HOPEPUNK PEDAGOGY
HOPEPUNK PEDAGOGY
a stance of defiantly, disruptively responding to the status quo, using tools of radical kindness and collaborative solidarity to actively work toward positive change–even when the odds of success seem insurmountable.
Why HOPEPUNK?
In a 2017 tweet, fantasy author Alexandra Rowland introduced the idea of “hopepunk” in opposition to the dystopian “grimdark”; hopepunk has since been defined both as a genre and an attitude within creative writing. Hallmarks of the hopepunk ideal include: active struggle for improving situations despite terrible odds; defiantly creating art/ dance/ drama/ music/ food/ crafts/ lifestyle in the face of human and planetary extinction; and responding collaboratively, creatively, and kindly to extreme challenges and uncertainties Seen in these ways, much social organizing and activism can be viewed as enacting hopepunk, and we argue that hopepunk can also become a radical framework to set new thresholds for writing pedagogy.