This article puts in conversation Georges Bataille's contributions to critical theory of fascism with contemporary affect theory, and outlines some implications for antifascist education. The purpose is to critically engage with the role of affectivity in fascism and antifascist education and unpack the risks entailed in antifascist education as a…

Turning to key texts of Paulo Freire and Jacques Lacan, this paper argues that the experience organized in critical pedagogy can be rearticulated on the basis of a structural-practical connection to psychoanalysis. I pay specific attention to the methodical parallels that develop between the accounts of the psychoanalytic and pedagogical…

The contemporary landscape of dread in living and teaching demands a creative and experimental form of investigation that can trace the affective contours of the present and uncover the obscure openings for an oppositional imagination. In a series of interlinked excurses, this essay articulates a poetic probing of the nexus of slow fascism and…

The present study details the theoretical and pedagogical development of an experimental cultural studies in education seminar. Specifically, we explore the societal ends of education, and the means they prefigure, through a meditation on the catastrophe of the present. This will involve theorizing this historical moment, thinking through the…

There is much in Freire's educational philosophy that can be helpful in the reading of a fictional work; similarly, in engaging fiction, the understanding of key Freirean principles can be deepened. These dual possibilities become evident in reflecting on his countryman Lima Barreto's novel, "The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma" (Barreto,…

Empowered students have the ability to think and act reflectively as individual subjects of a society or a culture who have formed a conscious self-awareness of the meanings of their multiple affiliations and the significance of their worldly transactions with the other. Teaching should incorporate student ideas and experience actualized from acts…

Facts have become so ubiquitous that they are near meaningless in the eyes of the populace. People are so barraged with competing information that they are desensitized to information that doesn't fit neatly into their worldviews. This is the nature of the post-truth era in which we find ourselves. And if facts don't matter, then what does that…

Because the subject of imagination is both complex and can be conceived of in different ways, the focus of the first part of this article is to engage in a descriptive analysis of this faculty. With the help of Greene's intellectual predecessor and former teacher Hannah Arendt, Hannah Spector draws distinctions between imagination and other…

The United States is at a turning point in its history. Insurrection has become a dominant motif describing a country torn between the promises and ideals of democracy and an emergent authoritarianism that trades in lies, lawlessness, and a rebranded fascist politics. In this article, I analyze the contrasting visions, politics, and role of…

Academic administrators are witnessing unprecedented assaults on national humanities funding that would have been unthinkable three decades ago. Many, if not most, academic administrators and policy makers now view the cornerstone of liberal arts education as an educational anachronism, obsolete intellectualism that holds neither import nor…

Within the broad Freirean paradigm that dominates critical pedagogy, there is a tendency to assume that affects such as love, hope, and empathy as well as revolutionary agency are naturally occurring in all human beings and that conscientization will eventually lead to empowerment for change (Amsler 2011). However, it is not clear how the workings…

In this article the author aims to broaden the conception of critical pedagogy, while maintaining its defining features, which make it an educational practice distinct from traditional approaches. The author illustrates how critical pedagogy might be made a more broadly embraced practice by teachers and advance its affects on individuals, schools,…

Freire's work, both as a theorist and a practitioner, has always had a strong utopian flavor. In this article, the author sets out to show how and why this is so. Freire addressed the theme of utopia directly in his writings, but he also sought to bring a utopian world view to life in his educational endeavors. Delineating the key features of a…

Low cost private schools are becoming more prevalent in developing countries as governments fail to meet the demand for quality education (Heyneman & Stern, 2014). For-profit private schools are systematically being promoted by supra-national organizations such as the World Bank. Bridge International Academies (BIA) is one such low-cost,…

Mia Angélica Sosa-Provencio is assistant professor of Secondary Education in the Department of Teacher Education, Educational Leadership, and Policy at the University of New Mexico. Her research focuses on framing education as a means for social justice with particular focus on teacher education that engages youth in their multiple identities and…