Abstract: The author examines his experiences teaching Marxism for three years in a liberal education paradigm in a U.S.-based university. A tension in liberal education exists between institutional inclinations to produce graduates as ideological subjects versus endowing them with the sort of critical thinking abilities that might help them see through if not deconstruct subjugating ideologies. In many respects, teaching Marxism is well suited to revealing such tensions and the dilemmas they pose. Thus, while “educating responsible citizens” might sometimes be merely a euphemism for producing disciplined, market-oriented “outputs” in a manner that Marxism fundamentally opposes, this paper concludes that teaching Marxism can provide a vital means for strengthening critical thinking abilities, particularly in a period of compounding political, economic and environmental crises. However, the predictable and perhaps insoluble problems that arise when teaching Marxism in turn help produce a radical pedagogy seeking critical praxis in the classroom and beyond.

Key words: Teaching, Marxism, critical thinking, radical pedagogy, praxis