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The Handbook of Critical
Theoretical Research Methods
in Education

The Handbook of Critical Theoretical Research Methods in Education approaches

theory as a method for doing research, rather than as a background framework.
Educational research often reduces theory to a framework used only to
analyze empirically collected data. In this view theories are not considered
methods, and studies that apply them as such are not given credence. This
misunderstanding is primarily due to an empiricist stance of educational research,
one that lacks understanding of how theories operate methodologically and
presumes positivism is the only valid form of research. This limited perspective
has serious consequences on essential academic activities: publication, tenure
and promotion, grants, and academic awards. Expanding what constitutes
methods in critical theoretical educational research, this edited book details 21
educationally just theories and demonstrates how theories are applied as method
to various subfields in education. From critical race hermeneutics to Bakhtin’s
dialogism, each chapter explicates the ideological roots of said theory while
teaching us how to apply the theory as method.
This edited book is the first of its kind in educational research. To date, no
other book details educationally just theories and clearly explicates how those
theories can be applied as methods. With contributions from scholars in the
fields of education and qualitative research worldwide, the book will appeal to
researchers and graduate students.

Cheryl E. Matias is a full professor and Director of Secondary Education in

the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Kentucky.
Her research focuses on race, whiteness, and education, and she was awarded
the 2020 American Educational Research Association Division K Mid-Career
award. She’s a motherscholar of three.
The Handbook of Critical
Theoretical Research
Methods in Education

Edited by Cheryl E. Matias

First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Cheryl E. Matias; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Cheryl E. Matias to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Matias, Cheryl E., editor.
Title: The handbook of critical theoretical research methods in education /
edited by Cheryl E. Matias.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020052763 (print) | LCCN 2020052764 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367174675 (Hardback) | ISBN 9780367174682 (Paperback) |
ISBN 9780429056963 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Education—Research—Methodolgy.
Classification: LCC LB1028 .H314 2021 (print) | LCC LB1028 (ebook) |
DDC 370.72—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020052763
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020052764

ISBN: 978-0-367-17467-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-17468-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-05696-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For educational researchers, may your research
never be limited by a method
Contents

Author biographies x
Acknowledgments xviii
Preface: “Researching under the mortal realities of pandemic life” xx
C H E RY L E . M ATI AS

Introduction 1
C H E RY L E . M ATI AS

1 Critical race hermeneutics: a theoretical method for

researching the unconscious of white supremacy
in education 15
RI C K Y LE E A LLE N

2 The postdigital challenge of critical educational research 31

P E TAR JA N D RI Ć

3 Aspiring to a sociogenic phenomenology: a theoretical

method in emancipatory research 49
DAV I D F. LAV I SCO UNT AND E LI ZAB E TH K . JE FFER S

4 A fused theory of biopower and political vulnerability

as a theoretical method to investigate ‘difficult knowledge’ 64
M I C H ALI N O S Z E MB Y LAS

5 Uncovering internalized whiteness through Critical Race

counterstories: navigating our experiences in the
state of Texas 79
SO C O RRO M ORALE S, SO NYA M. ALE MÁN,
AN D E N RI QU E ALE MÁN, JR .
viii Contents
6 Phenomenology of racial embodiment: method and the
study of white humanity in education 95
G A RD N E R S E AWRI GHT

7 Visually mapping totality: Fredric Jameson’s

Greimassian square 112
T Y SO N E . L E WI S

8 Cultivating culturally situated theorizing in educational

research: challenging imperialistic curriculum and training 126
K AK A LI B H ATTACHARYA

9 Synthesizing theoretical, qualitative, and quantitative

research: metasynthesis as a methodology for education 142
K I P AU S T I N HI NTO N, ALCI O NE N. O STO RGA,
A N D C H R I STI AN E . ZÚÑI GA

10 Agential realism: applying Barad’s ontology

to reconceptualize teaching and learning mathematics
for social justice 161
L E E M E LV I N PE RALTA

11 Toward a transgressive decolonial hermeneutics in activist

education research 182
JA I RO I . F Ú N E Z- FLO RE S

12 Thinking with habitus in the study of learner identities 199

G A RT H S TAHL AND SARAH MCD O NALD

13 Theorizing with assemblage: context and text in youth

studies 212
T H O M A S A LB RI GHT AND KO RI NA M. JO CSON

14 Using critical race spatial method to understand disparities

in controlled choice plans 226
A M O S J. LE E AND ALI CE Y. LE E

15 Critical chronotopic analysis for disrupting whitewashedness

in TESOL teacher education 243
Y I N L AM L E E - JO HNSO N
 Contents ix
16 Postformal method for critical education research 259
T RI C I A K RE SS AND RO B E RT LAK E

17 Black lives mattering in and out of schools: anti-Black

racism, racial violence, and a hope for Black imagination
in educational research 272
C O U RT N E Y M AULD I N AND LAMAR L. JO HNSO N

18 Beyond the individual: deploying the sociological

imagination as a research method in the neoliberal university 284
JAC O B K E LLE Y, AND RE A ARCE - TRI GATTI , AND A DA HAYN ES

19 Unapologetic Black Inquiry: centering Blackness

in education research 303
J E LI SA S. C L ARK AND D E RRI CK R. B RO O MS

20 Paying emotional tolls: politics, poststructural narrative

theory, and research on race and racism subjects
for emotional well-being 319
TAN E T H A G ROSLAND AND LASO NJA RO B E RTS

21 Meditations on experience: the politics and ethics

of “not-knowing” in educational research 336
B E LÉ N H E RN A ND O - LLO RÉ NS

Index 355
Author biographies

Thomas Albright is a PhD candidate in education at the University of Mas-

sachusetts, Amherst. His research and teaching interests include youth par-
ticipatory action research, school-community partnerships, ethnic studies,
social justice education, and postqualitative methodologies. His forthcom-
ing dissertation is titled “Agential Schooling: Posthumanism, YPAR, and
Spooky Entanglements.”
Enrique Alemán, Jr., PhD, is the Lillian Radford Endowed Professor of Edu-
cation and Director of the Tomorrow’s Leaders Program at Trinity Univer-
sity in San Antonio, Texas. His research agenda includes studying the impact
of educational policies on Latina/o/x and Chicana/o/x students and com-
munities, the utilization of Critical Race Theories (CRTs) in educational
research, and the application of community-based research methods as a
way of creating pathways to higher education. He is published in Harvard
Educational Review, Race Ethnicity and Education, Educational Administration
Quarterly, and Equity, Excellence and Education, as well as in numerous chap-
ters in edited books.
Sonya M. Alemán, PhD, is an associate professor in the Race, Ethnicity,
Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department and Mexican American Studies
Program at the University of Texas, San Antonio. She studies media repre-
sentations of communities of color, alternative media content produced by
communities of color. She draws on critical race theory and Chicana femi-
nism to inform her scholarship and pedagogy. She is published in Critical
Studies in Media Communication; Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, Equity
and Excellence in Education; Review of Research in Education; and International
Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
Ricky Lee Allen, PhD, is a free, independent scholar after serving two decades
as an institutional academic. He earned his doctorate in Urban Schooling
from UCLA. He studies race and whiteness through the lenses of criti-
cal race theory, critical theory, and critical whiteness studies. He has twice
won AERA’s Outstanding Reviewer Award. He has published in journals such
as Educational Theory, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Social Identities, and
Urban Education.
 Author biographies xi
Andrea Arce-Trigatti, PhD, is an interdisciplinary educational researcher
interested in diversity, equity, cultural studies, and social justice issues in
engineering education, pedagogy, and educational policy. She is a founding
member of the award-winning Renaissance Foundry Research Group and
co-advisor for the Eta Nu Chapter of Kappa Delta Pi and the IMPACT
Tennessee Tech community organization. Working with underrepresented,
rural, and first-generation student populations, she is involved with several
community-based research to practice projects centering on student rep-
resentation, community outreach, student success and resilience, as well as
pedagogical practices for holistic learning.
Kakali Bhattacharya, PhD, is a multiple award-winning professor at Uni-
versity of Florida, housed in the Research, Evaluation, and Measurement
Program. She is the 2018 winner of AERA’s Mid-Career Scholar of Color
Award and the 2018 winner of AERA’s Mentoring Award from Division G:
Social Context of Education. Her co-authored text with Kent Gillen, Power,
Race, and Higher Education: A Cross-Cultural Parallel Narrative has won a 2017
Outstanding Publication Award from AERA (SIG 168) and a 2018 Outstand-
ing Book Award from International Congress of Qualitative Research. She
is recognized by Diverse magazine as one of the top 25 women in higher
education.
Derrick R. Brooms, PhD, is faculty in Sociology and Africana Studies at the
University of Cincinnati and serves as a youth worker as well. His research
and activism focuses on educational equity, race and racism, diversity and
inclusion, and identity. His education research primarily centers on Black
men and boys’ pathways to and through college as well as on their engage-
ment on campus and identity development. He is author of Being Black,
Being Male on Campus, is founding book series editor of “Critical Race
Studies in Education” for SUNY Press, and has been acknowledged for his
community service, diversity work, and mentoring.
Jelisa S. Clark, PhD, earned her doctorate in Applied Sociology from the
University of Louisville and is currently an adjunct assistant professor at
Fayetteville State University. During her graduate studies Dr. Clark was the
recipient of the Southern Regional Educational Board Doctoral Fellowship.
Her research and teaching are focused on the intersection of race and gen-
der in education. She is a co-author of Empowering Men of Color on Campus:
Building Student Community in Higher Education, which examines how Men
of Color negotiate college through their participation in a male success
program.
Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores, PhD, is an independent activist researcher. He is
the recipient of the 2019 AERA’s Minority Dissertation Fellowship. His
research is informed by decolonial, hermeneutic, curriculum, and collective
action theory. He has a particular interest in Latin American student move-
ments and the ways in which student activists construct political identities,
xii Author biographies
knowledges, pedagogies, and practices of resistance within and beyond the
university. His dissertation is titled “A Critical Ethnography of University
Student Activism in Postcoup Honduras: Knowledges, Social Practices of
Resistance, and the Democratization/Decolonization of the University.”
Tanetha Grosland, PhD, is an assistant professor of Educational Leadership
and Policy Studies at the University of South Florida. She uses critical/
poststructural theory to research policy and political narratives in educa-
tion. Her principal focus chronicles these concerning emotion, emotion
rhetoric, and critical educators’ everyday political and policy experiences.
She has published articles in the Journal of Education Policy; Race Ethnicity and
Education; and a co-edited book on Feminism and Intersectionality in Academia:
Women’s Narratives and Experiences in Higher Education.
Ada Haynes, PhD, is an award-winning professor of Sociology and the Co-
Director for the Center for Assessment and Improvement of Learning at
Tennessee Tech University. Her research agenda includes diversity, cultural
studies, gender, immigration, social justice, equity in science, technology,
engineering, mathematics education, and critical thinking. Several of her
research projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation.
She is the author of Poverty in Central Appalachia: Underdevelopment and
Exploitation.
Belén Hernando-Lloréns, PhD, is an assistant professor in Teacher Educa-
tion at San Diego State University. Her scholarship explores the historical
production of racial and linguistic diversity as a pedagogical problem, in the
US and in Spain. Her research is located at the intersection of curriculum
studies, cultural studies, and race and critical language studies in education.
Her research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council and
the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School, among other insti-
tutions. Her dissertation received the AERA-Division D Exemplary Work
from Promising Scholars. Her work has been published in Curriculum Inquiry
and Journal of Curriculum Studies.
Kip Austin Hinton, PhD, is an associate professor in the Bilingual and Lit-
eracy Studies Department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
He conducts empirical and theoretical research on educational equity, bor-
derlands, race, and multiliteracies. He is especially interested in academic
and non-academic work to improve universities’ support for undocumented
immigrant students.
Petar Jandrić, PhD, is professor at the Zagreb University of Applied Sci-
ences, Croatia, and Visiting Professor at the University of Wolverhampton,
UK, previously at Croatian Academic and Research Network, National
e-Science Centre at the University of Edinburgh, Glasgow School of Art,
and Cass School of Education at the University of East London. Petar’s
research interests are situated at the post-disciplinary intersections between
 Author biographies xiii
technologies, pedagogies and the society, and research methodologies of his
choice are inter-, trans-, and anti-disciplinarity. He is Editor-in-Chief of
Postdigital Science and Education journal and book series.
Elizabeth K. Jeffers, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Educa-
tion at the University of New Orleans. For close to a decade, she taught
in New Orleans public schools, and in this role, she worked with com-
munity organizations for the return of locally governed, community-based
public schools. As such, her scholarship focuses on collaborative and ethi-
cal research methodologies, racial equity and school choice, and culturally
relevant and sustaining school leadership development.
Korina M. Jocson, PhD, is an associate professor of education at the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research focuses on youth litera-
cies (inclusive of media culture and technology), critical social inquiry, and
equity issues in education. She is the author of Youth Media Matters: Participa-
tory Cultures and Literacies in Education and Youth Poets: Empowering Literacies
in and out of Schools.
Lamar L. Johnson, PhD, is an associate professor of language and literacy
for linguistic and racial justice in the Department of English at Michigan
State University. His work explores the intricate intersections of language,
literacy, anti-Black racism, Blackness, and education. He was the recipi-
ent of the 2017 Promising Researcher Award, the recipient of the 2018
Edwin M. Hopkins Award, and 2019 honorable mention for the Alan C.
Purves Award, all through the National Council of Teachers of English. His
co-edited book with Drs. Gloria Boutte, Gwenda Greene, and Dywanna
Smith, African Diaspora Literacy: The Heart of Transformation in K-12 Schools
and Teacher Education, is published with Lexington Books and received the
2019 Critics’ Choice Book Award for the American Educational Studies
Association.
Jacob Kelley is a PhD student in the Department of Educational Foundations,
Leadership, and Technology at Auburn University. His research focuses on
teaching and learning in higher education. He has facilitated a number of
initiatives aimed at reimagining higher education as more just for all. He is
committed to the use of research methods that promote trust and dignity.
Tricia Kress, PhD, is an associate professor in the Educational Leadership for
Diverse Learning Communities EdD program at Molloy College in Rock-
ville Centre, NY. Her research uses critical pedagogy, cultural sociology,
and autoethnography to rethink teaching, learning, and research in urban
schools. She has authored or edited several books including Critical Praxis
Research (Springer 2011) and Paulo Freire’s Intellectual Roots (Bloomsbury,
2013, winner of Society of Professors of Education 2014 Book Award.) She
co-edits two book series on critical pedagogy and imagination for Brill/
Sense Publishers and DIO Press.
xiv Author biographies
Robert Lake, PhD, is a professor at Georgia Southern University in States-
boro, GA. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in curriculum
studies and multicultural education. Robert is the author of (2012) Vygotsky
on Education: Peter Lang and (2013) A Curriculum of Imagination in an Era of
Standardization: An Imaginative Dialogue with Maxine Greene and Paulo Freire:
Information Age. He is a co-editor with Tricia Kress of Imagination and Praxis:
Criticality and Creativity in Education and Educational Research with Brill/Sense
Publishers and Transformative Imaginings: Critical Visions for the Past-Present-
Future of Education with DIO Press.
David F. LaViscount, PhD, is a principal of a public charter school in New
Orleans, Louisiana. He received a PhD in Educational Administration from
the University of New Orleans in 2019. His dissertation, Inside the Black
Box of Mentoring: African-American Adolescents, Youth Mentoring, and Stereotype
Threat Conditions, explored the mentoring experiences of African Ameri-
can youth. His work focuses on the experiences of African American stu-
dents, Blackness, school environments, educational leadership, and research
methodologies.
Alice Y. Lee, PhD, is an assistant professor of critical literacy in the Graduate
School of Education at University of California – Riverside. Her research
focuses on the raciolinguistic life experiences of teachers, and how such
experiences are embodied into pedagogy. She employs this lens to inter-
rogate the continued maltreatment of Black Language speakers, particularly
early childhood and elementary-aged children. She also applies her work
toward teacher selection, recruitment, and education in efforts to diver-
sify the teacher workforce. Her work has been supported by the Spencer
Foundation, and published in The Reading Teacher, Language Arts Journal of
Michigan, and Talking Points.
Amos J. Lee, PhD, is an assistant professor of teaching in the Graduate School
of Education at University of California – Riverside. As a former school
teacher in urban schools, his research investigates the intersection of race and
space in the ongoing struggle over school desegregation. He employs criti-
cal race frameworks to expose and examine race-based inequities embedded
within school of choice policies and practices. His work has been published
in Humanities, Journal of Curriculum Studies Research, and in the edited vol-
ume Literacy Research Methodologies.
Yin Lam Lee-Johnson, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Edu-
cation at Webster University, St. Louis, MO. She is the Doctor of Educa-
tion (EdD) Program Director and Co-Director of a $2.7 million National
Professional Development Grant from the US Department of Education’s
Office of English Language Acquisition. She received the Women of Web-
ster Award in 2016–17 and is a guest editor of Journal of Asian Pacific Commu-
nication’s 2021 special issue on Preparing Teachers for Addressing the Sociocultural
Issues with Asian
 Author biographies xv
Pacific Immigrants and Refugees. Her research interests include discourse analysis,
rights of immigrants and refugees, intersectionality, and critical pedagogy.
Tyson E. Lewis, PhD, is a professor of art education in the College of
Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas where he teaches
courses in critical theory, phenomenological research methods, educational
philosophy, and aesthetics. He is author of numerous articles and books,
including Walter Benjamin’s Anti-Fascist Education: From Riddles to Radio
(SUNY Press, 2020), and is co-editor of the book series Radical Politics
and Education for Bloomsbury Press (www.bloomsbury.com/us/series/
radical-politics-and-education/).
Cheryl E. Matias, PhD, is a full professor in the College of Education at Uni-
versity of Kentucky and recently was awarded the 2020 American Educa-
tion Research Association Division K Mid-Career Award. In 2018, she was
recognized in Diverse as the top 40 women making a difference in higher
education. Employing critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, and
feminism of color, her research focuses on the emotionality of whiteness in
teacher education and supporting women and motherscholars in academia.
She’s the author of Feeling White and editor of Surviving Becky(s). While a
book series editor on social justice and education for W.W. Horton Books
and an associate editor for the journal Educational Studies, she’s also a moth-
erscholar of three, Lakers fan, and bachatera.
Courtney Mauldin, PhD, is an assistant professor in Teaching and Leader-
ship at Syracuse University where she teaches courses focused on Cur-
riculum and Instructional Leadership as well as Equity and Excellence in
Educational Leadership. Her research prioritizes investigating the absence of
youth voices in educational leadership with attention to centering elemen-
tary youth voices of color with the use of transdisciplinary frameworks and
arts-based methodologies.
Sarah McDonald is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at the Uni-
versity of South Australia. Her doctoral research focuses on how the inter-
section between gender and class interacts with higher education, and how
this interaction impacts upon the construction of feminine identities for
young women transitioning into university. She is interested in gendered
subjectivities, social mobility, social barriers, and inequalities in education.
Socorro Morales (she/her), PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department
of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Texas at
San Antonio. Her scholarship intersects critical race theory, Chicana/Latina
feminisms, and critical youth studies in examining the ways that young Lati-
nas resist oppressive spaces, including schools. She is also a Visiting Scholar
with the Center for Critical Race Studies in Education (CCRSE) at UCLA.
Alcione N. Ostorga, PhD, is a professor in the Bilingual and Literacy Stud-
ies Department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She teaches
xvi Author biographies
undergraduate and graduate courses in the Bilingual Education program.
Her scholarly work focuses on researching border pedagogies to address
contextual mitigating factors in the identity development of Latinx teacher
candidates, such as ways to help them mediate the intersections between
their cultural and professional identities. These may include specific pedago-
gies for developing teacher agency, and the use of translanguaging pedagogies
to foster bilingual and professional development.
Lee Melvin Peralta is a PhD student in curriculum, instruction, and teacher
education at Michigan State University and is also pursuing a master’s in
probability and statistics. His research agenda includes studying the implica-
tions of aesthetics, Indigenous thinking, new materialism, and ecocritical
perspectives for teaching and learning quantity and number across the cur-
riculum. Formerly, he taught middle school mathematics in New York City.
LaSonja Roberts, PhD, is an assistant professor of educational leadership at
Western Michigan University. She has had the privilege to serve as a teacher,
administrator, and district and university consultant in California, Missis-
sippi, and Florida. Her research agenda focuses on leader preparation and
retention, specifically a leader’s ability to create environments that foster
learning and well-being for educators and students.
Gardner Seawright, PhD, is a middle school social studies teacher at the
Prairie School in Wisconsin, and an associate lecturer in the Institute of Pro-
fessional Educator Development at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside.
Gardner’s scholarship examines how white supremacy comes to bear on
classrooms. In particular, Gardner’s work explores student-teacher relation-
ships through the relationality and phenomenology of racial embodiment.
Gardner’s research also analyzes the possibilities and limitations of antiracist,
anti-colonial, and place-based social studies curricula in majority white con-
texts. Gardner’s work can be found in Educational Studies, the International
Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and numerous edited collections.
Garth Stahl, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Education at the
University of Queensland and a research fellow, Australian Research Coun-
cil (DECRA). His research interests lie on the nexus of neoliberalism and
socio-cultural studies of education, identity, equity/inequality, and social
change. Currently, his research projects encompass theoretical and empirical
studies of learner identities, gender and youth, sociology of schooling in a
neoliberal age, gendered subjectivities, and educational reform.
Michalinos Zembylas, PhD, is a professor of Educational Theory and Cur-
riculum Studies at the Open University of Cyprus and honorary professor,
Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson
Mandela University, South Africa. He has written extensively on emotion
and affect in relation to social justice pedagogies, intercultural and peace
education, human rights education, and citizenship education. His recent
 Author biographies xvii
books include: Critical Human Rights Education, and Socially Just Pedagogies in
Higher Education. In 2016, he received the Distinguished Researcher Award
in “Social Sciences and Humanities” from the Cyprus Research Promotion
Foundation.
Christian E. Zúñiga, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Bilingual and Lit-
eracy Studies Department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her
research focuses on teacher education and language policy, and how these
influence bilingual/biliteracy development for minoritized communities.
She is experienced with using organizational structures for data analysis as
well as using culturally relevant teaching and caring pedagogies.
Acknowledgments

Though my heart and soul are tired by racial injustice and COVID-19, I sur-
vive, moreover, thrive because unbeknownst during these pandemic, isolating
times, I finally had time to rethink and relearn what truly matters most.
Beyond pure elations of finally mustering the courage needed to leave the
familiarity of a toxic workplace only to be welcomed to the caring and respect-
ing open arms of another institution, I relearned how intensely I care about
cooperating with colleagues who are not insecure to the possibilities of criti-
cal cooperation. In this book, for example, authors are from all around the
world and instead of coldly delivering detached critiques in the isolation of
the academy and the pandemic, I reached out with love to my authors, offer-
ing sustenance (even if nominal), friendly human-based videos, friendship and
mentorship, and community. I honor your trust in my leadership abilities and
thank you profusely for your scholarship, relationship, and appreciation.
Amidst quarantining I was forced to ground myself. Though, literally speak-
ing, my once weekly flights from California to Colorado were grounded, the
grounding I speak of requires no flights. This grounding is thanks to my spiri-
tual and religious faith, my academic mentors and homies, my girlfriends in LA
and abroad, and even those who have gravely trespassed me. To the former
you ground me to who I truly am and what I stand for: education, justice, and
humanity. In my forever quest to bring the beat of a heart to research I emulate
you and try to pay all the kindness you’ve passed onto me, forward to others.
From your ceaseless recommendation letters, encouragement, late-night texts,
and deep conversations to our Marco Polos, you ground me with a smile every
day. To the latter, you remind me to never fall for deceptions or consume my
life with hate, lies, and insecurities. I forgive you because I am stronger, hap-
pier, and more loving than ever.
Finally, this pandemic made me relearn that despite the hate, partisan divi-
sion, and racist hateration during a US presidential election, at the crux of it
all is our humanity: closeness to those we love and care for. 2020 can go down
in infamy for multiple reasons but ’twas out of this darkness that many of us
saw the light. And for that I am thankful. For me, my mother’s heart attack
reminded me of how I need to relearn what it means to be a daughter to an
aging mother. My new position as a full professor and director reminded me of
 Acknowledgments xix
how I need to relearn my role and responsibilities to other scholars and, more
importantly, how I must lead as I wish I was led: with respect, love, and dignity.
Though we hear stories of other families strained from the 24-hour confine-
ment, I relearned how much I love to be with my children while also relearn-
ing healthier ways to be at peace alone. Thank you, pamilya, for helping me live
and breathe hope and humanity every day, especially while bearing witness to
the inhumanity of it all.
Preface
“Researching under the mortal realities
of pandemic life”
Cheryl E. Matias

Though naysayers argue objectivity is necessary for valid educational research

they forget, much like blind religious followers, that the research (and the
bible) are still written down by human beings wrought with fallacies, com-
plexities, and socialized identities. And, within this revelation, research and the
bible, for that matter, can never be divorced from those subjectivities. Clearly,
the research and researcher are one. Presuming out-of-body/consciousness/
subjective experience when conducting research is absurd. Yet, the pomposity,
narcissism, and entitlement for one to claim objectivity amidst social identi-
ties that are always entangled within complex social structures is nothing but a
blatant attempt, as historians would argue, to ordain oneself as the master nar-
rator. Eerily, when metaphorically comparing to religion, this Hidalguismo
(see Rimonte, 1997), or self-presumption of God-like status, then forces upon
the field impossible guidelines of what constitutes valid research as oppose to
what is not. So, metaphorically speaking, the gates of research Heaven, in this
sense, become nothing more than a gatekeeper monitored by blasphemous
narcissists.
As dramatic as these opening words are I write with grave urgency because
as scholars defend educational research that honors social justice, racial jus-
tice, criticality, and humanity, we do so amidst surviving a global pandemic
(COVID-19) and worldwide racial injustice. We, as a society, watched a Black
man’s life be taken away in eight minutes and forty-six seconds.1 We watched
the murder of a Black women as she slept silently in her bed.2 As of Janu-
ary 2021, we bore witness to 359,849 COVID-19 related deaths in the US.3
Thus, my dramatics are not for dramatics’ sake. Indeed, my words of passion
and urgency are nonetheless emblematic of this apocalyptic era, a time where
my authors and I struggled to journey together in this endeavor. Therefore, I
honor my contributing authors by recognizing the sacrifices they made with
their family inclusive of a lack of childcare, existential crises of our morality,
and uncertainty of our futurity during COVID-19 to write, edit, revise, and
present these chapters. I honor the field of educational research, hoping it
will forever include critical theoretical research methods as a viable, respected
approach to research. And, I honor researchers who will continue to honor
 Preface xxi
dignity and humanity embedded in research long after these pandemics. With
these precursors I, along with my contributing authors, present The Handbook
of Critical Theoretical Research Methods in Education.

Notes
1 www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html
2 www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html
3 www.covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days

Reference
Rimonte, N. (1997). Colonialism’s legacy: The inferiorizing of the Filipino. In M. Roots
(Ed.), Filipino Americans (pp. 39–61). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Introduction
Cheryl E. Matias

Researching educational research

The frequent trope in educational research is to narrowly conceive theory
as strictly an epistemological stance that undergirds a researcher’s framing of
empirically conducted studies. Though well received and commonly employed
in this manner, theory, in this strict application, becomes an abstract framing
at best; one that is used only to analyze and make sense of empirically col-
lected data. However, there is much more to theory than meets the eye, yet,
unfortunately, there are many educational researchers who may not have had
the exposure or access to coursework that better explains theory’s expansive
employment. Instead of conceptualizing theory in reductive ways, merely used
to interpretate and analyze data, thinking of theory anew creates expanded
possibilities for educational research. Specifically, to spark our intellectual curi-
osities, let us reconsider, more precisely, reimagine, how theory is not just
epistemological or ideological framings, but perhaps, a method for research in
and of itself. What?! Theory as method?! This sociological imagination of theory
and methods qua Mills (1959/2000) has been entertained by other disciplines
like sociology for some time. Morrow (1994), for instance, offers critical the-
ory and methodology as a process by which disciplines like communications,
sociology, and political science can reimagine their use of theory as methods.
Sandoval (2000) provides the discipline of ethnic studies a methodology of the
oppressed, a research method that accounts for how People of Color experi-
ence racist colonial contexts. In education, Fine (2018) also pays homage to the
imagination in educational research arguing that in order to conduct socially
just educational research, researchers must widen their methodological imagi-
nation. Clearly, this imagination is not just an imagined reality. Indeed, it has
become a possibility.
As promising as this reimagination of theory as method in educational
research is, there are naysayers that usurp power and police what constitutes
validity in research via methods. These Grim Reapers, so to speak, kill the
imagination, offering to educational research prescriptive methodologies that,
oftentimes, do not meet the needs of diverse researchers or justice-oriented crit-
ical research (see for example Smith, 2013). Sadly, some prescriptive methods
2 Cheryl E. Matias
even recycle racism and white supremacy in research (Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva,
2008). Though seemingly logical to decry racist practices in research, the issue
perhaps is an ignorance, overlooking, or a misunderstanding of how methods
alone can be used as tools for racial domination, or for that matter, as tools
for domination period. In fact, in Kelley’s (2001) book titled, Yo’ Mama’s Dis-
funktional, he reveals how white sociologists who employed white methods of
research inadvertently engaged in racially biased findings in the study of the
corner street dozens. To Kelley, these white sociologists overlayed their racial
stereotypes and anti-Black bias when analyzing their findings from a study on
the street behavior of Black people. Even the great W.E.B. Du Bois (1903)
himself, godfather of sociological ethnography in education, could not escape
accusations of racial bias in his methods simply because he was Black and the
field was predominantly white; wrongly a scholar denied (see Morris, 2015).
That researchers of color refuse prescriptive methods that oftentimes produced
the very findings that promote eugenic racist science, or deficit social science,
is nothing new. What is new is that researchers of color and other diverse
researchers conducting justice-oriented educational research are tired of hav-
ing their research validity determined by methods that clearly do not speak
for them nor made by them. And, as they attempt to reclaim space within
educational research to offer new methods, new theories, or new asset-based
approaches to criticalize educational research, they, based on their identity
politics alone, are presumed incompetent (see Gutiérrez y Muh, Niemann,
González, & Harris, 2012) or, simply, mistreated for being researchers of color
(see Fasching-Varner, Albert, Mitchell, Allen, & Smith, 2015; Stanley, 2006),
much like how Du Bois was treated years prior.

This hidden curriculum of empiricism in

educational research
The question then is who or, more poignant to the spirit of initial revealing,
what ideological movement undergirds the reasonings as to why gatekeepers feel
compelled to police the field of educational research in ways that then redefine
valid research through methods? The answer, oftentimes masked like a hidden
curriculum of educational research, is the ideological birth of empiricism, not to
be confused with empirical. Like empirical research, empiricism presses upon
the field the usage and importance of positivistic and behaviorist methodolo-
gies in educational research. The idea of empirical data collection as a means
for answering research inquiries is empiricism’s guiding principle. However,
that is not the issue I take up. What distinguishes the epistemological under
link of empiricism from traditional empirical approaches is that empiricism
presumes that those approaches alone are considered the only valid approaches
to educational research, rendering everything else nonscientific. Though her-
alding “scientific” approaches is nothing new in educational research, its resur-
gence, much like the resurgence of white nationalism in the US, is taking swift
prominence and because of that swiftness, researchers and the nation alike are
 Introduction 3
frightfully unaware as to the consequences of its growing presence. Be it as it
may, the presence of empiricism, not to be confused with empirical, severely
limits what is and what is not formidable research. This ideological movement
is of grave importance because as it gains prominence in educational research,
it also redefines underlying principles that inadvertently dictate publish-ability,
tenure and promotion, and academic recognition. Essentially, empiricism sets
the basis for which manuscripts, tenure, and promotion can be denied simply
because they’re “not empirical enough.” Refusal to recognize this ideological
transition is to refuse to see the canary in the coalmine. For if education shuts
out theoretical methods it also shuts out the ideological, philosophical, and
theoretical prowess brought forth by scholars like John Dewey (1923/2020),
Paulo Freire (1970/1992), and Henry Giroux (1988). Frankly speaking, who
did they interview?
To get at the elephant in the room of educational research, empiricism is
made possible by empiricists, claiming that theory cannot expand beyond its
abstract epistemological limitations. By empiricist, I again do not mean empiri-
cal researchers. Alas, I too, at times, am a qualitative empirical researcher thanks
to my UCLA doctoral training via Fred Erickson and Kris Gutiérrez. Unlike
empirical researchers, empiricists believe the validity of educational research
is measured predominately by the study’s alignment to positivism and have an
agenda to push this definition as the definition of what constitutes good or valid
research, whether conscious of that agenda. They self-appoint themselves as
research gatekeepers who work within dominant power structures to delegiti-
mize theoretical educational research in ways that silence theoretical research
often conducted by scholars, many of whom are women, motherscholars (see
Matias & Nishi, 2018), Black, Indigenous, People of Color, or of other mar-
ginalized identities. To echo the metaphor in the Preface, empiricists wrong-
fully presume themselves Gods of research by bending, twisting, and perverting
research, findings, and methods all to produce an outcome that severely limits
the theoretical possibilities of diverse scholars and scholarship. To put it clearly,
although white men, and some white women, have had the opportunity to
theorize education in ways that make educational researchers think, practice,
and test anew, this latitude is not afforded to scholars of color, particularly for
women scholars of color. Herein lies my caution to educational research; if we,
as researchers, believe in diverse perspectives, approaches, and ideas then we
must take to task the overwhelming presence of empiricism brought forth by
empiricists.
To illuminate the portraiture of an empiricist I share a counterstory of the
tenure process of a woman professor of color who is known for her radical
scholarship on race. This portraiture paints how empiricist and empiricism
operate alongside dominating ideologies of white supremacy and patriarchy.
During her tenure process one white woman administrator took it upon herself
to write a tenure letter that looked starkly different from any other letter so writ-
ten by her before. In this tenure letter, the white administrator refuted external
reviewers’ accolades for the scholar’s work (many of whom were internationally
4 Cheryl E. Matias
reputable scholars), claiming she knew more about the topic of race and white-
ness than they, a common practice in whiteness (see Matias & Newlove, 2017).
As aforementioned, she narcissistically self-presumed herself to be the “white”
expert (see Miller & Josephs, 2009) despite never having published on the topic
before nor having earned a PhD. To prove her “expertise” this white woman’s
tenure letter ended with two to three pages of references, an odd occurrence in
tenure letter writing. However, what is more interesting is that this empiricist
made multiple attempts to discredit theoretical research.
First, she claimed there were no methods or validity in theoretical research
or critical race theory despite the facts that the largest, most premier pro-
fessional educational research organization, American Educational Research
Association (AERA), issued a 2009 memorandum1 to honor what they coin
humanities-oriented research and the entire field of critical race theory pro-
motes the method of counterstories (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). After argu-
ing the scholar had no methods in her scholarship, the white administrator
then doubled back and argued that the scholar’s method of counterstories
were invalid methodological approaches, an exemplification of how colorblind
racism works via rhetorical incoherence (Bonilla-silva, 2006). Was it that the
scholar had no methods or that the methods that the scholar used were not
to her liking? Or, more critically, that this white administrator was exerting
her power of whiteness to be the Determiner (with a capital D) or gatekeeper
of educational research based on her white fragility (DiAngelo, 2018)? The
white administrator claiming that the scholar in question, a woman of color
who studied race, was not conducting research simply because the scholar also
embedded her own experiences with racism, is a blatant form of racism and
sexism. Indeed, scholars have always drew from their own experiences to help
frame their analyses, but when it came to this particular woman of color, this
administrator refused to acknowledge the scholar’s stories. In fact, in a twisted
sense of reality, this white woman administrator then used Black female novel-
ist, Chimamanda Adichie’s 2009 TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story”2 to
refute the scholar’s scholarship of whiteness and racism inside the overwhelm-
ing presence of whiteness in teacher education (see Sleeter, 2001, 2016, 2017).
Essentially, this white administrator asserted her white entitlement by taking
liberties that are not her own to reappropriate Adichie’s talk. Clearly, Adichie
argues that the real danger of a single story is the British white narrative that
silences stories from Black, Nigerian, and other women of color. Instead of
honoring Adichie’s message, this white administrator perverted the message,
claiming the real danger of a single story is honoring the story of this woman
scholar of color whose scholarship details her experiences of racism inside
white academia. Essentially, this white administrator co-opted civil rights,
decolonial and critical race terminologies and concepts designed to affirm the
voices of marginalized people in order to reaffirm whiteness (see Matias &
Newlove, 2017). And she did this by usurping the power to determine what
are appropriate and inappropriate methods to educational research. However,
empiricist ideology does not end there.
 Introduction 5
To exemplify the interconnectivity of narcissism and empiricist ideology, I
continue with this counterstory. As if refuting the scholar’s approach to meth-
ods alone was not enough, this white administrator again draws from empiricist
ideology, presuming she knows the proper methods to conduct said research. In
fact, she again takes liberties not of her own and disregards the external experts
advising the scholar that her scholarship must adhere to more traditional meth-
ods in the study of whiteness. Pretending that she knows what those traditional
methods are, she wrongfully presumes that traditional whiteness scholars, like
Peggy McIntosh (1990) herself, interviewed individuals in her now famous
invisible knapsack publication. Though the entire scenario is problematic, the
focus here is how the white administrator draws from an empiricist ideological
frame to undergird her decisions about what constitutes valid methods in edu-
cational research that then informs a scholar’s tenure. Clearly, methods become
more than tools simply used to conduct research; for an empiricist with power,
it becomes an ideological justification to deny tenure.
Returning to the counterstory, this empiricist gatekeeper can continue to
assert her power and domination through controlling what constitutes valid
methods in educational research. In this story, to stamp out theoretical research
altogether, this white administrator uses her administrative powers to force fac-
ulty to revise the tenure and promotion rubric. However, this time she pays
particular attention to ensuring that the research to be counted towards tenure
and promotion must be defined as empirical research only. Or, as she notes
through an asterisk on the rubric, research that is “based on, concerned with,
or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory.” By such standard
Dewey himself would have never earned tenure there.
I share this counterstory to illuminate how an empiricist, indoctrinated by
empiricism, can wield power in ways that, in the end, whether conscious,
still maintains racism and sexism, and much more. Suffice it to say that as
empiricists take a methodological side-step (see Matias, 2019) by limiting what
constitutes valid research, particularly to scholarship that directly addresses rac-
ism and whiteness, they uphold white supremacist patriarchy in educational
research. Limiting who can conduct theoretical research, what constitutes valid
research, and what is considered worthwhile methodological scholarship, as
means to falsely promote rigorous methodological educational research, only
destroys the possibilities and intellectual imagination for research itself. “For
even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14) inas-
much as the presumed angelic ideal of methodological rigor and objectivity in
educational research, let alone education writ large, is a devilish disguise that
murders the hope of justice in education research. In order to steer clear from
sins of empiricism this handbook presents methods anew.

Introduction of theoretical methods

Moving beyond empiricism’s limited imagination of theory, this handbook
approaches theory as a method for doing critical theoretical research in
6 Cheryl E. Matias
education. The book addresses three main questions: (1) How does theory
operate as a methodological approach for doing theoretical research? (2) What
theories can be utilized as research methods? (3) What insights do theoreti-
cal research, rooted in theoretical research methods, provide to education
that non-theoretical research often fails to grasp? While there may be a wide
number of ways to do theoretical research, we, myself and my contributing
authors, focus on critical theoretical research because we connect such research
to emancipatory counter-ideologies. Meaning, research and how we research
is a political project not presuming itself to be neutral. Drawing from various
scholars in education, this handbook identifies the theoretical methodologies
and applications of theories like critical race hermeneutics, phenomenology,
dialogism, and sociogenic methods (to name a few). We do this to provide the
discipline of education new and old ways of engaging theorizing such that we
can better understand the educational context of today.
For example, in providing new ways to think about how whiteness contin-
ues to manifest in teacher education despite Sleeter’s (2001) warning of the
problem 20 years ago, my own scholarship went head to head with empiricism.
Traditionally, research in teacher education focuses on K-12 teaching practices
and utilizes traditional qualitative or quantitative methods to investigate effec-
tive teaching practices. Though I am sensitive to these approaches and have
applied them before, my research as a racially just teacher educator focuses on
how to engage in racially just education, specifically in teaching and teacher
education. Applying critical race theory (CRT) and critical whiteness stud-
ies, which I now strategically opt for a critical study of whiteness (see Matias,
forthcoming), I knew that interviewing, canvasing, surveying, or observing
alone would not be enough to capture how whiteness works in almost invis-
ible ways, especially when whiteness plays a major role in why racial justice in
education rarely happens (see Sleeter, 2016, 2017). With respect to CRT I was
not invested in determining to what extent racism happens in education more
so than knowing it already does; for CRT already acknowledges the perme-
ance of race (see Bell, 1992). Therefore, proving racism in education is a moot
point for CRT researchers. Also, demanding I empirically prove racism exists
in teaching is as stupid as drawing from the theory of relativity to re-prove
that gravity works. By employing CRT in my research, I already acknowledge
proven theorems of race and thus find it a waste of time to conduct studies that
lead to findings that prove that which has already been proven. Furthermore,
when applying a critical study of whiteness to my research I was not preoc-
cupied with finding ways to make whites aware of their racism because as this
approach attends, they are very aware and resort to ignorance as a way to relin-
quish culpability of racist behaviors (see Mills, 1997). I am not a researcher who
is transfixed on helping white people with race more so than revealing race as a
white problem. As such, why would I conduct studies that identify the ways in
which whites can be racist in teaching if by virtue of a critical study of white-
ness, their white privilege, whether conscious, always makes them antiracist
white racists at best (see Allen, 2004). I’m more preoccupied as to why whites
 Introduction 7
might continue to invest in whiteness in education and how it embeds itself in
one’s psyche.
Adding to my skepticism of which research method to employ, is Bonilla-
Silva (2006) claims that whites, many of who populated the field of education,
are masterful when talking about race, regardless to ever mentioning the word
race. For me this meant something quite specific to the field of teaching. In my
pilot studies, and my experiences as a former classroom K-12 teacher in both
Los Angeles Unified School District and New York Department of Education,
I knew all too well that people, particularly teachers, many of whom are white,
have already memorized the pageant answer for antiracist teaching. They sing
the tune of committing to culturally responsive teaching, mouth the words of
antiracism and justice in education, and get jiggy with hums of antiracist move-
ments, book clubs, and, in honor of COVID-19 times, webinars. Therefore,
a method whereby I simply ask participants about racism or whiteness would
never get at the crux of how they operate within the subconscious, or maybe
even conscious, mindsets of people. Plainly, let’s be real. No one ever cops up
to being racist because folks already have learned all the necessary words they
need to know to pretend that they are not. In fact, all a person had to say was
“it was not my intention” to release accountability for their racist behaviors. I
was at a methodological standstill.
To get at the crux of my research inquiries, using the theories that I employ,
I had to rethink what constitutes methods in research in teaching and teacher
education. I didn’t need to observe K-12 students. I needed to observe the
mindsets of teachers and teacher educators. I needed to understand why they
think the way they do, what reasonings they apply to justify their behaviors
or discourse, and to theorize why they came to be this way. All of which
informs how they teach and how they resist or apply racial justice in teaching.
Therefore, I leaned towards theoretical methods of research. From Cheng’s
(2000) or Fanon’s (1967) racial psychoanalysis, critical hermeneutics of white-
ness (Leonardo, 2003, 2016), or racial phenomenology (Yancy, 2008), I needed
new methods to successfully theorize why teachers and teacher educators are
resolute on holding onto whiteness in teacher education, despite knowing
it is a problem for the field. Much like a person’s compulsion to eat while
stressed, engaging in whiteness while knowing it is probably not the healthiest
response to a condition becomes a psychosocial condition that embeds itself
into one’s psyche in ways that manifest in that person’s behaviors. Therefore,
studying whiteness is not about a person’s intent, as one oftentimes refers to
when exposing racism.
With theoretical methods, what constitutes data, findings, or even the
research inquiries themselves are redefined. To exemplify this, I apply this
research inquiry to my own scholarship; how does one collect a psyche? Obvi-
ously, one cannot. However, the data in theoretical approaches expands educa-
tional research because data in this sense is not necessarily something that can
be collected, more so than experienced or observed. That is, if we as social
scientists are trained to identify social patterns in society, then collecting those
8 Cheryl E. Matias
patterns is near to impossible. Or, applied to my scholarship, the consistency
of crying, defensiveness, denial, anger, and even frozenness are all emotional
patterns that routinely surface when engaging in race in education, a data quite
observable in any field. I need not collect. Theoretical methods provided me
an expanded definition of what constitutes data worthy for examination for the
purpose of critical educational research. For Dewey (1923) and Freire (1993),
“data” was bearing witness to society itself. Similarly, instead of, as a critical
study of whiteness so dictates, bearing false witness to the manifestations of race
in society, my research hones in on emotional patterns of race and whiteness
in society, particularly in teacher education (see Matias, 2016). Essentially, this
approach cannot turn a blind eye or choose to ignore reality for the sake of
one’s emotional comfort. In this sense data becomes a living, breathing testa-
ment of socially live reality, often denied credence based on the viewer’s mar-
ginalized identity, demonstrated by belittling comments like “that’s just your
experience” or “you’re being too sensitive.”
Additionally, findings, under a theoretical methodological approach, are also
expanded. Instead of renderings that are tied to a particular study, at a particular
time and location, findings under theoretical methods becomes lasting theo-
ries or interpretations of patterned phenomena. They apply continuously until
proven false. In this way, theoretical findings are much like other disciplines
where a theorem is proven until it is not. And that, in and of itself, makes
research sexy. Meaning, the findings under theoretical methods continuously
attract us to the meanings of things that oftentimes render traditional findings so
resolute and finite. Applied to my scholarship, I theorize the emotionalities of
whiteness and how they may perhaps be a viable culprit as to why whiteness
persists in teacher education (see Matias, 2016, 2020). Or, more poignantly
stated, why teacher education and teaching in general, a field predominated
by whites, may emotionally refuse to let go of whiteness in teaching and edu-
cation. Perhaps, they, like my scholarship has theorized, are too emotionally
invested in whiteness in ways that has defined their identities as teachers and
as human beings. And, ergo, letting go of whiteness may mean a deeper, more
traumatic process of letting go of that which they truly believe they are, but
never actually were (see Matias & Allen, 2013).
Even the development of research inquiries change shape under theoreti-
cal methods. As aforementioned, inquiries may not be preoccupied with the
extent to which something influences another if such factors are already proven
as influential. Thus, theoretical methods provide new ways of thinking how we
might question the world around us. I refuse to do traditional methods that do
not ask the necessary questions that dig deep into why one chooses to be racist
in teacher education. Instead, I ask what some may refuse to acknowledge is
a viable question. That as teacher education identifies whiteness as a problem
and knowing it is a field replete with white educators, why then is it that the
field refuses to address whiteness? This tickles my research fancy because ask-
ing it this way does not rely on simplistic, surface-leveled questions that almost
automatically are returned with kumbaya-esque, pageant-like answers that start
 Introduction 9
with songs of “I believe the children are the future.” Although I adore Whitney
Houston as a singer, as a critical researcher I am tired of hearing every rendi-
tion of how teachers, many of whom are white, love children, especially when
pedophiles love children too. Proclaiming love is not enough. Simply put,
theoretical methods tickle a researcher’s sociological imagination in education
research in ways that it has never been tickled before.
This was my research path, a path not so readily welcomed in teacher educa-
tion, especially when empiricists serve as gatekeepers of what is and what ain’t
teacher education research. One would think that since US teacher education
is preoccupied with improving teacher training to address the needs of racially
diverse student populations, it would readily welcome deeper research ques-
tions that excavate how deeply embedded racial biases came to be. Yet, in my
pomposity to presume that teacher education and all its members are ready
for racially just teaching, I realized many more teachers and teacher educators
have already thrived, excelled, and almost became martyrs within the existing
structure of whiteness in teacher education. How dare I critique a space that
others have made their home? Clearly, there were deeper problems not only to
my methods but what types of findings such methods would render.
On the surface employing theoretical methods in educational research were
evident, particularly during times when empiricism takes root. One, the push
towards empiricism has led teacher education to assume that only the studies
adhering to positivism present proper findings (Abdal-Haqq, 1998), a deci-
sion that impacts the careers of theoretical scholars and the field of theoreti-
cal research as seen in the previous counterstory. Two, this biased, empiricist
assumption regarding what is proper research in teacher education “could lead
the researcher to conclusions that present an incomplete or partial picture of an
environment” (Willis, Thompson, & Sadera, 1999, p. 32). Focusing on the lat-
ter, rendering empiricist research as the litmus test of what constitutes “proper”
research may ignore the implicit bias already at play in society; biases that the-
oretical research acknowledges. In fact, the American Educational Research
Association claims that humanities-oriented, otherwise theoretical research
“problematize[s] unrecognized assumptions, implications, and consequences
of various kinds of educational practice, policy, and research, as well as . . .
challenge[s] what these approaches take for granted as beyond questioning”
(p. 482). Therefore, dismissing theoretical research may, in the end, recycle
hegemonic power structures of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability,
and language that is taken for granted in society.
Notwithstanding this, I knew, though unpopular as it may be, that teacher
education deserves new methods to ferret out deeply embedded ideologies so
popularized in teaching that they become almost invisible. For example, ide-
ologies and rhetoric behind white teachers teaching in urban schools rich with
students of color are always imbued with notions of saviorism. To think the
contrary is too disconcerting. In fact, to prove this I shared the MadTV clip of
“Nice White Lady”3 to my predominantly white teacher candidates while at
Colorado as a counterstory of how unhealthy, dangerous, and racially biased
10 Cheryl E. Matias
white teachers can be to students and communities of color. Upon viewing
this, the scene was hysteria (see Rodriguez, 2009). The crying, anger, and
disbelief were just the emotional beginning, all of which led to complete dis-
crediting of any realization of whiteness in teaching. It was as if, for too long,
the ideology of whiteness in teaching was left unchecked, so much so that no
viable alternate schema of the way teaching works could ever take root. White-
ness, in this sense, became as natural as breathing air while racial justice in
teaching became tantamount to the unnatural ways of things. Clearly, to think
anew one must approach anew.

Critical theoretical research methods in education

In the hopes of thinking anew, especially with regards to justice and criti-
cality in educational research, this edited handbook explicitly details 21 new
approaches. Specifically, the book highlights various theories (their ideological
roots, its role in challenge systems of power, etc.), how they can be conceptualized
as method, and offers metacognitive examples of how such theories as methods
are applied to educational contexts. Additionally, each chapter pedagogically
weaves in what educational research looks like if such theories as methods
are not taken into consideration. In doing so, this book serves its purpose as a
handbook to assist other researchers in the application of theoretical research
methods to critical theoretical educational research. Chapter 1 explores the
ideological frames of critical race hermeneutics and, in applying it post disser-
tation study, reveals its potentiality of rendering different inquiries and findings
that help debunk white supremacy in educational research. Chapter 2 posits the
postdigital challenge where its methodological application can explicate hid-
den biases in how researchers understand technology in educational research.
Chapter 3 introduces sociogenic phenomenology as a theory and method that
centers Blackness in studies of educational leadership. Chapter 4 draws from Judith
Butler’s work to present a fused theory of biopower and political vulnerability
as a way to get at difficult conversations of race and emotions in teacher edu-
cation. Chapter 5 reconsiders critical race theory’s counterstorytelling as both
a theory and a method and applies it to how internalized whiteness ideology
inhabits the mindsets of People of Color, many of whom also believe them-
selves to be agents in racially just education. Chapter 6 offers a phenomenology
of racial embodiment as a theory and method to demonstrate how race operates in
the daily classroom practices of white teachers. Chapter 7 uses Fredric Jameson’s
Greimassian square and applies it to visually map a researcher’s research agenda
for educational research. Chapter 8 presents Par/Desi framework as a theory
and method to engage in decolonial education research, especially documented
in the intellectual growth of scholar identity. Chapter 9 revisits metasynthesis
to explicate how to better methodologically engage in the literature reviews of
critical bilingual educational research. Chapter 10 applies Karen Barad’s agen-
tial realism as a theory and method for researchers investigating social justice in
mathematic educational research.
 Introduction 11
Chapter 11 advances transgressive decolonial hermeneutics as theory and
method to more clearly understand educational research on international student
movements in higher education, especially with respects to student movements
in Honduras. Chapter 12 employs Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and, how
when applied as method, it provides greater insights in educational research on
student learner identities. Chapter 13 borrows from Bakhtin’s theory of dialo-
gism and assemblage to better understand YPAR and youth literacy educational
research. Chapter 14 merges critical race theory and spatial theory to present
critical race spatial method as a theoretical method to read race in mapping,
particularly in their application to understanding school choice policies in the
Champaign school district. Chapter 15 draws from Bakhtin’s theory of chrono-
tope to introduce critical chronotopic analysis and how its application to Teaching
English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teacher education ferrets out
embedded whitewashedness. Chapter 16 applies Joe Kincheloe and Shirley Stein-
berg’s notions of postformal theory as method to reveal how dominant ideology
embeds itself in educational research on Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in public
schools. Chapter 17 contends that the theory of Critical Race English Educa-
tion (CREE) can be used as a method to demonstrate how Black lives matter in
educational research on English education. Chapter 18 utilizes C. Wright Mill’s
sociological imagination as a method to prepare socially just student-researchers.
Chapter 19 applies the ideology of Unapologetic Black Inquiry (UBI) stemming
from various Black scholars as a method for educational research that documents
Black girls’ schooling experiences. Chapter 20 fuses poststructuralism and narra-
tive theory to present poststructural narrative theory that then can be applied as
a method for educational research in educational leadership, particularly for edu-
cational leadership studies that hones in on race, leadership, and fatigue. Finally,
Chapter 21 draws on postfoundational feminist researchers’ conceptualizations of
not-knowing as a method to explore a researcher’s journey in conducting educa-
tional research, specifically as applied to her study on convivencia as a technology of
modern governmentality in education in Spain.
Regardless to what theories they so choose, each chapter explicitly details
the intellectual lineage of the theory and its application as method to a subfield
of education, in order to pedagogically inform readers how to apply theory as
method in critical theoretical educational research. Readers come away with
an understanding of various theories and how they too can use such theories as
method in their own educational research. The hope of this handbook is mani-
fold. First, it seeks to provide examples that forever expand the methodological
imagination of educational research; one which never silences nor limits the
scopes and power of theory. Second, honoring the traditions of educational
pedagogy – for the sake of learning something anew – this book is written
to teach new and old researchers new pathways for educational research that
does not rely on or give credence to empiricist traditions. Finally, this book
was written in the time of COVID-19 and blatant racial distress. Amidst the
hopelessness and despair of these pandemics, one of which has resonated in
US society since its inception, we write because, after all, we are researchers
12 Cheryl E. Matias
continuing to improve the field of education with more humanizing, racially
just, and equitable research methods. We refuse to lay idly by as ideological
movements, like empiricism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, reaffirm the very
power structures that detrimentally “spirit-murders” our hope and humanity
(see Johnson & Bryan, 2017; Love, 2016; Williams, 1987). Our research is our
identities, our passions, and our commitments to our communities, and to
presume that the only valid research are those processes that strip away these
markers, especially in some pseudoscientific attempt for objectivity and rigor,
is nothing but fake news itself. So, in the spirit of educational professionalism,
research, and responsibility, we offer a way to think and approach anew in The
Handbook of Critical Theoretical Research Methods in Education.

Notes
1 www.aera.net/Portals/38/docs/481-486_09EDR09.pdf
2 www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?
language=en
3 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVF-nirSq5s&t=44s

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1 Critical race hermeneutics
A theoretical method for researching
the unconscious of white supremacy in
education
Ricky Lee Allen

Introduction
All human communication requires interpretation (Habermas, 1985). A per-
son initiating a linguistic exchange uses mechanical processes, mainly sounds
or movements, in an attempt to convey a particular message, with a certain
imagined meaning. Yet, they have no control over how the audience makes
meaning of the message. Individuals on the other side of a communicative
relationship receive sensory stimuli that their brain makes sense of through
language, which, as a symbolic representation of the world, may hide as much
as it reveals to the interpreter. Moreover, both parties have their own socially
and psychologically constructed desires, investments, and motives, which may
or not be apparent to one another, or even to themselves.
The same applies to academic research and those who engage in its dis-
cursive construction. As a venue for human communication, all educational
research is interpretive. Researchers endeavor to convey the meaning they
make of surveys, interviews, and bodies of research literature. They also engage
in conflicts over interpretation through their studies of social and education
phenomena, conflicts that drive subsequent research paradigms along with the
politics of research funding and publishing. Tensions over the racial meaning of
things are ever-present in the production of educational research, which takes
place in academic institutions that are organizationally divided not just along
racial identity lines but moreover into ideological camps that wage interpretive
battles over race.
For those in the educational research community, none of this is break-
ing news. Rather, it is the stuff of normal, everyday talk in the hallways and
offices of the academy. Thus, it is quite perplexing that educational research-
ers, who are clearly self-aware that they are immersed in daily struggles over
racial interpretation, do not place central importance on hermeneutics, which
is the study of the theories and methodologies of interpretation (Morrow &
Brown, 1994), in debates about research methodology. Broadly, hermeneuti-
cal scholars seek to reveal the presuppositions that guide interpretive processes
(Gallagher, 1992). Importantly, the field of hermeneutics, particularly in more
critical approaches, instructs us that interpreters are typically not conscious
of their hermeneutical presuppositions (Habermas, 1989), meaning that many
16 Ricky Lee Allen
tend to see interpretation as little more than “common sense” or “differences
of opinion.” Why is the avoidance of hermeneutics so pervasive, even among
those who might benefit from a critical study of it, such as those doing work
in critical studies of race? What are the consequences of avoiding the study of
hermeneutics in educational research, particularly as it relates to racial power?
Who benefits from the avoidance of a critical approach to the interpretation
of race in a white supremacist social system? Is this part of a white supremacist
academic desire to constrain racial interpretations for fear that a focus on a
critical version of a racial hermeneutics might let the proverbial “cat out of the
bag” in the production of educational research?
This chapter traces the intellectual lineage of hermeneutics, offers critical
race hermeneutics (CRH) as theory and methodology, and applies CRH to
education in ways that pedagogically models how researchers can engage in
educational research anew.

Background: hermeneutics and education

Generally speaking, the present-absence of the field of hermeneutics in edu-
cational research, a situation where hermeneutics is implicitly practiced by
everyone but explicitly addressed by almost no one, is concerning since the
field studies schooling, an institution predicated, consciously or not, on her-
meneutical theories and activities. In other words, hermeneutics in educational
research is out of sight, and out of mind, whether the research focuses on
race or not. Shaun Gallagher’s (1992) Hermeneutics and Education is one of the
few book-length theoretical studies of hermeneutics in educational theory and
practice. As Gallagher argues, schooling is fundamentally hermeneutical (see
also Leonardo, 2003). The everyday activities of schooling are largely based on
learning to interpret texts discursively, which can include making meaning of
written passages, mathematical equations, historical narratives, classroom dia-
logues, or everyday social interactions. Teachers act in ways to guide, or even
control, how students learn not only to interpret texts but also what counts
as “proper” meanings and “correct” interpretive approaches. Although race
and structural white supremacy are not Gallagher’s focus, it is easy to see how
educational control over interpretation is chained to white racial power. From
a critical lens, domination necessarily employs a hermeneutical imposition
that regulates the interpretive process, ensuring that meanings that support the
interests of the dominant group are legitimated over others (Leonardo, 2003;
Leonardo & Allen, 2008; Roseboro, 2008).
Gallagher’s discussion of the politics of hermeneutics in the classroom is
instructive, even if constrained by an inattention to structural white supremacy.
For example, Gallagher argues that conservative and moderate hermeneu-
tics are the two most common approaches used in schools. In conservative
hermeneutics, the educator teaches that the meaning-making process should
be focused on “accurately” arriving at the “original intent” of the author,
thus ascertaining the correct or commonly accepted interpretation (e.g., the
 Critical race hermeneutics 17
intent of the “Founding Fathers” when interpreting the U.S. Constitution
through an ideology of whiteness). Conservative hermeneutics often works
to persuade students to think of authors’ alleged intentions as the (racialized)
“natural order of things,” thus it often supports long-standing rationalizations
of social inequalities as just (e.g., rationalizing racial hierarchies). Or, educators
very often employ a moderate hermeneutics rooted in a phenomenological
approach that emphasizes the relative nature of interpretation. In this mode,
students are taught that interpretation is perspectival, that people have different
cultures and experiences that shape how they understand texts, and that the
goal of interpretation is to come to a consensus understanding, or a “fusing of
horizons,” for making sense of and, moreover, evaluating current social interac-
tions and group relations.
However, Gallagher fails to problematize how conservative and moderate
hermeneutics operate dialectically as the interpretive norm in schools, both
working together hegemonically to exclude and occlude critical approaches
to hermeneutics in the curriculum. In addition to an inattention to white
supremacy, Gallagher problematically supports a moderate hermeneutical
approach, one that leaves students without a sophisticated interpretation of
how oppressive social structures, such as white supremacy, work through the
nexus of discourse, ideology, and the unconscious in classroom and social dia-
logues. In fact, seemingly “open” dialogues rooted in moderate hermeneutics
often become sites of further repression and injury due to an intentional pur-
suit of “consensus” (i.e., social stability due to alleged “slow-but-steady prog-
ress”) over the more revolutionary desire to profoundly interrogate the racial
ideologies that constitute racial hierarchies, whether the dominant consent or
not (see Leonardo & Porter, 2010).
K-12 schools are not the only ones engaged in hermeneutical politics; so
are the colleges of education that research them. In the post-Civil Rights Era,
students and faculty of color have challenged research interpretations mired in
an ideology of whiteness, thus increasing hermeneutical conflicts over racial
meaning in the ivory tower (Collins, 1998). Sometimes those caught up in
interpretations driven by structural white supremacy attempt to negate those
making critical racial interpretations. Other times, those who are uncomfort-
able with critical racial interpretations become passive aggressive by becoming
an “enforcer” of the normative rules of research methodology. For example,
rather than more directly discussing their disagreement with the researcher’s
critical racial interpretations, they instead resort to pedantic attempts to dis-
credit the work by questioning the implementation of methods, such as sample
sizes, search schemes for literature reviews, interview protocol questions, etc.
(see Matias, 2019). While a critical race researcher’s work could benefit at times
from improved process details, the enforcer’s intense preoccupation with meth-
ods is not proportionally in step with the overall level of the detail’s importance
relative to other crucial aspects of the work, such as the racial insights that are
made. Also, a critical race scholar may be told by a qualitative researcher, for
example, that their critical race analyses are an “imposition on the data,” and
18 Ricky Lee Allen
thus on their participants, and not consistent with the subjectivist orientation
of qualitative methodology. In this scenario, the rhetorical move of invoking
the norms of methodology is an act that conceals the deeper problem around
theories of interpretation and the important role they play in maintaining
white supremacy through methodological silencing. Armed with a critical race
approach to hermeneutics in educational research, critical race scholars would
be more empowered to engage directly and meaningfully in methodological
conflicts that are fundamentally hermeneutical.
Moreover, much work is needed to develop a critical hermeneutical
approach to race studies. The established field of critical hermeneutics provides
many insights upon which to draw (Leonardo, 2004). Critical hermeneutics
developed out of the larger field of critical theory, an insightful paradigm that
developed in the 1930s (mainly to understand the rise of Nazism) that synthe-
sizes Marx’s approach to social structures, Freud’s notion of the unconscious,
and Weber’s insights into the rationalization of status hierarchies (Jay, 1996).
Critical hermeneutics seeks to intervene by exposing the problematic histori-
cal (and geographical) imaginaries often deployed to mystify interpretation
(Thompson, 1981). However, it suffers from an inattention to structural white
supremacy (see Allen, 2001; Leonardo, 2013; Mills, 1997). Conversely, while
critical race theory clearly makes structural white supremacy its focus, it has not
paid explicit attention to the field of hermeneutics, even though CRT often
works implicitly to systematically reinterpret the word and the world through
processes similar to critical hermeneutics. So, in this chapter I introduce critical
race hermeneutics (CRH), which uses critical race theory (CRT) to revise the
best aspects of critical hermeneutics, creating a methodology for the theoretical
study of race and white supremacy in education. In short, CRH is a study of
how communication is distorted by a white supremacist social structure, turn-
ing discursive exchanges into everyday forms of racialized material, psychic,
and symbolic violence. It seeks to show how language and communication
is a site of conflict and domination, a place where white supremacy not only
operates ideologically but also where the structure of white supremacy is, itself,
reproduced. CRH works to interpret, more so, reveal the unconscious of the
objective reality of white supremacy in subjective forms.

Introducing critical race hermeneutics as

a theoretical methodology
In 2010, I created a graduate course called “Theoretical Research” to address
two main issues. First, the American Educational Research Association (AERA)
had begun to demand a methodology statement in conference proposals for
theoretical scholarship. Second, the absence of a course on theoretical research
methodology was implicitly teaching graduate students in my department that
the only legitimate methodologies were the traditional empirical paradigms
(i.e., quantitative and qualitative), a common practice in most colleges of edu-
cation. Students wishing to do philosophical or theoretical dissertations had
 Critical race hermeneutics 19
no research methodology courses that aligned with their interests, effectively
diminishing the production of critical theoretical scholarship. I felt embold-
ened by AERA’s 2009 statement that outlines the legitimacy of theoretical
scholarship, so I decided to teach a course that would show how critical theory
can be practiced as a research methodology. I had been reluctant to teach criti-
cal theory as a methodology because I knew that it paid little, if any, atten-
tion to structural white supremacy and colonization (see Leonardo, 2013). Yet,
I also knew that my approach to doing theoretical scholarship on race was
greatly informed by critical theory, which I learned during my doctoral stud-
ies. As I taught the course, I quickly realized how central critical hermeneutics
was to students’ understanding of critical theoretical methodology. Many said
that it felt awakening and empowering, but I felt conflicted because I knew
that critical hermeneutics, despite its benefits, is racially problematic. Since I
am a scholar of CRT and critical whiteness studies, I could readily share with
students my race critiques of the readings and revised possibilities for applica-
tion to critical race studies. I wanted to have students read published literature
on hermeneutics and CRT, but CRT, as a field, had (and has) not developed
an explicit CRH body of literature. This chapter helps to fill this void. Due to
space constraints, it is more of a snapshot than a full treatment. Also, to main-
tain academic honesty, I will move back and forth between critical hermeneu-
tics and CRH to show the sources of my thinking.
Jürgen Habermas is the scholar most associated with critical hermeneutics.
His take on it links to the field of communication studies. He presupposes that
a theory of interpretation must recognize the centrality of communication to
the human experience. Rather than thinking of humanity as merely a collec-
tion of people, it can be meaningfully understood as a “dialogue,” one that
is, and has been, constructed time and again through countless communica-
tive actions (Habermas, 1985). Power and domination have tragically ruled
the quality of communicative actions of “humanity” in ways that dehumanize
and oppress, comprising what Freire (1970/1993) calls anti-dialogical action.
Emphasizing the historical role of race in human dialogue, CRH sees how
human experience is shaped by the power dynamics of communication in
global white supremacy, a regime where racialized anti-dialogical actions work
to reproduce the structure of racial hierarchies. CRH seeks to unveil racially
normative meaning making in dialogues controlled primarily by whiteness,
and secondarily by those with more relative power in racial status hierarchies.
Borrowing from Geuss’s (1981) description of critical hermeneutics, CRH is
about not only the alleged “proper” interpretation of racialized texts but also
the critical interrogation of the underlying presuppositions, theories, and onto-
logical claims that contextualize the politics of interpretive racial domination.
In critical hermeneutics, the primary belief is that interpretation is derived,
consciously or not, through how one theorizes history, that is, through the way
one imagines how social and political history is made (Geuss, 1981; Habermas,
1989). Critical hermeneutics grounds interpretation of texts in what sociology
refers to as conflict theory, rather than functionalist theory (see Feinberg &
20 Ricky Lee Allen
Soltis, 1998). Like critical hermeneutics, CRH believes that textual interpre-
tation is best understood through conflict theory, though one that sees white
supremacy as the historical (and geographical) context. Meaning making in a
white supremacist context is driven by how interpreters theorize the history of
racial hierarchy, how it came into being, how it changes or persists, and how it
creates dehumanizing conditions. But before discussing CRH’s conflict theory
composition, it is important to describe functionalism’s problematic approach
to racial history. From a functionalist lens, one akin to Gadamer’s (1989) popu-
lar approach to hermeneutics, society has had, or even has, racial problems, but
nevertheless it is essentially good and imagined to always be moving toward
racial progress. For example, a liberal functionalist interpreter may concede
that, yes, some bad things happened at the start of U.S. society, such as slavery
and genocide, but then rationalize that those things are in the past, and history
is about making slow but steady racial progress through tweaking institutions,
policies, and laws (Bell, 1992). In fact, many may claim to still be on board
with “racial justice.” This functionalist view of racial history, although seem-
ingly antiracist to some, is actually consistent with colorblind and uncritical
post-racial interpretations of social and educational texts in that it implies that
past racial oppression happened because whites did not know any better, but
now they do (see Bonilla-Silva, 2017; Mills, 1997). Or, they may even think
that current racial problems are due to a small subgroup of “deplorable” whites,
or maybe “just a few bad apples.” Allegedly, progress has happened, or is hap-
pening, even though racial groups still occupy the same status locations in the
racial hierarchy (Bell, 1992).
Conversely, CRH embraces a racial conflict theory, which imagines that
society was, and continues to be, formed out of continual racial group conflict,
in particular, the attempts of those racialized as white to actively dominate oth-
ers and re/produce an unjust racial hierarchy (Bonilla-Silva, 1997). In this sense,
the larger structure of white supremacy is the “context,” not actions, ideas, or
spaces (e.g., schools, neighborhoods, or states), which are “texts.” Although
liberal interpretations theorize social institutions as the structure of a society,
a critical interpretation sees these institutions as only a part of a larger social
arrangement (Bonilla-Silva, 1997). In a white supremacist social system, it is
the racial hierarchy, that is, how races are organized relative to their status and
social power, that is the main feature of the structure, the context, and institu-
tions are interpreted for how they work to reproduce races and their hierar-
chical status relations (Bonilla-Silva, 1997). In this view, whites are invested
in maintaining their status. As Derrick Bell (1980) argues in his formulation
of the interest convergence principle (itself an example of conflict theory),
we need to reinterpret white actions and motives during periods of alleged
racial progress. What we see in those periods, such as during the abolition of
slavery then Jim Crow, is less about whites having a baseline moral awaken-
ing and more about whites acting to preserve their dominant racial status . . .
while faking justice. Historical work by Dudziak (2009) on the connection
between the Cold War and white support for civil rights in the 1950s shows
 Critical race hermeneutics 21
that whites feared losing their racial status largely due to the perceived threats
of communism, and thus they modified some of their legal expressions of racial
superiority only to the extent that it did not threaten their overall power. The
maneuver of giving justice with one hand while taking it away with the other
has served white domination well, and little or nothing has changed about the
arrangement of the racial status hierarchy, with whites on top, over the long
haul of U.S. colonization.
What this means for educational research is that CRH does not see racism
and structural white supremacy as aberrations of an otherwise fundamentally
good institution, as a functionalist approach would have us believe. Instead,
schools are institutions whose real function is to legitimate and reproduce white
structural power and the racial hierarchy, even though commonsense discourse
problematically promotes public schooling as the primary mechanism through
which racial justice is actualized. Instead, the truer aberrations are those rare
occasions when schools work to actively subvert the racial hierarchy.
In other words, CRH and liberal racial hermeneutics are mainly opposi-
tional in how they approach the “intelligibility” (which is how clearly and
insightfully something can be understood) of everyday racial texts in schools.
Habermas (1989) argues that normative (i.e., functionalist) hermeneutics see
most of the mundane events of everyday life as intelligible, that is, as readily
understandable and without need of specialized interpretive discourses. How-
ever, agents of normative hermeneutics act to develop specialized discourses
for that which they see as abnormal. Think, for example, how much of liberal,
or even progressive, educational discourse poses urban students of color as a
problem to be solved, a group for whom specialized pedagogical, curricular,
and policy discourses must be created. Meanwhile, those depicted as normal
(e.g., whites) are not seen as in need of specialized interpretive discourses; they
are already interpreted as being fully human, passing as the image of humanity
itself (Allen, 2004). Flipping the script, critical hermeneutics approaches the
norms of everyday life as “unintelligible,” its meaning distorted discursively and
in need of critical interpretive discourses to be understood clearly and insight-
fully. The so-called outliers are those who see through the facade, who possess
specialized interpretive discourses that understand how the mundane hides the
workings of oppressive social structures. For example, CRT is an interpre-
tive tradition that empowers educational researchers to make intelligible how
normative discourses about schooling function to reproduce structural white
supremacy. It also poses the racial norm, that is, whiteness, as a problem in need
of critical interpretation, including not only whiteness in educational research
but also how whites are taught to misinterpret themselves and the world.
Understanding the presence of white supremacy in the mundane, or the
allegedly unintelligible, school discourses and practices is ultimately an onto-
logical struggle over what is real. It is an ontological fight over being able to
name what some clearly see as existing, which may also be what others likely
see, at least partially, but they fear knowing it more completely. And, while a
language may be a worldview, as the saying goes, it is also true that a worldview,
22 Ricky Lee Allen
and thus the language that represents it, can be systematically distorted and
disconnected from what is real (Habermas, 1989; Thompson, 1981). In critical
hermeneutics, interpretation of the unintelligible subjective forms that repro-
duce oppression is based on a critical approach to objectivity (Gallagher, 1992).
Many are often surprised by this since they have been taught that objectivity
is a false, oppressive endeavor and only subjectivity has real meaning. It is true
that objectivity, when defined as the uncovering of universal laws that were
already naturally there, do not apply to understanding how people subjectively
experience and represent social structures. Yet, this is not the full picture of
objectivity. Critical hermeneutics believes in a critical objectivity where oppressed
social collectives work to systematically understand social structures, which are
ontologically real not because of universal, natural laws, as commonly believed
in the natural sciences, but because they are socially constructed by human
beings (Harding, 1991). In other words, social constructions are no less real for
humans than natural forces. Like gravity, an oppressive social structure’s effect
on you does not require that you have the language to describe it; it affects you
nonetheless. In this way, structures are “extra-discursive,” meaning they lie both
inside and outside of language (Gallagher, 1992). They work through language,
and language works to reproduce them, but language is not all that they are
because they are materially real.
Likewise, CRH believes in a version of critical objectivity, although one that
is more race oriented. Through lists of tenets, CRT scholars repeatedly assert
that white supremacy is ontologically real, and that its various mechanisms, like
the racial realism of the interest convergence principle (Bell, 1992), actually
do exist. White supremacy is therefore a socially constructed object. As such, it
affects people in a myriad of ways, whether they are conscious of it or not, or
whether they have critical interpretive discourses to describe it. The struggle,
then, is to be conscious of the presence of the object, structural white suprem-
acy, in subjective forms. White supremacy, as an object, is created in large
part through discursive means. CRH approaches the interpretation of subjec-
tive forms through a critical objectivity of the ontological presence of white
supremacy. Consider how the hermeneutics of whiteness interprets texts in
ways that instrumentally rationalize the unjust racial order. It engages in an ide-
ological form of dialogue that masks, often even to whites themselves, the pres-
ence of the object in their subjective forms. To riff on Adorno’s (1969/1982)
classic turn of phrase, it is not just that white subjects act on and recreate the
objective structure, that is, white supremacy, but also that white supremacy, as
the object, constructs white subjectivities at the level of the unconscious. In
other words, whites act to make white supremacy, but what may be less obvi-
ous is that white supremacy is also what makes them a white person, and all
that goes with that, since race is after all a social construction and not a natural,
biological reality (Allen, 2009; Leonardo, 2009; Thandeka, 1999).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, CRH works to reveal how white
supremacist ideology shapes the unconscious. Borrowing from critical psycho-
analysis, the unconscious, residing in the psyche, is a site of potential meaning
 Critical race hermeneutics 23
that is socially and politically constructed. On one hand, there is the racialized
“conscious” self, the one we believe ourselves to be, which we interpret and
represent through racial discourses. On the other hand, racial discourses are
ideological, including those we use to interpret our racial selves. Distortions in
problematic racial ideologies act to make what Lacan termed our othered, more
hidden “self,” that is, the unconscious self, that is present and active, many times
driving us in ways we may not be aware (Roseboro, 2008), including how we
choose to interpret texts and participate in racialized regimes of truth and myth.
The ideologies that we have available to interpret white supremacist realities
and imaginaries are most often normative, functionalist ones that distort. They
are theoretical mismatches for what is racially real, and thus they can cause us to
be contradictory in our talk and thinking. The self often does not know what
to do with racial experiences and memories that are at odds with the narra-
tive of white supremacist ideologies, so the mind, for lack of a better meaning,
represses them. This repression of racial knowledge, or what Stuart Hall (1982)
calls racial ideology, is housed at the psychic level of the unconscious, just as
language resides not out in the air but within us, and represents the symbolic
internalization of the white supremacist social system, the object in racialized
subjectivities. This is why not all stories that People of Color tell run counter
to ideologies of colorblindness, colorism, or anti-Blackness, for example, and
thus are not counterstories (Cabrera, 2018). CRT is therefore a therapeutic
discourse, a counter ideology, that employs CRH to re-symbolize repressed
concepts, emotions, and memories, forming a more insightful consciousness
about racial realities. As one learns CRT and undergoes the re-symbolization
process, old memories take on new racial meaning, or experiences that were
once barely memorable suddenly come to the forefront.

Application of CRH: revisiting the methodology

of “whiteness and critical pedagogy”
CRT theoretical research using CRH is conducted mainly as a textual exegesis,
meaning an ideological critique using interpretive structuralism to reveal the
distorted lens of white supremacy that is at work, combined with a reimagining
of how to see a topic through a CRT lens. The focus could be on a single key
text, a genre of research literature, a public policy debate, or maybe institutional
discourses and practices. For example, consider important theoretical works of
CRT literature. Cheryl Harris (1995) critiqued the discursive practices of nor-
mative legal doctrine to reveal how courts protect whiteness as a form of prop-
erty. Charles Mills (2003) critiqued Marxist literature to argue how it masked
the reality of global white supremacy as an interpretive structural context. Der-
rick Bell (1980) showed how liberal public policy discourse hides the reality of
the interest convergence principle though a strategic discursive attachment to
the functionalist myth of racial progress. In education, David Gillborn (2005)
excavated educational public policy to expose how whites openly conspire to
elevate their status over People of Color, while Cheryl Matias (2016) revealed
24 Ricky Lee Allen
how the unconscious of white supremacy operates in the emotionalities of
faculty and students in teacher education programs. As a form of hermeneuti-
cal study of society, CRH is more focused on interpretation than explanation,
which is more associated with the “objectivity” of natural sciences (Leonardo,
2003). In addition to possessing a passion for interpretive activities, to be in a
good interpretive position CRH scholars need to immerse themselves in the
literature of the field they wish to interpret, noting any contradictions or prob-
lematic patterns in the discourse that may reveal the underlying ideology. It can
also be very important to experience how the discourses are used in particular
social spaces, such as teacher education classrooms, courtrooms, school board
meetings, dissertation hearings, etc. A research question for a CRH study will
emphasize making meaning of racial texts through the context of structural
white supremacy rather than “proving” the causes of structural white suprem-
acy. To be sure, one must have a critical understanding of the connection
between racial texts and structural white supremacy, how they construct one
another, but the CRH researcher uses interpretation as persuasion. One either
believes that structural white supremacy exists or they do not. And, a focus on
“proving” it exists to them may lead to research that oversimplifies or over-
mechanizes the problem. There is also the question of the form the research
takes. CRH in theoretical research can take the form of either a counterstory
(see Solorzano & Yosso, 2002) or, more commonly, an essay, which is an estab-
lished scholarly form that “can provide integrative, imaginative, and speculative
leaps of interpretation” (Schubert, 1991, p. 62). Derrick Bell, for example, used
both forms to produce his foundational CRT scholarship (e.g., 1980, 1992).
In hindsight, I can see how my own theoretical scholarship has used CRH,
though I have not always had a language to describe it. In 2002, I completed
my theoretical dissertation study called Whiteness as Territoriality, which was a
series of essays exposing white identity politics in critical theorizing. The most
difficult part to write was the methodology section. My dissertation committee
asked me to include one, even though the work was not empirical and most of
the members were mainly established theoretical scholars. While I wrote about
some of the concepts I have included in this chapter, such as white supremacy
as an interpretive context and the role of discourse and ideology in construct-
ing the problem of whiteness in established interpretive traditions like critical
theory, I did not take up a discussion of critical hermeneutics, let alone CRH.
That said, my focus was on combining ideas from CRT and critical whiteness
studies with the best aspects of various critical theoretical discourses to produce
an enhanced critical race synthesis. My approach was to show readers how a
particular critical theory discourse (e.g., social reproduction theory) failed to
take up white supremacy as a historical and spatial context and was therefore
an example of white supremacist discourse. Then, I interpreted the presence of
structural white supremacy by using a critical race approach built on some
of the ideas and language found in that critical theory discourse. Now, I bet-
ter understand how CRH was my methodology, that I was conducting tex-
tual exegeses of various critical theory discourses, seeking to reveal the object,
 Critical race hermeneutics 25
white supremacy, in these subjective forms to create improved race-oriented,
self-reflective interpretive discourses that help others to re-symbolize their un/
conscious and, thus, transform how they interpret schools and society.
To briefly demonstrate how I apply CRH, I will revisit an older piece called
“Whiteness and Critical Pedagogy” (2004), which was a substantial revision of
a chapter in my dissertation. My goal was to make two main arguments. First, I
wanted to better use some ideas already found in critical pedagogy to interpret
how whites function as oppressors in a white supremacist social system. While
the then emerging field of CRT in education was offering more sustained
and insightful analyses of race, critical pedagogy was mired in a white Marxist
discourse that contextualized everything within capitalism, avoided prolonged
discussions of white people as oppressors, and addressed race with little more
than the phrase “race, class, and gender” tacked onto the end of a sentence.
Rather than focus on critical pedagogy literature as a whole, I decided to focus
on what was considered the most influential and loved text of the field, Paulo
Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970/1993). In my CRH textual exegesis
of it, I keyed in on Freire’s critique of the oppressor and the possibilities for
their transformation. Freire did not talk specifically about white people as the
oppressor, opting instead for an allegedly more “universal” (i.e., vague) rep-
resentation that did not specify a group, so I used his own language to show
the characteristics of whites as the oppressor that sustained a system of racial
domination. My experience with reading this text with other whites was that
they would often not identify with “the oppressor” being theorized in the
book. I attributed this to Freire’s lack of racial specificity about the oppressor,
as well as whites’ tendency to deny their participation in whiteness. By focus-
ing specifically on whites and structural white supremacy, I was directly asking
white readers to see themselves as “the oppressor,” or at least see how others
may see them as such. Absent this, whites will tend to distance themselves from
a potentially transformative experience of critical self-reflection on their own
whiteness. Worse, they may even be left to imagine themselves as the Freire’s
“oppressed,” avoiding any attention by others to their problematic expressions
of whiteness. As such, looking back now, implicitly using CRH as a method
provided the structure I needed to excavate the embedded white suprema-
cist ideology in discourses that are, in essence, colorblind. Not using CRH
then would render research void of any critical racial analysis that exposes how
structural white supremacy embeds itself in seemingly invisible ways.
The second goal of my article was to consider the unconscious of white
supremacy in Freire’s choices as an author, and thus of those who do not see
his text as racially problematic (see also hooks, 1994). Pedagogy of the Oppressed
draws heavily from Albert Memmi’s The Colonizer and Colonized (1957/1991)
and Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961/2004), both deeply
immersed in critical racial analyses. In fact, Freire stated that after reading
Fanon he made major revisions to his draft of Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire,
1994). This means that Freire, through active omission, discursively stripped
away the racial context, meaning the conflict theory of a colonial history that
26 Ricky Lee Allen
produced structural white supremacy, of these momentous works (Allen, 2004).
Freire often responded to this type of criticism, that he did not emphasize
race enough, by suggesting that he was from a Brazilian context and that his
ideas could be “reinvented” by people in other places for their own contextual
specificities (see Freire, 1994, Freire & Macedo, 1987). But, the problem is that
Brazil is a country immersed in the racial conflict of structural white supremacy
(Winant, 2002). Portuguese colonizers killed Indigenous people and enslaved
Africans in numbers even greater than most other countries. Most Brazilians
have African ancestry and are racialized as People of Color, and darker-skinned
people are much more likely to be in poverty than white or lighter-skinned
Brazilians (Winant, 2002). The study of hermeneutics teaches us that historical
context matters. Writing theory in an a-contextual way is always fraught with
problems. Freire would have benefited People of Color in Brazil and other
places had he utilized CRH, from seeing white supremacy as a context in colo-
nialism. That said, it is important to not throw away Freire’s ideas. Not only are
many of the ideas insightful, but sometimes, like with Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
some of the ideas originated with authors of color (Allen, 2004).
CRH brings to theoretical research a more explicit, realistic understanding
of how language is used as a form of white supremacist social practice, revealing
the unconscious of white supremacy, the lies whiteness tells about Others, and
itself, that are all around us. It seeks to systematize an implicit hermeneutics
already at work in CRT while showing that a more explicit focus on the pres-
ence of white supremacy as an object, an ideological presence, in educational
discourses and practices can add methodological power and weight to an estab-
lished, yet still marginalized, interpretive tradition. CRH creates a theoretical
discourse that emphasizes ideological clarity and structural insights for truth-
telling, rather than just relying on concepts like experience and identity, as if
these, too, are not also interpretive representational forms (see Soja, 1996).
Absent CRH, theoretical research in education runs the risk of contributing to
an academic research industry that mainly functions to legitimate whiteness as
smartness (Leonardo & Broderick, 2011), thus bolstering a racial arrangement
scholars claim they are against.

Conclusion: obstacles facing CRH in the current

methodological landscape
CRH discourse should be a powerful addition to the CRT researcher’s meth-
odological repertoire, an explicit methodology for conducting theoretical
research. Yet, CRT researchers are faced with an educational research landscape
controlled by problematic normative notions of methodology. For example,
how does one deal with being asked, “Yeah, you’re doing CRT, but what’s
your methodology?” What obstacles does one need to consider in making
spaces for CRH in theoretical research?
In The Sociological Imagination, C. Wright Mills (1959/2000) demonstrates
how U.S. colleges and universities in the mid-20th century function to legitimate
 Critical race hermeneutics 27
research methodologies that align with dominant political and economic inter-
ests. Academic agents work to marginalize methodologies that run counter to
those interests. Although the players may have changed since then, the song
remains the same. Today, academic institutions are neoliberal knowledge-
industry research parks that advertise for professors who, as “intellectual” entre-
preneurs, “must be able to procure external funding.” By and large, the vast
majority of external funding goes to empirical, not theoretical, research. And
little, if any, money is going to theoretical research rooted in a CRH interpreta-
tion of structural white supremacy. Academic institutions provide much more
support for empirical research, even for empirical research that may seem more
critical than normative. The effect is that professors develop bureaucratic power
based on how much research money they bring to the institution.
There is no question that quantitative researchers, particularly those in STEM,
bring in the most research dollars. They are also the least likely researchers to
associate with CRH. However, most CRT scholars doing theoretical work
in education find themselves without funding, and thus without bureau-
cratic backing, working in departments dominated by qualitative researchers,
who often display their suspicion of theoretical scholarship. Like quantitative
researchers, qualitative researchers in education have yet to take up a signifi-
cant study of hermeneutics, let alone CRH, despite attention they may pay to
other common philosophical concepts like epistemology and phenomenol-
ogy. Rather than including a thorough hermeneutical statement, qualitative
researchers more often simply state that they did a thematic coding of data,
as if by interpretive magic, leaving unanalyzed the researcher’s hermeneutical
theory that shaped the creation of their insight. It is as if, like those in natural
sciences, they believe they are in the business of offering explanations rather
than interpretations. Researchers from this limited view of the interpretive
process may act to dismiss theoretical scholarship that openly and directly inter-
prets the object of white supremacy in subjective forms, especially if they are
already insecure about their racial selves.
Scholars doing mainly theoretical work may also make themselves an obsta-
cle for CRH-based theorizing. The institutional privileging of empirical edu-
cational research may have led many theoretical scholars to reject methodology
as nothing more than a positivistic, constraining discourse, and they would
therefore not impose on themselves a need to articulate their own methodol-
ogy. That is, they see methodology as something odious that someone else has,
but not themselves. This blanket, non-dialectical approach to methodology has
led to many more not fully understanding the hermeneutical theories at work
in their scholarship. And, it is also possible that their investments in ideologies
like colorblindness, whiteness, colorism, and anti-Blackness might be psycho-
logical blocks to accepting CRH.
So, theoretical scholars using CRH should expect to face resistance because
academic institutions function to reproduce racial hierarchies, even in the research
process. And, it should be expected that many whites (and even some People
of Color) do not really want People of Color to theorize in this way. Instead,
Other documents randomly have
different content
 III.
I CAPELLI DI SANSONE.

Quando Riccardo Joanna schiuse la porta a cristalli per entrare

nell'ufficio del Quasimodo si trovò avvolto in un nugolo di polvere
che lo fece tossire. Gregorio, l'usciere, dando certi impetuosi colpi di
scopa, si spingeva innanzi un mucchio di spazzatura. Gregorio,
spazzando, conservava il suo eterno malumore misterioso contro la
razza umana: malumore che ora assumeva la forma collerica di un
borbottamento ringhioso, ora si manifestava in uno scetticismo pieno
di malinconia.
"Quanta polvere!” esclamò Riccardo.
"Più ne levo e più ce ne sta,” rispose Gregorio, crollando il capo,
sfiduciato.
Stavano l'uno di contro all'altro, il redattore e l'usciere, divisi dal
mucchio di spazzatura: Gregorio lungo, allampanato, pallido, colla
barbetta rada sulle guance giallastre, appoggiato alla scopa; il
redattore, l'articolista brillante, Riccardo Joanna, bel giovanotto, dagli
occhi azzurri pieni di languore, dalle palpebre livide cariche di
stanchezza, dal fine mustacchio castagno sopra una bocca ancora
fresca e rossa, dalle mani bianche femminili, ma tenaci come
l'acciaio.
"Ci sono lettere per me?” domandò il bel giornalista con la sua voce
infranta da una grande lassezza.
"Un mucchio,” e crollò filosoficamente le spalle, come compiangendo
coloro che ancora scrivono delle lettere.
Riccardo scavalcò le spazzature ed entrò nella redazione, vuota,
dove si sentiva forte ed acre l'odore della polvere smossa e quello
dell'inchiostro di stamperia già rancido. In una cartella di metallo a
compartimenti vi era un fascio di roba al suo indirizzo. In una busta
gialla vi era un biglietto rosso con cui si avvertiva Riccardo Joanna
che poteva pagare sino all'una pomeridiana del giorno seguente, al
banco Savelli, l'effetto di lire mille che scadeva in quel giorno.
Leggendo quell'avviso, mezzo stampato, mezzo manoscritto, stando
solo in quella stanza dalla luce grigiastra, il volto di Riccardo Joanna
si decompose.
"Banco Savelli,” ripetè piano.
E all'idea tormentosa di quelle mille lire che non avrebbe mai potuto
pagare l'indomani, si unì subito quella di donna Clelia Savelli, la bella
moglie del patrizio banchiere. Erano già due volte in nove mesi che
rinnovava quell'effetto di mille lire all'onesto strozzino che gli
prendeva solo il tre per cento al mese, novanta lire alla volta: e da
tre mesi faceva invano la corte a donna Clelia Savelli, la rosea,
sorridente signora, dai grandi occhi grigi, dai denti sfolgoranti, la
crudele e dolce signora che tanti uomini avevano amata invano.
Questa volta lo strozzino aveva detto no, pel rinnovamento, voleva
riavere il suo capitale, d'altronde la cambiale era girata: ma donna
Clelia Savelli non diceva no, non diceva sì, rideva, rideva, nella sua
irresistibile ilarità di donna bella e felice.
— Proprio al marito, proprio a lui, — mormorava Riccardo, a cui quel
biglietto rosso scottava le dita. Distratto aprì la seconda lettera: era
un vecchio abbonato di Mondovì Breo che rimproverava a Riccardo
Joanna le idee audaci espresse nell'ultimo articolo sul divorzio; ma
gliele rimproverava con un ossequio profondo, dandogli dell'illustre
pubblicista. Invece uno studente, da Trieste, gli scriveva una
cartolina piena d'entusiasmi e piena di punti ammirativi, a proposito
dell'articolo sul divorzio: una maestra elementare da Colle Val d'Elsa,
piena di una melanconica e sentimentale ammirazione, gli mandava
una novellina, Fior di mughetto, sperando che egli la leggesse, e
cercasse di farla pubblicare nello spiritoso Quasimodo; un suo amico
di Napoli gli scriveva una cartolina domandandogli se era possibile
trovar lavoro letterario e giornalistico in Roma. Già rasserenato a
quel mite soffio di adulazione, Riccardo sorrideva: malgrado il
continuo incensamento che da due anni gli facevano il pubblico e la
critica ed i colleghi giornalisti, egli non era ancora disgustato
dall'adulazione, era ancora quella una carezza soave che gli calmava
i nervi. Con un puerile moto di vanità lasciò lettere e cartoline sulla
scrivania, perchè i redattori del Quasimodo potessero leggerle, e
schiuse un giornale della sera innanzi, mandato al suo indirizzo: non
intendeva bene perchè glielo avessero mandato. E guardandolo con
l'occhio giornalistico, scorse subito un segno rosso accanto ad un
annunzio del concerto di Beniamino Cesi, per le due, alla Sala Dante:
e trasalì di piacere. Doveva esser lei, proprio lei, la taciturna pensosa
signora Caterina, dal volto di perla, dalle labbra sottili d'un tono di
rosa morta, che non sapeva sorridere, che non voleva amare, ma
che chinava il volto quando dal pianoforte toccato da mano
appassionata uscivano i singhiozzi che scoppiano, lugubri, solitari nel
Clair de lune, di Beethoven; nulla diceva Caterina, che tutti
chiamavano santa Cecilia, ma dentro doveva tremarle l'anima per
una emozione suprema. Macchinalmente, smorto innanzi a quel
favore femminile, Riccardo si mise in tasca il giornale e nel giovane
cuore, tutto pieno di fantasmi femminili, s'innalzò, sottile, potente, il
fantasma tutto vibrante d'armonia di Caterina.
"È venuto il Pierangeli,” disse Gregorio, entrando.
"Ah! e che vuole?”
"È venuto per quel conto di fiori.”
Riccardo fece un gesto di fastidio. Ora, dopo aver spazzato la stanza,
Gregorio spolverava i mobili: ma non aveva piumacciolone nè
strofinaccio. Tutto torvo, colle sopracciglia aggrottate, soffiava sul
piano delle scrivanie e degli scaffali: la polvere si levava da un posto
per posarsi altrove; ma Gregorio si riposava ogni tanto, come stanco
per tutto quel fiato buttato. La stanza, male illuminata, conservava il
suo aspetto impolverato e triste: Riccardo stava ritto, come indeciso,
pensando a chi chiedere mille lire per pagare la cambiale l'indomani.
Poi, seccato da quelle nuvolettine di polvere che Gregorio andava
sollevando, voltò sulle calcagna e andò nella stanzetta
dell'amministratore. Ivi Gaetanino Gargiulo, l'amministratore, un
giovanotto bruno e smilzo, silenzioso ed ardente fumatore di
sigarette, teneva aperto il registro degli abbonamenti innanzi a sè e
contemplava il soffitto. Stava dalla mattina alla sera inchiodato su
quel seggiolone di pelle, come se non potesse staccarsene, fumando
sempre, con le unghie ingiallite dalle sigarette, gli occhi un po'
inebetiti di colui che fuma troppo, lasciandosi andare a quella vita di
contemplazione che i meridionali amano per contrasto.
"Crescono gli abbonati eh?” domandò Riccardo.
"Sì.”
"Allora dammi cento lire.”
"Non posso.”
"Come non puoi?”
"Ho pagato or ora una cambiale di duemila lire.”
"Anche ieri avevi pagato una cambiale di duemila lire.”
"Anche ieri ti sei preso cento lire,” ribattè Gargiulo, quietamente.
"Via, hai ragione sempre tu: ma dammi queste cento lire.”
"Non posso, non le ho.”
"Non è possibile.”
"Non le ho, posso darti delle sigarette, se le vuoi.”
"Cinquanta lire?”
"Neppure dieci.”
"Eh va al diavolo!” gridò Joanna, con la sua voce lamentosa e
rabbiosa di fanciullo viziato.
Gargiulo lo guardò coi suoi occhi chiari e inespressivi, ma non
rispose. Egli nascondeva, sotto l'apparenza di persona istupidita dal
fumo, la naturale e necessaria durezza della sua anima
amministrativa. In fondo egli invidiava silenziosamente quei giovani
redattori del Quasimodo che raccoglievano i minuti suffragi della
stampa: biglietti ai teatri, sorrisi delle attrici, viaggi gratuiti per le
inaugurazioni delle ferrovie; e prima di dar loro quattrini, quando li
vedeva innanzi a sè, stretti da un fittizio o imperioso bisogno, egli si
dava il piacere d'assaporare la sua potenza. Riccardo era già quasi
uscito, quando Gregorio lo richiamò e gli disse:
"Ha letto quello che ha scritto sulla lavagna il direttore?”
Riccardo, senza rispondere, andò difilato nello stanzino che
pomposamente si chiamava salotto di ricevimento: stanzino adorno
di due divani di tela russa, tutt'unti sulle spalliere e sui bracciuoli per
le teste che vi si erano appoggiate, adorno di un falso caminetto in
tela russa con un galloncino azzurro stinto, adorno di uno specchio
coperto da un velo verde. Ivi all'odore di stantío della polvere si
univa il puzzo dei sigari che vi erano stati fumati, e qua e là, su
qualche mensoletta, sul falso caminetto, sul pianoforte vi erano dei
mucchietti di cenere fredda, nauseante. Sopra una lavagna sospesa
al muro, il direttore, capitato alle dieci in redazione, aveva scritto
delle domande ai suoi redattori, che aveano risposto così:
— "Lamberti, lo fai un articolo sull'Afganistan?”
— "No, ci ho la moglie in parto: Lamberti.”
— "Scano, fammi il capocronaca sul muratore sfracellato: va
all'ospedale.”
— "Sì: ma fammi pagare la carrozza da Gargiulo: Scano.”
La domanda: "Franceschetti, te la senti di tradurmi l'articolo del
Fremdenblatt, sbagliando solo una ventina di parole?” non aveva
risposta. Franceschetti non era ancora venuto in ufficio. Per Riccardo
vi era questo:
— "Joanna, se le tue signore ti lasciano il tempo, fammi un articolo
sulla principessa Pignatelli.” E Riccardo, preso il bastoncello di gesso,
scrisse, superbamente:
— "Non ho nulla da dire alla gente sulla principessa Pignatelli: farò
un articolo sul concerto Cesi, alle tre.”
Per le scale Riccardo Joanna incontrò Carlo Mosca, un redattore,
quello che faceva i resoconti giudiziari, un fiero consumatore di
aggettivi sanguinolenti.
"Vai già a lavorare?”
"No, cerco Gargiulo,” disse l'altro, alzando la faccia preoccupata.
"È inutile,” disse Riccardo, con un gesto di sfiducia.
"Perchè inutile?” e la voce era piena di desolazione.
"Non ha un soldo.”
"Proprio niente?”
"Come ti dico.”
E restarono fermi sul pianerottolo, ambedue oppressi, guardando per
la finestra, senza vederlo, il cortiletto semibuio, dove pendevano dai
balconcini tanti cenci di vario colore, il piccolo bucato familiare delle
serve vicine.
"Tenterò,” fece Mosca, con un gesto disperato.
Riccardo fece sentire un risolino d'ironia e discese via: nell'androne,
incontrando il postino delle raccomandate, preso da una curiosità
bizzarra, gli domandò:
"Nulla per Joanna?”
"Nulla,” rispose l'altro, senza voltarsi, con la sua voce cantante.
A Riccardo era venuto in mente che qualcuno potesse mandargli del
denaro, così, per una combinazione, una eredità, un dono di un
ammiratore ricco, un amico che glielo confidasse per negoziarlo; la
vita è un romanzo, un lungo romanzo inverosimile, pieno di donne
amate e di cambiali pagate miracolosamente. Come lo avrebbe
salvato un caso simile! Non poter pagare, al banco Savelli, al marito
di donna Clelia, era una cosa per lui insopportabile, faceva scattare i
suoi nervi. Ritto, sul marciapiedi del Corso, si lasciava passare la folla
intorno, senza vederla. Alzando il capo intravide, dentro un coupé,
donna Beatrice di Santaninfa; la carrozza andava lenta lenta, egli da
Piazza Colonna la vide fermarsi innanzi al pasticciere Ronzi e Singer.
Irresistibilmente attratto da quella seducente, provocante testa
bionda, egli entrò dal pasticciere a prendere il wermouth. Vestita di
nero; alta, flessibile, donna Beatrice, la bionda, dagli occhi verdi e
dall'enigmatico sorriso, sceglieva le pastine, i biscotti, i puddings pel
suo thè, e ne faceva fare dei pacchetti; con le mani sottili calzate di
lunghi guanti di camoscio, prendeva i pasticcini ancora caldi e li
mangiava gentilmente, lungamente, con una irritante espressione di
voluttà sulla faccia. Riccardo Joanna, col bicchiere del wermouth in
mano, senza bere, non distoglieva gli occhi di dosso a lei, la
guardava con così fervida espressione di ammirazione, eravi nel suo
sguardo tanto calore di vita, che la contessa arrossiva come se
stesse accanto al fuoco e si muoveva nell'ambiente di quello sguardo
come la salamandra fra le fiamme. Ella conosceva Joanna benissimo,
sebbene nessuno glielo avesse mai presentato; sapeva bene che egli
era l'articolista prediletto delle signore per quella miscela di languore
e di audacia che era nella sua prosa; sapeva bene che egli era il
cronista dell'eleganza femminile, il deificatore della bellezza
muliebre. Ella, dunque, posava per lui: socchiudeva gli occhi di
smeraldo puro, trasparente, rosicchiava le pastine, sorridendo; sulle
labbra grosse e rosse vi era un orlo di zucchero finissimo,
provocante; stendeva la mano regale, con un gesto vago, per
indicare certi biscotti bruni; piegava un po' il corpo; beveva
lentamente, con una linea di braccio alzata, da statua, con gli occhi
spalancati, come dilatati nella loro verdezza, con le sopracciglia
spianate, il bicchiere colmo di Porto. Riccardo era incantato; nella
bottega tutta bianca di marmi entrava un raggio del sole meridiano
primaverile; i camerieri andavano, venivano, premurosi, dai
tavolinetti al banco, portando i piatti dei pasticcini ed i bicchieri di
Malaga, di Marsala, di Xeres; nell'aria stava un odore di cose dolci,
zucchero, crema, vainiglia, cioccolatte; nella fontanella del banco
l'acqua scorreva, cantando; ogni tanto si udiva il fruscío dell'acqua di
seltz che schiumava dal sifone nel bicchiere, — e Riccardo si lasciava
andare, dolcissimamente, alla seduzione di questo ambiente che
lusingava i sensi. La contessa di Santaninfa lo incantava, in quel sole
caldo e mite, fra quegli odori di cose dolci, fra quei riflessi rosei di
vini e di sciroppi; quella eleganza sapiente di acconciatura, la
ricchezza della stoffa, l'armonia della tinta e della linea, quella
bellezza bizzarra e provocante e sicura e altera, quella trionfante
civetteria femminile, che più audacemente si manifesta e più attrae,
realizzavano i suoi sogni di poeta adoratore della donna. Egli si
abbandonava ad un languore estatico, una specie di molle
beatitudine, dove la bionda contessa dagli occhi verdi di pietra
preziosa gettava un'acredine di fantasia insoddisfatta. Ella uscì,
scomparve qual dea. E Riccardo ebbe come un senso di freddo,
come se fosse entrato in una vasta, glaciale, solitudine. E in quel
freddo, in quel senso amaro di solitudine, il suo segreto tormento
finanziario si risvegliò, gli dette una stretta al cuore, lo fece trasalire
come la donna che sente nel seno il morso dello scirro. L'idea di far
colazione solo, con quella sottile e cocente tortura interiore, gli era
insopportabile; passeggiò lentamente pel Corso, cercando qualcuno
che volesse mangiare con lui. Invero non aveva denaro, nè per sè nè
pel suo futuro invitato, ma al Caffè del Parlamento gli facevano
credito, anche per quindici giorni. Trovò Scano, il cronista, un
giovanotto che scriveva delle cronache comiche, zeppe di bisticci, di
meditate, profonde cretinerie, e che nella vita era di un contegno
lugubre, schivava la gente, non andava nei caffè per economia o per
amore di melanconia; ogni volta che lo invitavano a pranzo o a
colazione, Scano rifiutava, aveva già fatta colazione, si schermiva
con una resistenza, una durezza di persona timida e fiera che non
vuole essere compatita.
"Fa' colazione con me,” gli disse Joanna, "mi fai un favore.”
"Ho già fatto, non posso.”
"Non ti credo, sei un orso.”
L'altro arrossì, ma non disse nulla. Riccardo continuò a pregarlo con
quella sua voce spezzata dalla stanchezza, guardandolo con quei
suoi occhi pieni di una tristezza inguaribile, tanto che Scano si
commosse e disse che gli avrebbe almeno tenuto compagnia per
non sembrare un orso. Riccardo conservava nella faccia quell'ombra
di sfinimento che molti prendevano per una posa, e mentre il
cameriere del Caffè del Parlamento gli veniva spifferando la lista
delle vivande, egli scoteva il capo, dicendo no, sempre:
"Bove brasato, arrostino annegato, ossobuco, costola di manzo,”
incominciava il cameriere.
"Si prende un buco e ci si mette attorno un osso,” mormorò
tetramente Scano, pensando a mettere questa scioccheria nella
cronaca dell'indomani.
"Non hai nulla, nulla di diverso?” chiese Joanna al cameriere.
Il cameriere fece un cenno di desolazione, come se mai vi potesse
essere nulla di nuovo nella sua trattoria e in tutte le trattorie. E nella
memoria dello stomaco di Joanna era così lunga la fila dei buoi
brasati, degli ossobuchi, degli arrostini annegati, delle costole di
manzo, che nulla poteva più farlo trasalire di desiderio, lo stomaco
giaceva in una atonia donde non valse a trarlo neppure la magnifica
offerta di una trota.
"Dammi delle ostriche e del caviale,” disse Joanna, alla fine.
"Se egli ti avesse dato del bue, tu potevi dargli dell'asino,” mormorò
Scano, con quella mite intonazione di malinconia che gli serviva a
ripetere le sue vecchie freddure.
"O Scano, tu mi contristi, amico mio.”
"O Riccardo, più felice di te, in Roma non vi è che l'acqua di tal
nome. Noi t'invidiamo tutti; noi abbiamo trovato così un mezzo di
nutrirci economicamente, poichè si dice: L'invidia, figliuol mio, sè
stessa macera.”
"Non puoi tu parlare semplicemente, come parlano tutti gli altri di
questa terra?” gridò Riccardo, esasperato. "Devi per forza irresistibile
fare la freddura? Ti sei abbrutito?”
"Credo,” rispose Scano, sorridendo pallidamente.
Non voleva mangiare nè le ostriche, nè il caviale. Riccardo dovette
obbligarlo; Scano si difendeva con fiacchezza, sostenendo sempre
che aveva già fatta colazione, timido dinanzi alle cortesie, temendo
sempre che gliele facessero per un senso di pietà; ed esagerando
come tutte le persone ingenue, disse male delle ostriche, sostenne
che il caviale non valeva le uova di tonno.
"Perchè m'invidiate?” chiese Riccardo.
"La tua prosa va: tutti la vogliono. Tu prendi cinquanta lire ad
articolo, ne puoi fare uno al giorno, perchè non ne fai due al
giorno?”
"Per questo,” rispose Riccardo, brevemente.
"Fossi in te, li farei.”
"Fossi tu in me, non li faresti,” ribattè Riccardo, sempre più scuro
nella faccia.
"Perchè?”
"Perchè non si può.”
Tacquero. Scano non voleva dividere con Joanna i crostini in salsa di
alici, un cibo piccante da stomachi guasti; ma il caviale, le ostriche e
il Capri bianco lo avevano eccitato, la sua resistenza fu di pura
forma. Joanna era sempre buono per lui, Scano lo ammirava
ingenuamente, si lasciava andare a qualche confidenza con lui.
"Vedi, Riccardo, tante volte le penso anch'io quelle cose che tu scrivi,
così bene, con tanta efficacia; perchè non le scrivo mai? Non so. Hai
ragione, ho il cervello guasto; quello del cronista è un morbo
cronico. Il fatto di sangue ci entra nel medesimo e la data di cronaca
diventa quella di tutta la nostra vita.”
Riccardo sorrideva; quelle volgari freddure non lo irritavano più. Era
quello il nuovo vocabolario giornalistico, con cui si parlava e si
scriveva, e lo sentiva da due anni; ci si ribellava ogni tanto, nei
momenti di maggior nervosità, ma in fondo quel frasario bizzarro e
convenzionale, quello spezzamento metodico e cervellotico delle
parole, quel doppio significato cavato fuori a forza, stillato dopo
intiere mezz'ore di riflessioni mute, per cui i fredduristi hanno
sempre l'aria di filosofi profondi o di uomini perfettamente infelici,
per cui la loro compagnia è funebre, quel vocabolario falso, così
lontano dalle verità quotidiane della vita, lo cullava. Quello, infine,
era uno dei vari gerghi giornalistici, il più alla moda fra il pubblico
grosso, come il gergo poetico e aggettivante di Riccardo era alla
moda fra i letterati e le signore.
"Io, alla fine,” proseguì Scano, "non ho che un solo desiderio: non
vorrei essere il re di tal nome, che andò a finir male, secondo dicono
gli storici, sebbene la storia l'abbiano inventata gli storici per poi
poterla scrivere....”
"E che vorresti?”
"Vorrei avere mille lire, tutte insieme....”
"Oh!” fece dolorosamente Riccardo.
"Se qualcuno me le prestasse, io gliele restituirei. Sicuro, a venti
franchi al mese, togliendole dai duecento che guadagno.”
"Ci vorrebbero cinque o sei anni.”
"Giusto quattro anni e due mesi. Credi tu che qualcuno me le
presterà mai?”
"Io non lo credo, Scano mio.”
Tacquero di nuovo, pensosi. Mentre prendeva il caffè, Scano scriveva
delle cifre con la matita sul piano di marmo del tavolino.
"Che fai?” chiese Riccardo.
"Calcolo.... calcolo che potrei pagare anche venticinque lire al mese,
stringendomi un poco. Ma i calcoli.... i calcoli, come sai, sono una
malattia....”
Riccardo non pagò, non volle vedere neppure il conto: anzi prese dal
cameriere anche venti sigari di avana, regalias, e una scatola di
sigarette russe. Scano non volle accettare che un sigaro e quattro
sigarette; per schermirsi egli disse che i sigari napoletani erano
superiori a tutti gli altri, e che lui li preferiva.
Sulla soglia del caffè Riccardo fu preso dalla incertezza; era l'una e
mezzo, doveva andare alla Lotteria di beneficenza, in Via Nazionale,
dove avrebbe trovato donna Tecla Spada, la mordente marchesa, dal
naso sottile, dal mento acuto e dagli occhi neri e pizzicanti come il
pepe. Ogni volta che si trovavano lui e la marchesa, che portava
sempre un nastro rosso infantile negli arruffati capelli neri, vi era un
lungo ed acuto combattimento di parole, di frizzi, di paradossi. Ella
posava per la donna di spirito e talvolta era spiritosa; ma la sua
reputazione la rovinava, ella voleva far dello spirito a qualunque
costo, spesso diventava insolente, la sua voce strideva come metallo
limato. Riccardo usciva da quella conversazione nervosa, eccitante,
con una irritazione che aveva il suo lato piacevole. Ora nel momento
della digestione, con la fantasia risvegliata dal Capri, gli veniva una
grande voglia di combattere una battaglia di sillogismi bislacchi con
la simpatica marchesa dalla bruttezza attraente. Ma alle due
cominciava il concerto Cesi e Via Nazionale era così lontana! Forse,
prendendo una carrozza.... trattenendosi soltanto per mezz'ora....
ma come l'avrebbe pagata questa carrozza? Basta, un santo avrebbe
provveduto. Scano e Joanna si divisero; ognuno salì in carrozza,
innanzi al caffè; Scano vi andava coi quattrini della cronaca, Joanna
senza quattrini affatto; i pedoni oziosi invidiavano, sospirando, i due
giornalisti.
"Corsa di consolazione,” esclamò Scano, che andava all'ospedale
omonimo.
Sulla porta del palazzo dell'Esposizione Riccardo lasciò la carrozza,
dicendo al cocchiere di aspettare; tanto lo prendeva a ora, avrebbe
pagato più tardi, anche in quel momento la dilazione, la speranza dei
disperati, lo lusingava. La lotteria era nel salone terreno, in fondo:
attorno alla tavola vi era pochissima gente, le signore sbadigliavano,
annoiate, dando ogni tanto un colpetto al manubrio delle urne, dove
rotolavano i cartoccetti sottili dei numeri, mentre nel fondo, sopra
una piattaforma, vi era l'esposizione degli oggetti, una farragine di
tutte cose meschine. La marchesa Spada aveva il suo tavolino presso
la porta, chiamò subito Riccardo.
"Joanna, Joanna, venga qui, si prenda un migliaio di numeri.”
Egli rimase interdetto, non aveva pensato a questo. Pure si accostò:
"È fatta l'elemosina,” disse, cercando di scherzare.
"Io sono una poverella privilegiata, mi hanno rilasciato brevetto, s. g.
d. g., come nelle scatolette dei fiammiferi. Prenda dei numeri,
Joanna, può guadagnare l'anello del Kedive.”
"Ma che! L'anello del Kedive non è nei numeri, o è falso, o non è mai
esistito anello di Kedive: questo è un covo di vagabonde, oziose,
mendicanti e truffatrici,” e rideva rideva nervosamente, volendo
nascondere con l'audacia il suo imbarazzo. "Perchè non va al
concerto Cesi, invece di seccarsi qui?”
"Perchè non ho bisogno di un accompagnamento di Mendelssohn per
flirtare, io!”
"Preferisce Cimarosa?”
"Non flirto io.”
"Sì? e allora che son venuto a fare, io, qui?”
"Un corso d'impertinenza, a quel che pare.”
"Grazie della lezione,” fece Riccardo inchinandosi. Ella rise: era ben
seducente, ridendo, per Joanna, la marchesa Tecla Spada. Le labbra
sottili si distendevano su certi dentini minuti minuti, e i piccoli occhi
neri brillavano, mordevano, bruciavano.
"Io me ne vado a sentire Beethoven, marchesa; egli è più onesto di
lei, che non flirta, che tende dei tranelli ai suoi amici, con le lotterie.
Ci va, almeno, a Villa Borghese oggi?”
"Ci vado: porterò meco cento numeri per lei, Joanna.”
"Inoltrerò querela al procuratore del Re, per rapina. E all'Apollo ci
viene, questa sera?”
"Joanna, lei ha l'aria di volermi sedurre, come una inesperta
fanciulletta.”
"Questa è infatti la mia intenzione, marchesa,” soggiunse Joanna,
gravemente.
"Stia attento alla sua riputazione, allora: ella si compromette
orribilmente con me.”
"Oh!” fece lui, come desolato, "non ho più nulla da perdere.”
E girando sulle calcagna, andò via subito senza voltarsi indietro,
temendo d'essere richiamato; si buttò con un sospiro di sollievo
dentro la sua carrozza, guarito della orribile angoscia di quei minuti,
disfatto dallo sforzo, ma tranquillo. Pensava fra sè: — Avrà capito la
marchesa che non avevo un soldo in tasca? — Questo dubbio lo
crucciava, gli faceva venire i sudori freddi come nel salone
dell'Esposizione, lo faceva tremare di collera e di vergogna, di nuovo,
soffrendo nel suo esacerbato, sconfinato amor proprio, che infuriava
a qualunque contatto. Era vergognoso di quella sua povertà,
nascosta con tutta la cura, ma che ogni tanto trapelava: era arso da
desiderii sempre più forti e più larghi, disprezzava quel migliaio di lire
che guadagnava al mese, sfacchinando, buttando via il meglio di
quello che pensava e sentiva, sfruttando il suo successo,
imponendosi con quella sua ardente voglia di guadagnar quattrini.
Mille lire! che erano mille lire, consumate a cinquanta lire alla volta,
in un giorno talvolta? Erano così feroci i suoi desiderii, e così poche
quelle mille lire, in un lungo mese di tanti giorni! Era così duro, così
pesante fare un articolo, e cinquanta lire duravano tanto poco! Ma
un pensiero sprezzante lo calmò, ad un tratto:
— Queste femmine crudeli non sanno nulla della vita: la marchesa
non avrà capito niente. —
La Sala Dante era piena di gente. Beniamino Cesi era un artista
molto amato nella società romana: in tutta la lunghezza della sala vi
erano cinque file profonde di signore, nell'aria tepida primaverile
alitava quel delicato soffio femminile, odore di stoffe, odore di
capigliature, odore di pelle macerata nei profumi. Con le nari dilatate
e frementi, Riccardo Joanna respirò quell'alito, un'espressione di
benessere gli si dipinse sul volto. Tenendo il cappello in mano,
lasciando vedere la ricciuta testa dalla bianchissima fronte, cercando
vagamente con gli occhi una persona ancora introvabile, Riccardo
Joanna si avanzava, senza far rumore, strisciando fra le sedie, con la
cautela del gentiluomo che non vuol disturbare, con l'aria della
persona illustre ma modesta che non vuole attirare l'attenzione.
Qualche testa femminile si volse a guardare due volte il bel giovane
dal viso pensoso e languente, qualche voce sussurrò: Joanna.
Piccolo mormorio dilettoso che si levava sempre sul passaggio di
Riccardo, e che il suo orecchio fino coglieva a volo, suffragio
carezzevole dell'ammirazione, che gli produceva sempre un
trasalimento di vanità. Sul lato sinistro della sala, accanto a due
signore, vi era una sedia vuota, vi sedette, senza far rumore,
cercando con gli occhi Caterina. Era poco lontana da lui, la bruna
creatura mistica, dai grandi occhi neri e torbidi — un nero opaco di
carbone, — ed il viso pallidissimo, di anima inferma, non ebbe
neppure un brivido, scorgendo Riccardo Joanna solo. Come aveva
guardato nella bottega del pasticciere la contessa Beatrice di
Santaninfa, Riccardo guardava intensamente donna Caterina,
mettendo tutta la potenza de' suoi nervi in quello sguardo.
Naturalmente solo la donna aveva il potere di fissare e di
concentrare l'anima vagabonda di Riccardo, solo la donna ne
attraeva tutti i sogni in un sogno solo, solo la donna gli dava l'obblio
di ogni cura. E della donna lo attraeva tutto: bellezza aperta,
sfacciatamente luminosa, assorbente come il sole, o timida purità di
bellezza immersa nella penombra, fantasia mondana che di frivolezze
vive e di frivolezze non sa morire — o immaginazione sentimentale
che cerca l'amore e non vuol subirlo, avendolo trovato — o cuore
profondo e sconosciuto che si ammanta di leggerezza, ma palpita di
passione — o grande mistero indecifrabile di cuore, di sensi, di
fantasia, come spesso la donna è. — Le labbra della bionda contessa
impolverate di zucchero chiamavano i baci dell'amatore pazzo e
irriverente; gli occhi cocenti di donna Tecla Spada davano all'amatore
crudele il desiderio di vederli dolcificati dalle lagrime dell'amore; ma
egualmente strano doveva essere il segreto delle labbra violette e
dei neri occhi di carbone di donna Caterina Spinola. Baciavano quelle
labbra smorte che non sapevano ridere? Che erano, nell'amore,
quegli occhi spenti? Riccardo guardava donna Caterina,
profondamente interessato, amandola con tutto l'impeto dei suoi
nervi, come aveva amato la contessa di Santaninfa e donna Tecla
Spada: e desiderando di essere amato da lei, non volendo altro, non
desiderando altro, come aveva desiderato l'amore di donna Beatrice
e di donna Tecla, parendogli che oltre quell'amore niente altro vi
fosse.
Nel grande, religioso silenzio degli ascoltatori, Cesi sonava: e sonava
con quel concentramento, con quell'assorbimento delle sue ore di
musica solitaria. Giammai si voltava al pubblico, sonando, e
distrattamente, come se nulla vedessero, i suoi occhi seguivano il
volo delle sue mani sulla tastiera bianca e nera. Un pensiero di
Beethoven, pensiero grave, quasi solenne, si allargava nella nota di
una musica eminentemente semplice: e il pensiero parlava di cose
alte e pure, di nobili cose che nascono dal cuore e al cuore arrivano.
Donna Caterina Spinola, sotto la falda nera del gran cappello
piumato alla Rubens, stava a sentire con la faccia immobile, senza
batter palpebra. Non si voltava mai a guardare Riccardo Joanna, solo
un lievissimo rossore le si distendeva di mano in mano sotto gli
occhi, a striature. Non si scosse neppure quando Cesi fu applaudito
alla fine del pezzo. Riccardo, scontento di quella indifferenza, di
quella freddezza, cominciava ad irritarsi, un senso di collera si
mescolava al suo desiderio. Non era dunque lei che gli aveva
mandato il giornale, segnato col lapis rosso? Non era quella una
dichiarazione chiara ed aperta, nel medesimo tempo un
appuntamento dato senza essere stato richiesto? Ed ella non si
smoveva, inflessibile, in quella morte apparente del suo viso; tanto
che, profittando del movimento fra un pezzo e l'altro, egli si tolse
donde era seduto, e scivolando fra la gente, andò a sedere alle
spalle di donna Caterina.
"Ebbene?” le disse, duramente, con la prepotenza dell'uomo
imperioso.
"Che cosa?” domandò lei, senza voltarsi, senza turbarsi.
"Niente,” fece lui, chinando il capo, umiliato, sentendosi salire un
flutto di lagrime agli occhi, un nodo di singhiozzi alla gola.
E un lamentío, un singhiozzo era nell'aria divina di Pergolese: Tre
giorni son che Nina, che Cesi sonava al pianoforte. Nina era
ammalata, Nina si moriva d'amore, e la musica piangeva sulla
giovinetta morente con una insistente mestizia, con un abbandono di
note musicali che si trascinavano, tristi, monotone, profonde,
appassionate di dolore. Donna Caterina Spinola, che le amiche
chiamavano Santa Cecilia, piegava un po' il capo, come se poca forza
ornai lo reggesse, come se avesse bisogno di un petto su cui
appoggiarsi e piangere.
"Caterina,” mormorò la voce tramutata del fanciullo infelice.
E fu così forte l'appello, giunse così direttamente alle fibre profonde
di quel cuore di donna, fu così potente l'evocazione, come quella di
Cristo innanzi alla tomba di Lazzaro, che senza voltarsi, ella disse:
"A San Pietro, dopo il concerto.”
Quando Riccardo Joanna scese la scaletta della Sala Dante, trovò il
suo cocchiere che lo aspettava pazientemente con le gambe
incrociate, leggendo un giornaletto del mattino, molto popolare fra i
vetturini. Joanna fu interdetto, un minuto, pensando che non aveva
nulla da dare a questo cocchiere, ma la sua fantasia correva già a
San Pietro; pure, macchinalmente, cavò di tasca un taccuino, ne
lacerò una paginetta e ci scrisse:
"Caro Carlo, non posso farti il concerto Cesi, vengo alle cinque in
ufficio a fare il giovedì santo a San Pietro. Ciao. — Riccardo.”
Non osando salire in ufficio, passando innanzi il portone del
Quasimodo, lasciò il bigliettino al portinaio, perchè lo portasse su al
direttore del giornale, e fece galoppare il cavalluccio della botte
verso San Pietro, vinto da una grande impazienza, cercando domare
la febbre dei suoi polsi. L'atmosfera fresca e la penombra della
basilica lo calmarono subito: tanto che essendovi entrato di corsa,
immediatamente rallentò il passo, placato, felice, come l'uomo che è
accanto alla felicità. Donna Caterina Spinola non si vedeva, la
basilica era quasi vuota, e in fondo ad una cappella laterale, certi
preti e certi diaconi cantavano nasalmente, inascoltati, le antifone
della passione di Gesù. Riccardo andava attorno, senza far rumore,
cercando il cappello piumato di donna Caterina, sapendo di doverlo
trovare da un minuto all'altro. Infatti vide un'ombra nera
inginocchiata al cancello di bronzo della cappella di papa Della
Rovere; le si accostò, la lasciò pregare, non le disse nulla, non la
chiamò. Ella sapeva bene che egli era là, ma reclinato il capo, le
mani congiunte, orava fervidamente. Non si alzò che dopo qualche
tempo, s'inchinò, fece un ampio segno di croce e si pose accanto a
Riccardo. Passeggiarono insieme, guardando distrattamente i
monumenti, scambiando qualche parola.
"La chiesa è troppo vasta.”
"E fredda,” e rabbrividì sotto il suo mantello di velluto nero che
sembrava una coltre funebre.
"Voi pregate però, qui, signora.”
"Prego sempre.”
"Che gli dite a Dio?”
"Tutto.”
"Ditelo anche a me.”
"No.”
"Perchè?”
"Perchè.... così.”
"Che volete da me, allora?”
"Non voglio nulla.”
Tacquero, ella già chiusa e diffidente, gelata nel misticismo bizzarro
del suo spirito, indietreggiando spaventata e sospettosa innanzi al
fatto che stava per compiersi: egli scontento ed offeso nel suo amor
proprio di uomo, sentendo il ridicolo di quella posizione, di due che
non si amano e che si pentono di aver voluto cominciare ad amarsi.
Riccardo specialmente, anima ansiosa di amore, ardente ricercatore
di avventure, credendo tutto dovuto al suo ingegno e alla sua
bellezza, era crudelmente mortificato; sotto la calma esteriore, sotto
il consueto pallore del bel viso giovanile, infuriava una grande collera
di amor proprio. Come un fanciullo che tutto vuole e a cui tutto è
negato, egli avrebbe voluto piangere, strillare, battere i piedi in terra,
far male a quella donna, lacerarle il vestito; ma si dominava con un
forte sforzo, cercava di lasciarsi vincere da quel disprezzo del
femminile che ogni tanto trapelava attraverso il suo entusiasmo per
la donna.
"Vi piace la Nina, signora?” chiese freddamente, come se si trovasse
in un salone e non in quella immensa chiesa fresca e silenziosa, a un
convegno d'amore.
"Mi piace assai,” rispose l'altra, fissandogli in viso i suoi occhioni tetri.
"E perchè vi piace?”
"Perchè intendo il suo dolore.”
"Che!” fece lui, con un disprezzo profondo, con un riso fierissimo
d'ironia.
"Addio, signore.”
"Addio, signora.”
Ella affrettò il passo, senza voltarsi, senza neppure farsi il segno
della croce, uscendo dalla chiesa. Riccardo, non soddisfatto di quello
che le aveva detto, rabbioso contro sè stesso e contro tutte le
femmine, non la seguì neppure, la lasciò allontanare, mandando alla
malora le beghine e la musica e l'amore. Uscì dopo; la vista della sua
carrozza che lo aspettava lo fece trasalire di nuovo, come se una
trafittura, per poco calmata, ricominciasse a trapassargli l'anima.
"Dove andiamo?” chiese il cocchiere.
"Andiamo.... al Corso, va piano, che non c'è premura.”
E morsicchiando il suo sigaro avana, al mezzo trotto del cavalluccio,
Riccardo si domandava, ostinatamente, come avrebbe fatto a pagare
quel cocchiere; erano le cinque, forse, doveva dargli tre ore e mezzo,
almeno sette lire, doveva trovare sette lire fra tre minuti, per darle a
quell'odioso cocchiere, che gli pesava sullo stomaco come un incubo.
Per Via Borgo, lungo il Tevere, per Ponte Sant'Angelo, Joanna si
guardava attorno vagamente, con una curiosità disperata, come se
dovesse trovare nelle insegne delle botteghe, nelle vetrine, nelle
acque sacre del fiume, nelle statue brune, le sette lire per pagare il
suo cocchiere, il suo feroce nemico che non lo abbandonava. Oramai
l'offesa al suo orgoglio di uomo che gli aveva fatto subire donna
Caterina Spinola si affievoliva sempre più, dinanzi al cruccio reale,
presente, di queste sette lire mancanti, che egli doveva trovare ad
ogni costo: e si rammentava di donna Caterina, perchè era proprio
lei che se lo era trascinato dietro a San Pietro, aumentando così a
ogni minuto il suo debito verso il cocchiere, facendolo morsicare
sempre più profondamente da quel verme roditore che è la carrozza
presa a ora. Nella stretta via di Tordinona, la sua carrozza si fermò;
un coupé ingombrava la via, fermo innanzi ad una bottega di
antiquario. Sulla porta della bottega, una signora parlava vivamente
con un commesso dell'antiquario, un giovanotto pallido, anemico, coi
capelli rossi, gli occhi lattei e le guance macchiate di lentiggini. Era
donna Clelia Savelli, che vedendo Riccardo, subito gli sorrise,
facendogli un amichevole cenno del capo: egli restò incantato
innanzi a quel sorriso, d'un tratto rasserenato, con una letizia che gli
penetrava nel cervello, gli si diffondeva per le vene. Scese dalla
carrozza, raggiunse donna Clelia.
"Eccomi sorpresa,” disse ella, ridendo. "È un gran mistero, tutta
un'istoria, ma per carità, non la racconti sul giornale!”
"Io la racconto sicuro.”
"No no, la prego, sia discreto.”
"Me la paga, questa discrezione?”
"A che prezzo?”
"A discrezione.”
"Bene, si vedrà. Sa, si ricorda, che io desiderava da gran tempo una
portantina? Quella portantina tutta dorata, dipinta sulle quattro
pareti, così barocche, così artistiche nel loro barocchismo? Vari amici
mi avevano promesso di trovarmela, una portantina, anche lei
doveva far ricerca, si rammenta? Ebbene, io ho da ieri la mia
portantina, foderata di vecchio velluto rosso, una tinta disfatta che è
seducentissima....”
"Come lei....”
"Come me, più di me, anzi! Indovini chi me l'ha data?”
"Io non indovino mai nulla, presso lei.”
"Mio marito, glielo dico subito: quel caro e buon marito che
attraverso i suoi affari di banca ha il tempo di pensare alle mie
portantine. Che marito!”
"Eccellente,” mormorò Riccardo, come distratto.
"Ha duecento anni la mia portantina, è vecchia assai, una perla di
portantina, credo che l'abbia pagata mille franchi, per la rarità. È, del
resto, bruttina, ma io la desideravo tanto!”
"Si farà condurre in portantina?”
"Ma no: quella non serve a nulla, la terrò in salone, vi metteremo in
penitenza quelli che mancano da troppo tempo da casa nostra.”
"Non io vi andrò.”
"No; lei è molto fedele. Ritornando al mio discorso, io cerco di
rendere la cortesia a mio marito. Voglio donargli una bella cosa pel
suo scrittoio, che ne dice? un pugnale, un bel pugnale moresco,
ricurvo....”
"Il coltello divide, contessa.”
"Dividere per regnare,” e rise in un modo seducentissimo. "Io tengo
al mio pugnale, ma qui non ve ne sono; ne ha visti, lei, dei pugnali,
dei bei pugnali, in qualche posto?”
"Nel mio cuore, contessa, come si dice nei vecchi romanzi.”
"I vecchi romanzi sono più belli dei nuovi articoli: ma dove potrei
trovare il pugnale per mio marito? Da Cagiati?”
"No, non credo.”
"Da Janetti, allora?”
"Forse; o dalla Beretta, vi sarà qualche pugnale giapponese con cui
quella brava gente ha l'onesta abitudine di aprirsi il ventre.”
"Bene, venga con me, Joanna, bibelotteremo assieme.”
"È che dovrei andare al giornale,” disse lui, abbozzando un pallido
sorriso.
"Oh! il giornale, a che serve? io l'aspetto dalla Beretta, venga.”
E lestamente salì nel coupé. Riccardo rimase sulla soglia della
bottega di antiquario, stupefatto, guardando fuggire la carrozza.
"Lo vuole, un bel cofano da nozze?” domandò placidamente a
Joanna il commesso pallido dai capelli rossi.
"No, no.”
"Allora una lampada di argento antico?”
"Non mi serve,” rispose il giornalista, sempre più imbarazzato.
Ma ancora gli balenava dinnanzi la luce di quegli occhi incantatori,
luce tutta temperata di dolcezza che infondeva una letizia a colui che
la contemplava; e non esitò più, si buttò in carrozza, ordinando al
cocchiere di condurlo in Via Condotti, accordando a sè stesso
un'altra dilazione, tutto preso di donna Clelia. Anzi, di nuovo
trasportato nelle esaltazioni della fantasia, scese precipitosamente
davanti al grande magazzino della Beretta: ma la contessa non v'era
ancora, egli restò interdetto. Erano le cinque e mezzo, il gas era già
acceso in quel negozio che sembra un piccolo appartamento esotico,
tutto caldo e chiuso, in una temperatura orientale.
"Vuole qualche cosa?” domandò, dolcissimamente, la piccola
signorina Beretta, dal pallore di avorio giapponese, dai lunghi
pensosi occhi giapponesi.
"Mi faccia vedere.... delle scatole da thè.”
Mentre lui sogguardava la porta, sperando di veder entrare la
contessa, la signorina dalle lunghe mani candide, dalla vocina
discreta, veniva disponendo, innanzi a lui, le scatole di lacca bruna
su cui si rileva qualche bizzarro fiore d'oro, le scatole di legno
leggerissimo dove s'incrosta qualche piccolo animale metallico,
madreperlato, una lumachetta, una mosca, un ragno; le scatole di
metallo traforato, dove la pesante materia è vinta dal magistero di
un lavoro che la fa rassomigliare a una trina.
"Bambou con applicazioni di metallo; cloisonné, metallo dalla patina
di porcellana; avorio scolpito,” mormorava la signorina vestita di
nero, portando le scatole brune, azzurre, gialle.
La sottile seduzione di quegli oggetti singolari cominciava ad
invadere il cervello di Joanna, prestandosi alle morbose raffinatezze
sensuali dei suoi gusti. Quella bizzarria poetica di forme, quella
morbida attrazione misteriosa che sta nelle cose dell'estremo
Oriente, quella visione di colori e di linee piene di un senso strano
andavano sino al cuore ammalato di poesia del giovane giornalista.
Nulla egli poteva comperare, ma qualunque oggetto gli presentasse
la signorina, egli non sembrava mai contento: quando ella gli
proponeva di prendere qualche altro genere, egli annuiva col capo,
un po' stupefatto da quell'ambiente. Ella alzava le mani verso una
scansia alta, si chinava ad aprire una cassetta, piccolina, taciturna,
come una brava fata silenziosa e sorridente.
"Buona sera, Joanna,” disse una molle voce.
Donna Clelia Savelli era entrata senza che egli la vedesse, tutta
ridente negli occhi e nelle labbra. Ella emise un sospiro di
soddisfazione, si guardò attorno, si sedette, s'installò, sbottonò il
mantello di velluto, e tutt'assorta nella contemplazione di una bella,
elegante, slanciata gru di bronzo, chiese alla signorina:
"Mi fate vedere qualche arme?”
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