Feeling political

Abstract

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.