A Revolutionary Subject

Reviews / Votes

"This book is one of the most compelling conceptualizations of Marxist social theory to date, embedded in a captivating personal life story that leaves the reader humbled and challenged by one-sided regimes of truth, entangled in unjust power relations, legitimized by dominant social systems. Having been born in communist Poland, this book rattles my socio-cultural convictions and is a bold pedagogical tool for critical awaking, reaching out beyond national borders, gender, ethnicity, and social class. I sense that this book will raise worldwide interest. It earns a place at the table with bell hooks's works."
-Anna Odrowaz-Coates, Professor at Maria Grzegorzewska University (Warsaw, Poland) "Lilia D. Monzo invites us to join her in epistemological encounters with revolutionary women from the past and present. She summons Marx to the table to illuminate a socialist imaginary as an alternative to capitalism and Freire to advise our prefigurative commitment to move in the spirit of horizontalidad (humane horizontal relationships that challenge domination). Standing on these shoulders, as a Woman of Color, I feel I can fly and dream of a new world committed to a new humanism. Monzo gifts us with an invaluable compendium of sheroes from around the world who we can be grateful for as we launch our futures from their remarkable legacies."
-Suzanne SooHoo, Professor and Jack H. and Paula A. Hassinger Chair in Education at Chapman University and co-director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project "Women of Color around the world continue to suffer the devastating impact of racialized capitalism, despite historical efforts to promote gender equality. In A Revolutionary Subject: Pedagogy of Women of Color and Indigeneity, Lilia D. Monzo provides a much-needed Marxist-humanist rereading of coloniality and gendered exploitation to her engagement of the woman question, placing the voices and experiences of Women of Color at the center of the discourse. The result is an excellent treatise that challenges bourgeois liberal feminist notions of empowerment by reinvigorating the tradition of historical materialism with revolutionary
gendered insights of indigeneity and class struggle."
-Antonia Darder, Leavey Presidential Endowed Chair of Ethics and Moral Leadership at Loyola Marymount University "A Revolutionary Subject: Pedagogy of Women of Color and Indigeneity is an important text. By sharing contemporary and historical examples, as well as relating elements of her own narrative, Lilia D. Monzo has created a book that will help readers learn from stories that are too often unknown or poorly understood. It is a valuable tool for stimulating critical conversations and paths of action among educators, policymakers, and others who are committed to equity."
-Carla R. Monroe, Editor of Race and Colorism in Education "This study of the impact of Women of Color and Indigenous peoples on the social struggles of our time profoundly illuminates the complex relation of class, race, and gender through an open-ended dialectical perspective. It challenges Eurocentric readings of Marx's work while showing that all social theories must be re-thought and re-developed anew in light of the ideas and perspectives being generated by Chicanx and Latinx women, Indigenous peoples, and the Black Freedom Movement."
-Peter Hudis, Professor at Oakton Community College and author of Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism and Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades "A Revolutionary Subject: Pedagogy of Women of Color and Indigeneity is a tour de force. By moving her analyses beyond a bourgeois reformist agenda, Lilia D. Monzo cleverly and courageously situates her denouncement of patriarchy in a revolutionary praxis that keenly unveils that any authentic empowerment of women must include all oppressed women who come to voice through conscientization rather than through voice-as-gift by those who remain complicit with the privileges inscribed in whiteness. In a revolutionarily eloquent yet accessible prose, Monzo dares us to imagine the voice of Women of Color not as a gift but as a democratic right-as a human right. She challenges all men and women who think of themselves as agents of change to aspire for coherence and deeply comprehend that, in the end, there will be no change without privilege suicide."
-Donaldo Macedo, Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education at the University of Massachusetts "Lilia D. Monzo draws upon Marxist, humanist, and feminist theory, as well as theology of liberation, to develop a new type of pedagogy of the oppressed for the twenty-first century that connects the need to uproot capitalism with the equally necessary uprooting of racism, sexism, and heterosexism. She bases her argument on the writings, life experiences, and struggles of Women of Color and Indigenous women, from the barrios and ghettoes of the Americas to other sites of revolutionary ferment, from France to China and from Russia to Rojava. This remarkable and original work theorizes a type of radical pedagogy that can accompany, help sustain, and help deepen the critical consciousness of some of today's most important movements for revolution and social justice."
-Kevin B. Anderson, Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Marx at the Margins