Literary Criticism by Black Women: Black women scholars were able to claim a feminist voice more easily in the realm of literary criticism, as they could address feminist concerns in their analysis of black women's fiction without having to explicitly identify as feminist.

• Lack of Collective Support for Black Feminist Scholarship: The absence of a positive climate for black scholars to collectively embrace and support sustained production of feminist scholarship has resulted in a failure to educate the broader black community on the importance of examining black life from a feminist standpoint.

• Ongoing Challenges and the Need for Critical Consciousness: The current antifeminist backlash in the culture, combined with the marginalization of black feminist scholarship in the academy, means that those who believe such work is crucial must intensify their efforts to educate for critical consciousness on these issues.

10. Building a Teaching Community: A Dialogue

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Engaged Pedagogy: This refers to a teaching approach that combines theory and practice, disrupts disciplinary boundaries, decentralizes authority, and rewrites institutional and discursive borders. It is a form of liberatory pedagogy that aims to create a new language and empower both students and teachers.

• Dialogue and Boundary Crossing: The authors emphasize the importance of dialogue and collaboration across boundaries of race, gender, class, and professional standing to build a teaching community and challenge assumptions about the lack of connection between marginalized and privileged groups.

• Embodied Teaching: The authors discuss the importance of acknowledging the physical presence and subjectivity of both teachers and students in the classroom, challenging the mind-body split and the notion of the professor as a disembodied, objective source of knowledge.

• Resisting Hierarchies: Engaged pedagogy seeks to resist the hierarchical power dynamics of the traditional classroom by encouraging student participation, valuing personal experience, and creating a learning community where everyone is a learner and a teacher.

• Emotional Engagement: The authors argue that emotional responses and the full range of human emotions should be embraced in the classroom, as they can enhance the learning process and challenge the notion that intellectual work must be devoid of passion or feeling.

• Flexible Curriculum and Grading: Engaged pedagogy requires a flexible approach to curriculum and grading, where standards of excellence are maintained but the process is more collaborative and responsive to the needs and experiences of students.

• Institutional Challenges: The authors acknowledge the institutional and structural barriers to implementing engaged pedagogy, such as large class sizes, lack of institutional support, and the pressure to conform to traditional teaching practices.

• Teacher Self-Actualization: The authors suggest that engaged pedagogy requires teachers to be self-actualized, emotionally healthy individuals who are willing to engage in their own growth and transformation alongside their students.

11. Language: Teaching New Worlds/New Words

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Language as a Site of Resistance: The chapter explores how marginalized and oppressed people, particularly Black people in the United States, have used language as a site of resistance against domination and oppression. The author discusses how Black people have transformed the "oppressor's language" of English into a "counter-language" that disrupts and challenges the boundaries and limitations of standard English.

• The Trauma of Language Loss: The chapter examines the trauma experienced by enslaved Africans who were forced to abandon their native languages and learn the "oppressor's language" of English. The author imagines the "terror" and "anguish" of Africans who were suddenly stripped of their linguistic and cultural identities and compelled to communicate in a foreign tongue.

• Black Vernacular Speech as Resistance: The chapter highlights how the "broken English" and "ruptured speech" of enslaved and displaced Africans in the United States was a form of resistance and rebellion against the imposition of standard English. The author argues that the grammatical and syntactical deviations from standard English in Black vernacular speech were a way of "making English do what we want it to do" and creating a "counter-hegemonic speech."

• Reclaiming Linguistic Diversity: The chapter emphasizes the importance of reclaiming and celebrating linguistic diversity, particularly in academic and professional settings that have traditionally privileged standard English. The author encourages the use of Black vernacular and other non-English languages in the classroom and in academic writing as a way of disrupting the dominance of the "oppressor's language."

• Language and Epistemology: The chapter suggests that the transformation of the "oppressor's language" through the use of Black vernacular speech has enabled the creation of "alternative cultural production and alternative epistemologies" – different ways of thinking and knowing that challenge the hegemonic worldview. The author argues that the power of Black vernacular speech lies in its capacity to "intervene on the boundaries and limitations of standard English."

12. Confronting Class in the Classroom

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Class Differences are Ignored in Classrooms: The chapter argues that class differences are rarely acknowledged or discussed in educational settings, despite the reality that students and professors come from diverse class backgrounds.

• Bourgeois Values Dominate Classroom Dynamics: The chapter explains how bourgeois values, such as maintaining order and conforming to middle-class norms, are imposed in the classroom, silencing students from working-class backgrounds and undermining democratic exchange.

• Challenges Faced by Working-Class Students: The chapter describes the psychic turmoil and difficulties experienced by students from working-class backgrounds, who are often expected to surrender their cultural identities and assimilate into the dominant middle-class norms to succeed in the academy.

• Importance of Acknowledging Class in Pedagogy: The chapter emphasizes the need for professors, especially those committed to critical and feminist pedagogy, to actively confront issues of class in the classroom and create spaces where diverse voices and experiences are recognized and valued.

• Strategies for Inclusive Pedagogy: The chapter outlines pedagogical strategies, such as creating learning communities, emphasizing personal voice, and facilitating heated discussions, that can help disrupt the dominance of bourgeois values and empower students from working-class backgrounds.

• Professors' Role in Addressing Class Bias: The chapter argues that confronting class bias in the classroom is a challenge for all professors, not just those from working-class backgrounds, and that it requires a willingness to critically examine how their own use of power and authority can perpetuate class hierarchies.

13. Eros, Eroticism, and the Pedagogical Process

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Repression and Denial of the Body in the Classroom: Professors have been trained to teach as if only the mind is present, denying the presence of the body in the classroom. This is a legacy of the Western metaphysical dualism that separates the body and the mind.

• Eros and Eroticism in the Classroom: Eros, understood as the "moving force that propels every life-form from a state of mere potentiality to actuality", has a place in the classroom and can enhance the learning process. Eroticism is not limited to just sexual desire, but encompasses a broader sense of passion and vitality.

• Feminist Pedagogy and the Rejection of Mind-Body Dualism: Feminist education for critical consciousness rejects the mind-body split and encourages professors and students to engage with the classroom "whole" rather than as "disembodied spirits". This has made women's studies a subversive location in the academy.

• Transformative Potential of Passionate Teaching: Passionate teaching that embraces eros and eroticism can fundamentally alter students' perceptions of reality and lead to transformative changes in their lives and actions. The author provides an example of a student who changed her appearance after a class on black women writers.

• Suspicion towards Passionate Teacher-Student Relationships: Professors who display care, love, and unique bonds with their students are often viewed with suspicion in the academy, as it is assumed that such feelings may compromise objectivity. However, the author argues that this assumption is based on the false notion of education as a neutral process.

• The Need to Rekindle Passion in Higher Education: There is a lack of passionate teaching and learning in higher education today. Professors must find the place of eros within themselves and allow the mind and body to feel and know desire in order to restore passion to the classroom.

14. Ecstasy: Teaching and Learning Without Limits

Here are the key takeaways from the chapter:

• Engaged Pedagogy: This refers to an approach to teaching that emphasizes critical thinking, mutual participation between teacher and student, and the creation of a learning community. It is an expression of political activism that challenges the status quo in educational institutions.

• Importance of Critical Thinking: The author believes that critical thinking is the primary element that enables change and growth, both for individuals and in society. However, critical thinking is not encouraged in an anti-intellectual society.

• Challenges of Engaged Pedagogy: Engaged pedagogy is taxing to the spirit and often undervalued by academic institutions. Professors who practice it are often overworked, with large class sizes that make it difficult to build a true learning community.

• Mutual Engagement: The author emphasizes the importance of mutual engagement between teachers and students, where both learn from each other and share responsibility for the learning experience. This goes beyond the classroom, as the author continues to teach and learn from students even after the course is over.

• Radical Openness: The author seeks teachers who can challenge her beyond her own limits, creating a space of "radical openness" where she is free to learn and grow without boundaries. This is the kind of learning environment she strives to create in her own classroom.

• The Classroom as a Site of Possibility: Despite the limitations of the academy, the author sees the classroom as a "location of possibility" where we can collectively work towards freedom and transgress boundaries through education.

Discussion

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