hooks-Freire Pedagogy of Justice Series
To celebrate the lives and works of pedagogical visionaries bell hooks (1952-2021) and Paulo Freire (1921-1997), and their inspired contributions to many fields, including justice-oriented and values-based teaching, Loyola’s Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy (FCIP) is pleased to announce Loyola’s second annual hooks-Freire Series on the Pedagogy of Justice.
One of Freire’s seminal works, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), illuminated the spirit of Freire’s ontological view on the truth of the human condition. This view can be described by five core principles: humility, empathy, love, hope and dialogue (Freire, 2017, p. 33), all of which have inspired bell hooks and her foundational and liberatory work in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. These collective principles were explored and shared by hooks and Freire throughout their works and have inspired many thinkers and practitioners around the world.
FCIP’s work is reflective of hooks’ and Freire’s commitment to a liberatory education imbued with the wisdom and experience of everyone involved in the educational endeavor, particularly those on the margins who are often left out of and erased from academia. We seek to honor their legacies, which aligns with FCIP’s own mission, to support Loyola instructors in delivering an honest, accessible, and mutually transformative education for our students.
To commemorate hooks’ and Freire’s inspired contribution to many fields, including justice-oriented and values-based teaching, these themes shall guide the hooks-Freire Pedagogy of Justice Series. Each year, Loyola scholars, educators and learners will be invited to share their experiences with and knowledge of justice-oriented and values-based teaching and learning, with emphasis on the lenses of humility, empathy, love, hope and dialogue. This series contributes to the on-going, global work to inspire the next 100 years of pedagogical innovation in the direction of equity, justice, and freedom.
The 2023 Series is laid out as follows:
- Abolitionist Pedagogy Reading Series - Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks
- Pedagogy of Justice Film - Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau
- Keynote Lecture and Presentation
For more information on each component of the series, visit their specific drop-downs below.
For more content about the series as a whole, please join and peruse our open Sakai site! There you will find specific imformation, articles, interviews, and other resources on our Abolitionist Reading Series and Pedagogy of Justice Film offerings. Join our Sakai here!
Join us as we host a series of book discussions for Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks for Spring 2023! All sessions for the reading series are hosted virtually, on Zoom.
Teaching To Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom is a collection of personalized essays about the state of traditional education in the United States where diversity and culture are concerned. Through a blend of personal anecdotes and provocative essays, bell hooks revolutionizes what it means to teach children of minority backgrounds.
Reading & Discussion Schedule:
- March 2nd: Focusing on Introduction & Ch. 1-3
- March 22nd: Focusing on Ch. 4-7
- April 6th: Focusing on Ch. 8-11
- April 26th: Focusing on Ch. 12-13
Dates & Meeting Times:
- March 2nd, 2023, 12:00pm - 1:15pm
- Virtually at this Zoom link.
- March 22, 2023, 12:15pm - 1:30pm
- Virtually at this Zoom link.
- April 6th, 2023, 12:00pm - 1:15pm
- Virtually at this Zoom link.
- April 26th, 2023, 12:15pm - 1:30pm
- Virtually at this Zoom link.
This event is a combination of our Anti-Oppressive Film Series and the hooks-Freire Pedagogy of Justice Series. The event will be hyflex, meaning it will be available both virtually and in-person.
Description: Pipeline is a 2017 play written by Dominique Morisseau. It originally opened off-Broadway on July 10, 2017, and closed on August 27, 2017. Nya, an inner-city public high school teacher, is committed to her students but desperate to give her only son Omari opportunities they’ll never have. When a controversial incident at his upstate private school threatens to get him expelled, Nya must confront his rage and her own choices as a parent. But will she be able to reach him before a world beyond her control pulls him away? Watch the trailer at this clickable link!
Why this film? Beyond inequitable funding in inner city and majority minority schools, Pipeline works to expose the subtle ways institutional racism manifests and its daily resonance for minoritarian communities. Dominique Morisseau works to capture the helplessness and severity of the plot and the tendrils that tightly enclose the characters' lives. The play gives a practical, realistic look into the real concerns, judgements and obstacles BIPOC educators, students, and their families face as they fight to attain a fair education.
- The film screen and discussion took place on Friday, February 17th.
For more info on the Pedagogy of Justice Film and the hooks-Freire POJ Series, join our open Sakai site here!
hooks-Freire Keynote Speaker named:
Dr. Dana K. Harmon, PhD (Loyola's School of Social Work)
bell hooks' and Paulo Freire's work uplifted critical themes of social justice in education, with emphasis on the lenses of humility, empathy, love, hope and dialogue. These resonate deeply with Loyola's own Jesuit heritage. FCIP's second annual hooks-Freire Pedagogy of Justice Series features a keynote address and conversation.
Keynote Address with Dr. Dana K. Harmon, PhD

"Superwoman: Black Women’s Resilience, Perseverance, and Being Intellectual Giants"
This Keynote Address will center on the genius of bell hooks and her lasting impact on pedagogy and education writ-large, with an emphasis on Black women in academia. Dr. Harmon will engage with her own intersectional experiences and dive into the particulars of what it means for Black women to persist and resist in predominantly White institutions and spaces, all the while gesturing toward the greater cultural responsiveness and liberation that comes with the intentional honoring and uplifting of Black women.
Wednesday, March 29th
4:00pm-5:30pm
via Zoom
A for Angicos (2016, dir. Catherine Murphy), courtesy of HotHouse Global
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, courtesy of the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz