Feminist Pedagogy

An Autobiographical Approach

Anne-Louise Brookes

It has been suggested that my work is not about feminist pedagogy. I have decided that I will not argue this point. Rather, I would like to share with you why I chose this title. I  know that I could not have produced this book without the help of scholars learning to work from theoretical perspective and teaching practices defined as feminist. Moreover, it was not accidental that I learned to feel safe enough to confront my experiences of abuse in an environment where scholars offered a universal and coherent analysis of, and alternative to, male-organized educational and social practices. I know that I could not have written my thesis without this analysis. Thus, I use the term feminist pedagogy to refer to the practices which enabled me to write this text. My aim is to illustrate why I think feminist practices are key for many, if not most, students.

“To weave as you have woven is to concretize an abstract concept… In doing this you  have provided a very important suspension bridge to that eventual validation of blending Self with Knowledge. Traversing that bridge will result in some potential followers wobbling and some failing, but those who can reach the other side will be allies in the greater battle of education for Human’s sake rather than for Academe’s sake; more specifically, to acknowledge the requirement of including personal life spaces in the thought processes involved in taking a body of knowledge as one’s own” —Lisa deLeon, author of Writers of Newfoundland and Labrador

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Preamble: Fragments
• Introduction: Subjects In/Formation: Problems and Perspectives
• Chapter 1
  • Breaking the Silence
  • Breaking the Sequence
  • Re-Visioning the Past
• Chapter 2
  • Crises and Contradictions: Re-viewing Ideology
  • Re-Confronting the Limits of Social Knowledge: (my own, in particular)
  • Breaking the Cycle/Circle
• Chapter 3
  • Perspectives and Approaches
  • Feminist Pedagogy In/Formation
  • Punctuating the Dominant Order
• Chapter 4
  • Re-Visioning through the Gaps and Cracks
  • Theorizing Memories
  • In/Forming Issues and Subjects
  • Problematizing Experience: One Viewer Re-Viewing the Past
  • Re-Visioning Anew
• Chapter 5
  • Glimmering into the Dark
  • Peace and War: Absenting the Subject
• Chapter 6
  • Contradictions and a Desire for Harmony
  • Re-Considering the Binding and Unbinding of Ideological Practices
  • (Some) Re-Considerations
• Chapter 7
  • Reading From the Margins
  • Writing from the Margins
  • An(other) Feminist Analysis of the Fallout
• Chapter 8
  • Some End(ings)
  • Another End(ing)
  • Beginning Again: Doing Class
  • Endings of Another Kind
• References