Abstract
This paper argues for the necessity of pleasure in abolitionist pedagogy as a condition for sustaining movements toward collective liberation. Grounded in abolition feminism and radical pedagogy, it introduces the “Pleasure Activism Lineage” (PAL) as a tool for cultivating campus movement communities through joy, care, and collective resistance. Drawing on adrienne maree brown’s framework of pleasure activism, the PAL assignment invites students and educators to trace transformative influences, reclaim subversive forms of joy, and build solidarities rooted in liberatory traditions. By centering pleasure as a site of resistance, this project disrupts the pitifully punitive logics and pessimistically professionalizing ethos of academia and reimagines education as a space of radical possibility, healing, and shared power.
Recommended Citation
Saribal, Misty D. and McMickens, Taisha Dr.
(2025)
"Being Radical Community: “Pleasure Activism” in Higher Education,"
Feminist Pedagogy: Vol. 6:
Iss.
4, Article 10.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/feministpedagogy/vol6/iss4/10