Democratic Education in the Literature Classroom: Integrating Political Literacy and Political Emotions into Agonistic Literary Discussions. A Response to “Agonism in a Classroom Discussion on Strindberg’s <em>Miss Julie</em>”

In an era of rising polarization and populism, how can we transform the literature classroom into a site of democratic education? Drawing on agonistic scholarship, Tysklind et al. (2024) offer the agonistic literary discussion, a novel pedagogical approach aiming to prepare students for the complexities of democracy by forming collective identities and navigating conflictual consensus. To build on the authors’ work, this response article proposes two additions—political literacy and political emotions—and cautions against the risk of antagonism. Agonistic literary discussions can integrate political literacy through teaching relevant knowledge and careful questioning, enabling students to situate characters’ experiences in political contexts and identify power dynamics in texts and society. Political emotions can be infused through inductive discussions and the strategy of circulation, allowing students to grasp relations of power and invest collective identities on an emotional level. However, students risk antagonizing one another when they passionately discuss the political dimension of literary texts. Establishing hegemony and fostering forgiveness may be helpful strategies to mitigate this risk, provided they are applied in careful and power-conscious ways. Expanded in this fashion, agonistic literary discussions can more fully equip students to engage with the tumult of contemporary democracy.