Radical Love as a Hermeneutic of Social Change

• In Event: Roundtable Session 107
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Psychoanalysis and Knowledge: Laughter, Radical Love, and the Emotional Self

Abstract

Using critical pedagogy, critical spiritual pedagogy, and feminist theory as articulated by Paulo Freire, Antonia Darder, Peter McLaren, bell hooks, and Allen Johnson, this paper defines radical love as a hermeneutic of social change that works towards promoting social justice and exposing the hegemony of patriarchy. The BP oil spill, global climate change, the global assault on the environment, reinscription of the Tea Party Movement, and Tucson, AZ tragedy bear witness to the absence of radical love. By examining these occurrences which are informed by political processes, we aim to interrogate the way in which patriarchy acts as a systemic bully to thwart social justice, solidarity, and radical love taking root in communities, schools, and other sites of learning.

Authors

• Dara N. Nix-Stevenson, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Sarah Colonna, University of North Carolina - Greensboro