Toward a Love Ethic: The Changing Ontology of the University in COVID-19 and Beyond

Abstract

Spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in the open acknowledgment of the importance of teaching and learning praxis that is grounded in compassion, understanding, cocreation, community, and flexibility. This is especially so for ‘traditional’ university spaces, in essence questioning and resisting the many established dynamics that face-to-face teaching and learning took for granted within many neoliberal and neocolonial higher education contexts. In this chapter, I propose positioning a love ethic as a primary point of departure for all educational engagements, a foundational shift in ontology (way of being) of the university. By focusing on love as liberation and justice, and teaching as an act of love, I draw on critical, engaged, and feminist pedagogies, as well as my experience as a lecturer in a social justice– and global citizenship-oriented program at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa, where I positioned a love ethic as central to my pedagogical approach. I argue that when we begin to view love as more than mere emotion, but as an ideological position that informs values and praxis within higher education (and our university “classrooms” in particular), we may move toward new and exciting ways of envisioning the decolonized university of the 21st century. A love ethic, as defined by bell hooks, offers possibilities for an approach to critical transformation that is not merely motivated by the change of institutional structures, but by the reform of values guiding teaching and learning and ways of being within higher education institutions.

Citation

Carlse, J.E. (2024), "Toward a Love Ethic: The Changing Ontology of the University in COVID-19 and Beyond", Rao, M.B., Singh, A. and Rao, P.M. (Ed.) Worldviews and Values in Higher Education (Global Perspectives on Higher Education Development), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 95-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80262-897-520241007