Teaching a 'Racist and Outdated Text': A Journey into My Own Heart of Darkness

In wrestling with her teaching of Joseph Conrad's frequently challenged novella, Heart of Darkness, a high school English teacher discovers her own complicity with and complacency about Western political, economic, and social hegemony. Ultimately, her research into the historical, social, and political contexts of the 19th century novella enable her to understand its immediate relevance to the privileged world that she and her students live in, and to take her students on a personal journey in the modern 'heart of darkness.'