Feeling political

By exploring some of the challenges of teaching a radical politics in the neo-liberal university, the article looks to the writings of radical pedagogues like Freire and Giroux to position hope as an important resource for critical pedagogy for teachers. Drawing on Coole’s work on Merleau-Ponty, the article examines the potential of a critical pedagogy that taps into the body, rather than a mind, as a vessel for capturing hope and thus as a way of opening up a new resource for linking hope to educational practice. These resources are discussed in relation to debates concerning the politics of artistic practices, particularly with regard to how an embodied pedagogy might work around the constraints imposed by neo-liberal universities. Three themes are identified as warranting further discussion for an embodied pedagogy and their implications are reflected upon. These relate to how we view the student as embodying hope, how we view the classroom as a place of rich connections and how we capture learning through richness and reflection. The United Kingdom is the focus of the article, but there is a wider relevance given ongoing global trends in and debates about higher education.

Teaching the Canon and Cannon Formation as Incarnation and Conjure: Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon as Womanist Mentor and Muse

Written by her first doctoral student, this essay is a tribute to the legacy and lessons of Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon (1950-2018), the progenitor of womanist ethics. The author embraces Cannon’s signature womanist embodied pedagogy, which takes embodiment as a Black woman seriously and serves as a paradigm for those who purposefully and poignantly live intersecting roles of race, gender, and class. Through both a personal account of the grief experienced by the passing of her mentor and a critical reflection on lessons learned by Cannon’s legacy, the author exposes the daunting challenges faced by womanist scholars as they navigate the front line of the classroom and the frequently death-dealing and dismissive terrain of higher education. See companion contributions to this Forum written by Edwin David Aponte, Miguel A. De La Torre, Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, Karen K. Seat, and Angela D. Sims.

Teaching the Canon and Cannon Formation as Incarnation and Conjure: Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon as Womanist Mentor and Muse

Written by her first doctoral student, this essay is a tribute to the legacy and lessons of Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon (1950-2018), the progenitor of womanist ethics. The author embraces Cannon’s signature womanist embodied pedagogy, which takes embodiment as a Black woman seriously and serves as a paradigm for those who purposefully and poignantly live intersecting roles of race, gender, and class. Through both a personal account of the grief experienced by the passing of her mentor and a critical reflection on lessons learned by Cannon’s legacy, the author exposes the daunting challenges faced by womanist scholars as they navigate the front line of the classroom and the frequently death-dealing and dismissive terrain of higher education. See companion contributions to this Forum written by Edwin David Aponte, Miguel A. De La Torre, Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, Karen K. Seat, and Angela D. Sims.

Using Embodied Practices with Preservice Teachers: Teaching and Reflecting Through the Body to Re-think Teacher Education

This action research describes how three teacher educators invited preservice teachers to be in their bodies, or learn through “embodied pedagogy.” We wanted see how this pedagogy helped preservice teachers learn to reflect through their bodies, confront their own bias to cognitive ways of knowing, and ultimately begin to consider the use of embodied instructional strategies. We describe our questions, the activities we designed to help us answer them, and data collected from the first course in a pre-service teacher education program. Finally, we analyze these data and identify themes related to embodied learning and reflection and describe some potential implications for teacher educators. Although at times uncomfortable, we found the body became a tool for reflection whether through experiencing or accessing emotions or for uncovering new meanings and deep insights about themselves.