Sorting Things Out: Sort Of

Having read Teaching to Transgress a first - and certainly not the last - time, I need to come to terms with some words:

• freedom
• disruption
• transgress
• excitement
• presence
• interrogate
• self-actualized
• intervention
• process
• crisis
• eros & eroticism
• love
• desire

and some issues:

• Is this a memoir or a book on theory? Is it a hybrid?
• Are her life experiences general enough to serve as a template for us?
• Feminist, critical, and anti-colonial theory, inform her pedagogy. How do they provide insight into the teaching of both the hard as well as the soft sciences?
• Once I sort these words and issues out, what is the book’s relevance to not just pedagogy but to digital pedagogy?

Comments

[Annemarie Perez]

James, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed reading your explorations -- I wish I'd kept up with this over the break because it's an absolute joy.
In terms of your question, is this theory or memoir, the answer is yes. I would place it with autoethnography texts written by a number of feminists of color -- theory that is written on and with the body, from a space of what we know from experience, from community -- what Cherríe Moraga calls "theory made flesh." It was this feminist theory -- first found as an undergraduate reading the book This Bridge Called My Back.
Reading this reminded me of reading Audre Lorde's "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House."
Sorry for such an unfocused comment, but I've enjoyed this so much. It reminded me of all I like best of theory.