The Selected Works of Antonia Darder - by Kevin D Lam & Kortney Hernandez (Hardcover)

About the Book

Spanning more than three decades, this reader presents the best work by the internationally renowned critical education professor and activist Antonia Darder.

Book Synopsis

Spanning 35 years, this reader includes 21 seminal works by the scholar, theorist, and activist Antonia Darder.Darder's ongoing contribution to the field of education is vast and she has helped to shape the fields of critical education, Freirean pedagogy, the critical study of race/racism, political economy, Latino studies/education, and biculturalism. Her work is informed by a deep personal history of struggle and scholarly rigor and is centred on social justice and economic democracy.
The reader is divided into five sections which group together Darder's work around the following topics:
- decolonizing interpretive methodology
- race/racism/racialization
- Latino studies
- reinventing Freire
- culture & power
Each section includes an introduction written by the editors and the volume also includes a preface and introduction from the editors, an epilogue written by Darder, a foreword written by Gilda L. Ochoa and an afterword by João M. Paraskeva.

Review Quotes

The Selected Works of Antonia Darder: On Theory, Politics, and Struggle is a luminous testament to one of the most influential critical pedagogues of our time. With uncompromising brilliance, humility, clarity and fierce compassion, this collection spans four decades of Darder's revolutionary praxis-linking Freirean pedagogy, biculturalism, decolonial thought, and radical love. Each essay pulses with a commitment to liberation, offering educators, activists, and students not just a vision of justice, but a methodology for achieving it. This is a book that does not simply inform-it awakens, transforms, and dares us to begin again in dark times.

Antonia Darder must be considered one of the most important scholars in the sometimes excessively masculine core of critical thinkers and educators. For her, being a critical educator has always meant combining, within this movement, a feminist approach, but also, and much more importantly, a tremendous anti-colonial sensibility. As a woman and Puerto Rican by birth, Antonia, like no other before her, has approached Latin American thought and critique of social injustice, marginalization, and exploitation through the thought of one of its greatest representatives: Paulo Freire. Paraphrasing J. Derrida, for her, thinking has always meant saying no, because as the urban group Calle 13 reminded us, "she always says what she thinks, she has always said what she thinks." Her "power of no," as G. Agamben called it, lies in her capacity for criticism and analysis based on her Latin American identity, because for Antonia Darder-quoting the Calle 13 group again-"you can't buy my life. My land is not for sale." In a verse by Julia de Burgos, a distinguished Puerto Rican poet, it is said, "Where am I going? To the point where the soul releases its light into infinity." From there, to infinity, we will always accompany Antonia Darder, and while with Calle 13 once again, "walking, we draw the path."

This long-awaited resource is indispensable for present and future generations of intellectuals including organic intellectuals involved in praxis to change the world. A true revolutionary offering, caringly curated by Darder's former students - a labor of love. The collection will prove to be invaluable for all committed to the vision of a more just world, especially in these terrible times.

About the Author

Kevin D. Lam is Associate Professor of Urban and Diversity Education at Drake University, USA. He is the author of Youth Gangs, Racism, and Schooling: Vietnamese American Youth in a Postcolonial Context (2015).

Kortney Hernandez is Assistant Professor of Education at Westcliff University, USA. She is the author of Service Learning as a Political Act in Education: Bicultural Foundations for a Decolonizing Pedagogy (2017).