ALICE-CES PUBLICATION

Teachers of the world: Wisdom and Courage

March 2020

“Because genius is not enough. It takes courage to change people’s hearts!” The phrase, from a movie [Farrelly, Peter. (2018). Green Book], mixing fact and fiction, real life and storytelling, underlines the matrix of the new publication Teachers of the World: Courage and Wisdom. Resulting from the project «ALICE – Strange Mirrors, Unsuspected Lessons: Leading Europe to a new way of sharing the world experiences», coordinated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and financed by the European Research Council, it aggregates and disseminates the lives, voices and gestures of Masters that pointed out new ways of living, understanding and acting on the world.

We speak of activists, academics, intellectuals, artists or authors who stood out in the struggle against different forms of oppression, building paths for social, cognitive and sexual justice. They are lives and voices from the global South that echo in the places of the World, ever resonating on the floors of all who carry the will to weave a more just and dignified life. As goes the proverb, it is “choosing courage over comfort”, going forth knowing there are risks. To be in the struggle, to be insurgent, wants courage, it is to make knowledge with a clenched fist, mobilizing others, congregating, breaking down walls.

The first chapter opens on March 14th, with Marielle Franco, brought down by the force of bullets, but ever upright, ever “present”, “never letting go of anyone's hand”, still lives, still calls upon us! Each week new pages will be revealed, leafing through the lives of people with faces, names and stories that loom large, making us grow.

Teachers of the World is a work coordinated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Teresa Cunha, João Arriscado Nunes and Susana de Noronha and written in the collective, bringing people from different continents and fields of research and action, continuously open to new chapters and contributions. In a language to be understood by everyone, the invitation is extended to anyone who wants to bring to writing, another woman, man, child or people without gendered presets, who have taught and supplied us with other knowledges, forming pieces for another World.

Collaboration proposals for the submission of new texts can be sent to the email mestrxs@ces.uc.pt

Editorial guidelines and terms of reference are available HERE