On this very special episode recorded in August 2026, Daniel Dissnger records from the inaugural RevCon (Un)Conference in West Hollywood, CA with Claire Freeman (aka Lamb Shift). The episode was conceived the night before RevCon during the mixer at Guac Daddy WeHo when Daniel heard Claire packed their copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed for the trip from Arkansas to LA for RevCon. That sparked a wonderful Freirean tangent which became this panel/presentation/roundtable conversation/podcast episode, “Love & Learning: Responding to Dehumanization.”
The theme of RevCon 2026 was “Liberation for All” and this conversation embodied that call to revolutionary action because it was powered on audience participation. This was a weaving of many people’s experiences, reflections, and ideas about the struggle for liberation for all. From Claire’s deep dive into conscientization and overcoming false consciousness, to Daniel’s infusion of bell hooks’ text All About Love and Teaching to Transgress, to the enlightening and vulnerable participation from Cheanie Noai (Kaqchikel, Maya) about Guatemala’s Genocide against the Maya people, and Charlotte’s sharing about the dehumanizing dynamics that individual’s experience at every level of the American healthcare system, this podcast episode was in true Freirean form an authentic dialogue.
This is the sort of episode that reminds me (Daniel) why I do this podcast: to connect, to learn, and to platform voices that are making noise in the world and to project their vibration as far as I possibly can. RevCon, the (un)Conference, and the people I met there are the definition of community and coalition. I’ve attended and participated in so many academic conferences during my career and most of the time they are very rigid and I find it hard to connect with people. These challenges are made even more diffcifult when individual’s are neurodivergent, physically disabled, and/or have mental health issues that make it a challenge to thrive. At RevCon the schedule isn’t written in stone because it’s made the day of, can be moved around, and anyone at any time could propose a presentation/event, without the fear of being rejected. You can jump around from presentation to presentation without shame, and presentations can go as long as needed. If you needed rest there was a designated space for that. If you were hungry, there was food provided free of charge. If you, if you, if you… no matter the “ifs” RevCon was open to provide.
If the goal of scholarship is to expand the knowledge base, why are we rejecting people? Who creates the “standards” for what is deemed worthy to be engaged with and shared? What is the goal of an academic conference, really? If the goal is to create community, why is there only a single way to engage and be at a conference? If participation is “mandatory” for academics, why is the financial bar so high?
Why are there so many walls?
RevCon’s goal is to spark revolutionary energy, create community, and invite people to participate however they wanted, even if that meant in silence. At its core, RevCon was powered by love, that Freirean profound love where authentic dialogue happens.
I want to thank everyone at RevCon, Claire, Cheanie, and Charlotte for making this one of the most enlightening experiences I’ve had in a long time. I encourage everyone to check out The Rev School, follow them on Instagram, join the mailing list, and be at the next RevCon in 2027!
RevCon 2026 
An Open Space (un)Conference on Revolution
The Revolution School and LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) invites you to RevCon : a dedicated con for all things revolution and revolutionary! In this inaugural RevCon 2026, the theme we will be engaging with is “liberation for ALL.” In our increasingly polarizing world constituted by hierarchies and driven by capital, a commitment to or devotional practice of liberation for ALL is indeed revolutionary! And there’s a twist…
Unlike traditional conferences with invited speakers and pre-determined topics, RevCon is an (un)conference using Open Space Technology (OST) that invites participants to co-create the event in real time. Throughout the day, anyone can facilitate a session, participate in another’s, or ask to learn something specific, inviting others to share their experiences while moving freely between sessions. Together, we share the responsibility of suggesting topics, posing questions, facilitating activities, and participating in discussions.
Revolution and liberation for ALL is required in ALL areas of life so no matter how inconsequential, im/possible, raw, or seasoned you think your interests and contributions are, they are welcomed and necessary! Revolutions for the liberation of ALL will happen when we co-world it TOGETHER.
Approximate Rundown
00:00 Welcome to RevCon
01:28 Why This Book Matters
04:49 Freire on Humanization
07:13 Conscientization Explained
11:34 False Generosity and Charity
16:59 Naming the World Prompt
19:56 Healthcare and Diagnosis
25:52 Indigenous Resistance and Parenting
33:59 What We Can Change Now
37:45 Love as Antidote
43:12 Freedom and Human Completion
44:10 Closing Thanks and Wrap
Claire (aka Lamb Shift) is an Arkansas-based member of The Revolution School. They work as a community organizer, coordinating support for poultry workers within the home region of Tyson Foods. Claire is a lifelong learner, a Virgo, and a white queer trans woman raised in the US bible belt south. To learn more about the poultry workers movement that they contribute to, visit venceremos-nwa.org/media.
Daniel Dissinger is a Full Professor in the Writing Program at the University of Southern California, poet, Kerouac scholar, podcaster, and writing coach. He hosts the award-winning podcast Writing Remix, as well as The Nostalgia Test Podcast, and facilitates workshops with Inspired Belonging. He earned his PhD and MA from Saint John’s University, and an MFA from The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. Daniel’s poetry has been published in numerous journals, including the 2026 Altadena Poetry Review. His chapbook, tracing the shape, was published by Shadow Mountain Press.
Daniel co-created a global humanities podcaster network, The Humanities Podcast Network. Since 2021, he helped plan their annual international symposiums and was also the chair of the 2025 symposium “Podcasting & Power.” He is a contributing writer featured in the Palgrave Handbook of Humanities Podcasting (forthcoming), and an HPN workshop leader and co-facilitator.
During the inaugural 2026 Los Angeles Kerouac Festival at Typewriters Anonymous, Daniel gave the keynote talk “The Kerouac We Ignore,” which focuses on father-son relationships, masculinity, and Kerouac’s lifelong search for love of self. At the 2026 Undergraduate Writer’s Symposium at University of Southern California, Daniel presented “What I Learned After 6 Years of Podcasting.”
As the co-founder of Inspired Belonging, Daniel’s approach, inspiration, and passion comes from a deeply personal place. He wants to create community and space for people who, like him, are coping with challenging mental health journeys and the daily stigma that this struggle can bring upon a person’s mind, body, and spirit. Daniel believes in the power of writing and love-centered mindful practices to help nurture a shame-free culture for healing.
Visit:
The Nostalgia Test Podcast
Writing Remix
Inspired Belonging
The Humanities Podcast Network
Daniel’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieldissinger/
People, Texts & Podcasts Mentioned in the Episode
Any books are linked to Writing Remix’s Bookshop.org shop and the proceeds go to supporting this project’s mission to keep it totally free and accessible to everyone.
- RevCon
- Rev School
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
- All About Love by bell hooks
- Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks
- Conscientization
- Q’eqchi Maya
- The 36-year Genocide in Guatemala
“Freire says too there’s that false generosity that oppressors do, where they create a situation [that’s] not real generosity. It’s really just creating dependency and so that when you are oppressed you depend so much on the oppressor thinking that they’re providing something that is liberatory to you when it’s really not […] it’s actually creating much more oppression [on] another level that’s harder to get out of because you don’t truly see that that’s dependency.”
-Daniel Dissinger
“Even though it’s unfortunate something has to be like codified with a diagnosis to get the assistance from our fellow mankind that we need, that name is so powerful. And over and over again in my adulthood I’ve had to fight for those labels and it’s probably one of the only times when a label can be liberating.”
-Charlotte (Audience Speaker 2)
“ I think there’s a lot of pressure within resistance movements for people to be the force, right?
But then what do you do when you don’t have access to the healthcare that you need, and what do you do when you don’t have resources and a plethora of ways to actually fight back, and when you don’t have the power, when you can’t, participate in ways that would be actually, like, effective for those movements?
I think about it a lot in the sense that the biggest way that I feel I am in resistance to my own dehumanization and the dehumanization of, like, my people is through parenting and the way that I relate to my son and the way that I, um, allow him to become someone raised in a way that he will have less to fight against.”
-Cheanie Noai (Audience Speaker 3)
“Conscientization makes learning really what the stakes are […] learning isn’t just for the sake of knowing interesting new facts and knowing interesting new knowledge. Even in a context of like organizing and activism there’s a lot of ways that the learning and understanding and having all the facts and knowledge about what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in my world, what’s going on in my life, what’s going on internally […] it calls me into actually understanding that the knowledge that’s important for me to be learning is the stuff that actually has an impact on how I understand the dynamics of oppression in my life and in the world that I’m within […] It’s because people are acting out or it’s because people are not conscious of the kind of narratives and the messages of the oppressor that gets in the way of revolutionary action.”
-Claire Freeman (aka Lamb Shift)
Episode Reflection Questions:
- What would be your presentation at the next RevCon in 2027? Give it a title, a why, and a because.
- Reflect on the most impactful conference and/or event/gathering you’ve ever been part of, either as a participant and/or audience member. What was it? Where was it? What was the theme? What made it impactful?
- If you cold start/host your own conference, what would it be, how would you design it, and what are the “whys” of your choices?
130. RevCon 2026: Talking Pedagogy of the Oppressed w/ Claire Freeman (aka Lamb Shift)
Transcript
The theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can follow the podcast & all social media: Linktree, join the newsletter/Follow Dan’s Medium & Follow the Substack to watch the full episode videos.
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