Trans reflections for decolonizing education from / through literary studies in general education

Abstract

This article explores the role of literary studies in and for general education from the perspective of a critical and decolonizing pedagogy. It is organized in three sections. The first section discusses general education understood as ecology of knowledges, a term proposed by the Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos to recognize and integrate epistemological diversity as a decolonizing practice. The second part evaluates the concept of partopie formulated by the French linguist Dominique Maingueneau to characterize the impossible place or the paradoxical condition of literary discourse. It is argued that it is this paratopic quality, which operates on various levels, that makes literary studies a useful instrument for the integrative aspirations of general education thought of as an ecology of knowledges. Finally, an estimate of literary studies in and for general education is included through the instrumentalization of the dialogic and intertextual character of literature as a strategy for decolonizing praxis.