Teaching Beloved: From a Pedagogy of Séance to a Pedagogy of the Clearing

Drawing on the experiences of teaching Beloved in an elite, college preparatory context, the following research paper works towards alternative approaches to teaching trauma and difficult histories. After exploring some of the limitations and applications of the education as séance approach, this paper constructs a framework for teaching difficult histories modeled after Toni Morrison’s description of The Clearing, a place of embodied, radical subjectivity, and personal transformation within a community of love and support.