In Curriculum Transmodernity, João M. Paraskeva continues to champion the quest for social and cognitive justice and the struggle against the epistemicide through a praxis of non-derivative, itinerant curriculum theory. This edited volume features a stellar group of world-leading critical, anti-colonial, and decolonial public intellectuals from diverse national and cultural backgrounds that converge and diverge on the provocative ideas of transmodernity as they expand on Paraskeva’s earlier valuable critiques of epistemicide. The readers will want to navigate the challenging rapids of opposition to greater epistemological emancipation alongside the authors, advancing new dimensions of what itinerant curriculum theory and theorists can be. I urge you to partake of the bold ideas presented in this book deeply.
– William H. Schubert, Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois, Chicago
Curriculum Transmodernity: Toward a Non-Derivative, Itinerant Curriculum Theory appears at a time when both democracy and education face unprecedented pressures. Globally, we see the simultaneous decline of democratic systems and the rise of authoritarian politics. These trends are not isolated anomalies but signs of what João M. Paraskeva calls late coloniality: a historical condition marked by the exhaustion of neoliberalism, the reconfiguration of global alliances, and the resurgence of far-right authoritarianism. In this context, the field of curriculum studies cannot remain confined to Eurocentric categories or to what Paraskeva describes as “epistemicidal” habits of thought. This book advocates for something much bolder: a transmodern, itinerant curriculum theory that rejects simply repeating exhausted paradigms and instead explores a pluriversal ecology of knowledges. The book places curriculum within the political and epistemological crises of our era. Authors remind us that authoritarianism is not always imposed from outside democracy but often arises from within, using the very tools of democratic governance to undermine democracy itself. Today, we face movements that leverage common sense, popular fears, and ressentiment to target migrants, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and the poor, all while undermining the legitimacy of truth and science. The book convincingly demonstrates how such authoritarian movements thrive by manipulating “commonsense”—turning fragility, incoherence, and fragmented beliefs into political leverage. The very concepts of truth, reason, and fact become flexible, creating a frightening space where what was once unthinkable becomes normalized. Yet authors do not stop at diagnosis but turn their critical lenses on the radical and progressive traditions in curriculum studies. Why have progressive and left movements failed to establish a hegemonic alternative to neoliberalism? One reason lies in our inability to “read the room” non-derivatively. The critical stream of curriculum theory, for all its achievements, has remained tied to Eurocentric epistemologies. It has often ignored or marginalized epistemologies of the Global South, failed to reckon with categories such as caste, and too easily reproduced the very abyssal thinking it sought to challenge. The book’s editor, João Paraskeva, labels this dilemma “theorycide”: the field’s slow theoretical exhaustion and failure to produce new, emancipatory horizons. In this context, he advocates for a decolonial turn—not as a trendy catchphrase, but as a crucial break from epistemological absolutism. Only by adopting anti-colonial and decolonial epistemologies can curriculum studies regain vitality and relevance in today’s situation. The volume as a whole embodies this vision. Its two-part structure reflects a deliberate movement from philosophical grounding to curricular applications. Part I, “On Transmodernity,” gathers foundational voices, including Enrique Dussel, Walter Mignolo, Catherine Walsh, Lewis Gordon, Ramón Grosfoguel, and Nelson Maldonado-Torres. Each contributes a strand to the argument that transmodernity is not simply an extension of modernity, nor a negation of it, but a project that moves beyond and before modernity’s Eurocentric structures. Transmodernity affirms the plurality of knowledges, interculturality, and liberation thought. These chapters provide the epistemological foundation for a curriculum theory that is itinerant, non-derivative, and open to the “world-worlds” that constitute our planetary reality. Part II, Curriculum Transmodernity, turns this philosophical grounding into educational practice. Antonia Darder writes with her characteristic eloquence about teaching at the end of the world “as we know it,” decolonizing the curricular limits imposed by modernity. Peter McLaren, in a timely and courageous chapter, explores neo-colonial contradictions in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, linking geopolitical conflict to curriculum and pedagogy. Noah De Lissovoy and Celine Norman interrogate whiteness as a defense against thinking, showing how curricular monumentalism reproduces racialized epistemic barriers. Alicia de Alba elaborates on itinerant curriculum and cultural contact, advancing a vision of epistemological cross-fertilization across worlds. Raul Garza and James Jupp engage conscientização and Chicana/Chicano traditions to show how local struggles open toward transmodern horizons. Graciela Baum examines English teacher education in Argentina, inquiring how a transmodern curriculum can be envisioned in contexts marked by colonial legacies. José Félix Angulo, Silvia Redon Pantoja, and Diego Montalva Redon take the debate into the future by exploring transmodernity, transhumanism, posthumanism, and artificial intelligence. Finally, Dragana Purešević, Živka Krnjaja, and Nevena Mitranić Marinković address early childhood education in Serbia, showing how decolonial itinerancy can unsettle inherited reform models. At the same time, Phillip Knobloch calls for recovering critical education as an escape from curriculum theorycide. From South Africa to Argentina, from Mexico to Serbia, and from the United States to Cyprus, the contributors map an itinerant and pluriversal conversation. This collection presents a planetary dialogue that refuses the Eurocentric monopoly on reason. In this sense, the book itself is an enactment of transmodernity: a cohabitation of epistemological perspectives, an ecology of knowledges that rejects both relativism and absolutism. It demonstrates how critical pedagogy and curriculum studies can only renew themselves by engaging with epistemologies that have long been marginalized. The strength of this collection lies not only in its conceptual innovations but also in its political urgency. The authors remind us that we cannot counter authoritarianism with naïve faith in the democratic vote alone. Authoritarian leaders have been democratically elected; they have conquered the polls. Thus, the task is not merely to defend democracy but to reimagine it, moving from representative to participatory forms, and grounding it in epistemologies of the South that affirm conviviality, solidarity, and planetary responsibility. Curriculum studies, in this vision, is not an abstract field but a site of struggle where common sense can be contested, where critical consciousness can be nurtured, and where the possibility of another world is rehearsed. Reading this book, one feels the pulse of a field at a crossroads. On one side lies exhaustion, the repetition of Eurocentric paradigms, the quiet acceptance of theorycide. On the other lies the itinerant path of transmodernity: uncertain, conflictual, but also fertile, open, and necessary. The book invites us to walk this path. It invites us to think and act beyond the strictures of colonial reason, to embrace epistemological diversity not as a token but as the very condition of a just curriculum. It reminds us that the future of curriculum studies depends on our willingness to disentangle ourselves from absolutist traditions and to cultivate a pluriversal ecology of knowledge. Curriculum Transmodernity serves as a manifesto for the next phase of curriculum theory. It urges us to honestly confront the failures of our field, engage in self-critique, and reimagine curriculum as an itinerant, transmodern practice. Its vision is both sobering and hopeful: sobering because it candidly acknowledges the authoritarian dangers of our time, and hopeful because it demonstrates that another curriculum—and another world—are achievable. The book will be essential for scholars in curriculum studies, critical pedagogy, decolonial studies, and beyond. It will also serve as a crucial resource for educators, activists, and students seeking to understand the current context and act within it.
– Juha Suoranta, Professor of Adult Education, Tampere University, Finland
João Paraskeva’s comprehensive introduction and the collection of published texts from prominent anti-colonial and decolonial intellectuals, as well as unpublished texts from radical critical pedagogues and curriculum makers, make Curriculum Transmodernity a book for our times. Terrible times aptly described by Paraskeva as much “more brutally muscular with overt eugenic and segregationist steroids” than even neoliberal hegemony. In outlining an effective counter-hegemonic challenge to the far-right alternative, Paraskeva provokes us to ‘delink’ from Western epistemological perspectives, advancing our field and meeting the urgency of these times. Curriculum Transmodernity is a must-read for all educators who are really concerned with social cognitive and intergenerational justice.
– Salim Vally, DHET-NRF SARChI Chair in Community, Adult & Workers’ Education, Professor, University of Johannesburg
Globally, the shadow of authoritarianism and autocracy is advancing worryingly, often undisturbed, through the discourse of education, curriculum, and teacher education – standardized assessments imposed by external non-democratic agencies, a false meritocracy and accountability that deceives students, redesigning new hierarchies, an emphasis on skills, and a tool of capital rather than teaching practice. Pedagogy has thus been expropriated by capital and is largely absent from schools and the curriculum. A discourse of false neutrality in education makes any form of criticism impossible and forces homologation. João M. Paraskeva’s Curriculum Transmodernity brings together a series of contributions from leading public intellectuals, critical scholars, and educators, which aims to shake up the world of schools and universities so that they no longer give space to these forms of coloniality of consciousness. It is a call, an appeal that must be heard and echoed in the consciences of those who dare to teach and are willing to learn. Because the survival of democracy is at stake.
– Paolo Vittoria, ‘Federico II’ University of Naples