Bordering on Violence: A Levinasian Critique of Ontology and Ethics in Giroux’s Critical Pedagogy

Abstract

Henry Giroux’s pedagogical theorizing has taken shape as an ethical response of a kind to the ongoing injustice in schools and society. In his most recent book, Take Back Higher Education, Giroux asserts that the “Take Back” in the title is an “ethical call to action for educators” to reclaim higher education as a “democratic public sphere.” He argues that educators need to reclaim “a sense of ethical responsibility” (TB, 84). In doing so, they may “reclaim the meaning and purpose of higher education as an ethical and political response to the demise of democratic public life” (TB, 237).