Answering the Call of Revolutionary Love Through Literature

Abstract

Toni Morrison's Beloved challenges Western sensibilities about love, kinship, sacrifice, and spirituality. A Black teacher's dissertation study about revolutionary love (RL) for her Advanced Placement Literature students inspired this chapter. In it, the authors discuss two Black women teachers' kinship relationship and love for literature as revolutionary. Their collaborative autoethnographic account explores the influence of RL on mitigating the impact of intersectional oppression on our lived experiences. Moreover, the chapter illuminates the endarkened feminist underpinnings of their personal and spiritual connections: first, within a high school English classroom and now as colleagues and co-researchers. The chapter provides teaching strategies to guide spirit-led teachers in embodying RL for their students. It concludes with a call-and-response benediction for spirit-led teachers and their students.