Affect Theory, the Sociological Imagination, and the Epistemology of Ignorance: A Confluence

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Coloniality of Knowledge, Whiteness, and Curricular Change (Table 6)

Abstract

This paper explores the relationality among affect theory, the sociological imagination,and the epistemology of ignorance. Through an affective economy, fear and hate have circulated in K-12 educational spaces, enabling the epistemology of ignorance to develop and, as a result, justify oppressive constructs and structures. Attempts to gain knowledge of the depths - perhaps even the existence - of modernity/coloniality, patriarchy, and heteronormativity are deflected, thwarted, or crushed to such an extent that educators may never become aware of them. However, the sociological imagination propounded by Mills (2000) presents a framework for both interrogation and understanding of these entanglements and, in so doing, confronts ignorance.

Author

• Steven Colmus, Texas Tech University