Conscientization, compassion, and madness: Freire, Barreto, and the limits of education

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their very helpful comments, and to acknowledge, with gratitude, Gabriela Medeiros Nogueira and Eduardo Arriada for introducing me to the work of Lima Barreto.

Notes

1 For examples of the first approach see Carr (2005), Gribble (1983), Jollimore and Barrios (2006), and Palmer (1992); for the second, see Roberts (2012, 2015), Roberts et al. (2015), and Roberts and Saeverot (2018), and in relation to Freire’s work in particular, Roberts (2010, ch. 7) and Rozas Gomez (2013).

2 On the political dimensions of the novel, see Bollig (2003), Corrêa (2017), Schwarcz (2014), Serra (2011), and Valente (2013). For a detailed examination of Policarpo’s character, see Wasserman (1992).

3 I am indebted to Serra (2011) for many of the biographical details provided in this section.

4 See also, Schwarcz (2017) and Wasserman (2008).

5 For a comprehensive discussion of some of the comparisons that have been made, see Schugurensky (2011).

6 An exception, in the Portuguese language, is da Silva (2014). At the time of writing, few, if any, studies appear to have been published in English.

7 On Freire’s approach to humanization, see Mayo (1999); Kirylo (2011); Morrow and Torres (2002); Roberts (2000); Schugurensky (2011).

8 The second part was written a decade after the first, following the release of a “false” Quixote sequel by a literary imposter.

9 See further, Liu (2014) and Roberts (2000).

10 This point is made with the work of Simone Weil in mind. For Weil, the cultivation of our capacity for attention is a key epistemological, ethical and educational task (see Weil, 1997, 2001; Roberts, 2016).

11 See further, Freire (1985, 1996), Freire and Macedo (1987), Freire and Shor (1987), and Roberts (2000, 2010).

12 See, for example, Freire (1997a, 1998a), Freire and Macedo (1995), Freire and Shor (1987), and Horton and Freire (1990).

13 For one influential account of the history of “madness,” see Foucault (2001).

14 This position is not inconsistent with the existentialist view, taken from Kierkegaard (2009), that each individual is utterly unique, with his or her own distinctive circumstances, relationships, struggles, hopes, abilities, commitments, and dreams (see further, Webster, 2016).

15 This resonates with the ideal of attentive love developed by Iris Murdoch (see Murdoch, 2001; Roberts & Freeman-Moir, 2013, ch. 3; Roberts & Saeverot, 2018, ch. 2).

16 Freire’s nuanced consideration of uncertainty in pedagogical situations is evident in these sources, among others: Freire (1994, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b). On the uniqueness of every pedagogical encounter, see Saevi (2011).

17 See further, Chen (2016), Guilherme and de Freitas (2017), and Roberts (2016).

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Peter Roberts

Peter Roberts is Professor of Education at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His teaching and research interests are in philosophy of education and educational policy studies.