Killjoy pedagogy and the politics of a smile

Abstract

ABSTRACT This performance kills joy by enacting Sara Ahmed’s “feminist killjoy” and investigates what’s at stake when pedagogy-as-happiness converges with realities of cultural domination. As feminist scholar-pedagogues, we investigate lived experiences that privilege pedagogical performances of joy, where effective instruction becomes conflated with the transmission of happiness through, for example, a smile. As critical communication pedagogues, however, we remain skeptical of our smiles – what they ask of us and what they take – realizing that the happiness landscape often exacerbates oppressive hierarchies of a white supremacist, hetero-patriarchy.