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Gabrielle Civil, a Black feminist performance artist and professor, discusses developing and teaching her “Pleasure Syllabus,” a three-lecture module for a mandatory first-year undergraduate writing course. Grounded in Black feminism, especially adrienne maree brown's call for “pleasure activism” and Audre Lorde's embrace of the erotic, this syllabus aimed to consider and activate embodied knowledge. Contemplating pleasure (“what does and does not feel good”) also became a way to confront rape culture. With this module, Civil hoped to intervene in the rampant sexual violence happening on college campuses. She acknowledges the challenges of negotiating trauma and gender-based violence in the classroom. (Teaching about desire, sexuality, violation, and consent on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic was especially tough.) She shares specific strategies that supported her pedagogy and offers some suggestions for curricular planning while emphasizing that no one-size-fits-all approach exists to trauma-informed teaching. Her curriculum included visual art, music, graphics, and movement exercises along with critical/creative writing. Civil includes her actual “Pleasure Syllabus” and her module's signature assignment.

This chapter is an introduction to what the author defines as central to the Art in relation to Citizenship and Education. As these are regarded as multifaceted concepts that continually evolve and expand, diverse theoretical notions are addressed and illustrated through artistic examples. The author represents ideas, concepts and values, underpinning citizenship in Art and Art Education by posing two questions: (1) Which kinds of Art can support citizenship and in what ways? and (2) Which concepts can foster citizenship in Art and Art Education? Art and Citizenship are discussed in relation to culture and aesthetics, pointing out that Art is meaningful in a cultural context and at the same time it has the potential to engage us in transformative practices. The author contends that Art for Citizenship Education is grounded on two pillars: ‘Who I am’ and ‘Who we are’. These are analyzed and exemplified through artistic practices that are concerned with the power of image, the formation of identities and communities and diverse cultural contexts (spaces and places).