The Art of Liberating Humanity
Heppard B.
2019
Critical Education
2
10.14288/ce.v10i3.186302
This essay engages the question of higher education in prisons through the lens of abolitionist prison reform, and further, within a larger revolutionary framework. Drawing heavily on Herbert Marcuse’s essay, On Liberation (1969), and inspired by tradition of radical pedagogy- and the likes of Paolo Freire and bell hooks- this essay undertakes the prison classroom as a space of resistance with radical potential. Accordingly, the essay makes a case for offering incarcerated students a liberal arts curriculum, particularly strong in the humanities, because of its revolutionary potential, premised on its accessibility, aesthetic sensibility, and the exercise of the imagination. © 2019 Institute for Critical Education Studies.
Arendt H., On evolution, (1963); hooks b., Teaching to transgress, (1994); Marcuse H., On liberation, (1969); Prisoner to performer: Ex-inmate takes center stage in ‘Othello.’ NBC Bay Area, (2016)
Institute for Critical Education Studies
Article
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