Chapter 3: Radical Hermeneutics, Adolescence, and Twenty-First Century Critical Pedagogy

In the process of identifying the theoretical underpinnings of critical pedagogy, most scholars in the field draw a direct line to the Frankfurt School (see Kincheloe, 2008). Critical theory has served critical pedagogy well as a means to level necessary critiques at the various pernicious iterations of the status quo that currently inform educational policy and practice. Yet, as we continue into the twenty-first century, the increased threats of polarization, technicization, cynicism, and neoliberal hegemony may require critical pedagogy to begin to seek new and additional theoretical bases. In this chapter I argue that philosophical ideas (one of which predates the Frankfurt School) might prove efficacious for broadening critical pedagogy’s theoretical base. Specifically, I suggest the appropriateness of Søren Kierkegaards’s (1983) existential notion of “repetition” and Michel Foucault’s (1987, 2000) “anthropologia negativa,” especially as they are treated in John D. Caputo’s radical hermeneutics as a new/old location of interest for critical pedagogy.