Transforming Conditions of Lovelessness: A Critical Inquiry into Radical forms of Love and Pedagogy

• In Event: Authenticity & Accountability in the Work of Educational Justice

Abstract

Drawing on Freire’s (1970, 2005) notion of ‘armed’ love, this conceptual paper explores framings of radical love in education as a way to move beyond romanticized, liberal, and apolitical forms of love, towards a pedagogical practice of love rooted in a commitment to struggling against conditions and relations of violence. I put into conversation Ahmed's (2012) analysis of ‘national’ and ‘multicultural’ love as insight into the politics of emotions, along with Love’s (2019) notion of ‘loving darkness’ in order to push forward more critical concepts of love in education and pedagogy. This paper puts these three philosophical notions of love in conversation with each other in order to understand the ways in which 1) radical forms of love can offer important insight into sustaining long-term commitments to struggles against violence and 2) how colonial and capitalist logics complicate pedagogical enactments of love in education.

Author

• Celine Norman, University of Texas at Austin