"Every relation of hegemony is necessarily an educational relationship." --Antonio Gramsci
“Is a philosophical movement properly so called when it is devoted to creating a specialized culture among restricted intellectual groups, or rather, when, and only when, in this process of elaborating a form of thought superior to ‘common sense’ and coherent on a specific scientific plane, it never forgets to remain in contact with ‘simple’ and indeed finds in this contact the source of problems it sets out to study and to resolve…” – Antonio Gramsci
As a teacher, I endeavor to inspire students to become intellectually curious agents of culture and society. The pedagogical task for me is to model the intellectual thrill of textual discovery in class, then take students outside the classroom for real-life contact with the origins and legacies of the texts. I have deep respect for students and their potential as critical and creative thinkers and writers. I see it as my task to help them develop their potential through feedback, feedback that highlights their current strengths and pushes the arguments and analysis to a certain limit. My goal is not only to bring the texts to life, but to take students “behind the scenes” of culture creation in order to experience themselves as active participants rather than as mere consumers of knowledge.