"In her article "Playfulness, 'World'-Travelling, and Loving Perception," Maria Lugones describes "world traveling" as the experience of oneself as belonging to a multiplicity of worlds, constituted by different cultural conventions, languages, and histories, which shape a person's self-understanding, behavior, and relation to others. While many engage in what Lugones calls "world-traveling" of necessity, simply by belonging to multiple worlds, she suggests that for others, undertaking world-traveling intentionally, and playfully, can cultivate loving perception across difference."
"In a time when increased political polarization threatens to turn what were previously matters of simple disagreement-or else difficult but nevertheless understandable conflicts about value-into unbridgeable social divides, a time when what Lugones calls the "U.S. dominant construction or organization of life" (11) itself threatens to sever into two worlds, one red and one blue, I teach this text in the hope that Lugones's suggestions can help students cultivate a habit of loving perception."
"In the clip from I Love You, America (2017-2018), comic Sarah Silverman talks to a conservative family about their beliefs regarding gun control, Donald Trump, and climate change over dinner. The comic exchange prompts reflection on MarÃa Lugones's ideas about "world-traveling" and the role of playfulness in speaking across differences. We begin by scaffolding the concepts as Lugones introduces them: "world," including world-travel, being-at-ease in a world, being-ill-at-ease in a world, "playfulness" and "loving perception.""
Playful, intentional world-traveling involves inhabiting and moving between multiple cultural worlds shaped by distinct conventions, languages, and histories. Such movement reshapes self-understanding, behavior, and relations to others. Deliberate, playful world-traveling can cultivate loving perception that preserves communicative pathways across political and cultural divides. Intensifying political polarization threatens to transform understandable disagreements into unbridgeable social divides and to fracture national life into opposed worlds. Modeling comic exchange and serious play offers a practical way to scaffold concepts like world-travel, being-at-ease, being-ill-at-ease, playfulness, and loving perception for educational and civic practice.
#world-traveling #playfulness #loving-perception #political-polarization #cross-cultural-communication
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