pedagogy

Tackling History in the Cultural Studies Seminar

Becca Cragin
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio, USA
bcragin@bgsu.edu

Abstract

While cultural theory developed in past eras was often marred by the biases of its privileged authors, we are still often required to teach the canon, so that graduate students can recognize past intellectual trends to which current critiques of the canon respond. In this article, a “History of Feminist Theory” course is employed as an example of larger principles of foundations course design that can be used in any cultural studies seminar to productively address the tension between old and new schools of thought. It provides suggestions for structuring syllabi and discussions in ways that productively engage with earlier texts, yet without reinforcing their canonicity. The author suggests that viewing “classics” through a comparative and predominantly historical lens can allow teachers to address current cultural issues such as the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements via the use of older texts, constructively balancing the need to identify their oversights with the need to learn the history of a particular field. Students usually wish to analyze the popular culture of the present, sometimes resenting being obliged to take historical/foundational courses. However, these are courses we are often required to teach. The tension between obligations and interests can either derail a grad seminar or be harnessed constructively to help students critique the cultural studies canon more effectively.

Keywords:  History, Foundations, Theory, Pedagogy, Canon, Classics

Author Bio

Becca Cragin is an Associate Professor of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She received her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies from Emory University in 2002 and her B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology from Swarthmore College in 1992. Her research and teaching interests include gender and sexuality in television and film, in comedy and crime genres.

Suggested Citation

APA

Cragin, Becca. “Tackling History in the Cultural Studies Seminar.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/tackling-history-in-the-cultural-studies-seminar/

MLA

Cragin, B. (2022). Tackling History in the Cultural Studies Seminar. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/tackling-history-in-the-cultural-studies-seminar/

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A Touch of Grey: Personal Reflections on Teaching the Grateful Dead to Seniors

Robert Trudeau
Providence College (emeritus)
Providence, R.I.
bobtrudeau40@gmail.com

Abstract

This essay reflects on several occasions in which I was a facilitator introducing the music of the Grateful Dead to groups of senior citizens. Several themes emerge: First, there is the need to separate the facilitator’s feelings as a convinced Deadhead from the inclinations of older individuals who know little about the Grateful Dead. Second, an indirect approach that emphasizes lyrics and accessible songs seems to have the best impact, if the goal is to encourage individuals to want to learn more about, and listen to, the Grateful Dead’s music. Third, one should let students construct the framework of the information that they themselves feel they need. Finally, it takes a lot of preparation to be able to improvise in and around the structures students develop. 

Keywords: Grateful Dead, popular culture, pedagogy

Author Bio

Bob Trudeau is Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, at Providence College, where he specialized in Latin American politics, with an emphasis on Central America. He is the co-author, with Barry Barnes, of The Grateful Dead’s 100 Essential Songs: The Music Never Stops (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and he is a charter member of the Grateful Dead Studies Association.

Recommended citation

APA

Trudeau, R. (2022). A Touch of Grey: Personal reflections on teaching the Grateful Dead to seniors. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 9(1 & 2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-1-and-2/a-touch-of-grey-personal-reflections-on-teaching-the-grateful-dead-to-seniors/.

MLA

Trudeau, Robert. “A Touch of Grey: Personal Reflections on Teaching the Grateful Dead to Seniors.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 9, no. 1 & 2, 2022. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-1-and-2/a-touch-of-grey-personal-reflections-on-teaching-the-grateful-dead-to-seniors/

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Media Literacy, Education, and a Global Pandemic: Lessons Learned in a Gender and Pop Culture Classroom

Jessica Lowell Mason
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York, USA
jlmason1@buffalo.edu

Ebehitale Imobhio
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York, USA
ebehital@buffalo.edu

Abstract

In Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks writes that “to engage in dialogue is one of the simplest ways we can begin as teachers, scholars, and critical thinkers to cross boundaries.” Hence, this paper explores, through narrative dialogue, teacher and student perspectives on the pedagogical impact of the global pandemic on the process of engaging with and learning about media literacy. By naming and narrating teacher and student experiences and perspectives from a course on gender and pop culture that took place during the Spring 2020 semester, the paper aims to demonstrate the way that crisis can both expose certain pedagogical issues as well as generate pedagogical opportunities. It narrates and reflects on the ways in which moments of crisis create opportunities for educators to think differently and more expansively about pedagogy by demonstrating its occurrence in one course, and how the combination of factors specific to the crisis required both the instructor and their students to re-situate themselves in relation to the course content. Through a teacher-student meditation, the paper argues that media literacy is a subject that leads to increased pedagogical deliberation and experimentation in the study of pop culture. It suggests that the experiences described might provide wisdom for further pedagogical development on the subject of media literacy, more broadly, positioning and inviting educators and students to engage in dialogue in order to shift paradigms according to the moment of crisis at hand. The broader aim of the article is to encourage educators to follow the example of the students in the gender and pop culture course who felt empowered to create innovative and social-justice-focused media literacy projects as a way of exercising agency, and of confronting and dealing with the harsh realities of global circumstances. 

Keywords: Media literacy, media, pedagogy, pop culture, pandemic, education, gender, gender studies, gender and pop culture

Author Bios

Jessica Lowell Mason, Lecturer at Buffalo State College and Doctoral Candidate in Global Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University at Buffalo, is serving as Editor and Accessibility Fellow with the Northeast Modern Language Association. During the 2020-2021 year, she was a graduate fellow with the College Consortium and the Coalition for Community Writing’s Herstory Training Institute and Fellowship Program, Teaching Memoir for Justice and Peace, a year-long program in partnership with the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University. Some of Mason’s poems, articles, and reviews have been published by Sinister Wisdom, Lambda Literary, Gender Focus, The Comstock Review, IthacaLit, The Feminist Wire, SUNY Buffalo’s Romance Studies Journal, and Praeger. Her research, pedagogical, and literary interests and practices center, broadly, on identity and language, but more specifically on representations and constructions of madness within archival documents as they strive to assert identity and self-fashioning under systems of oppression that seek to silence and erase them. She is also the co-founder of Madwomen in the Attic, a feminist mental health literacy and advocacy organization in western New York.

Ebehitale Imobhio is currently completing her masters degree in Community Health and Health Behavior in the School of Public Health and Health Professions at the University at Buffalo. She is currently a member of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Council and the co-founder of the Envision Mentoring Program for undergraduate students of color in the program. She is passionate about bridging the gap between academia and communities through the use of accessible language.

Suggested Reference

APA

Lowell Mason, J. &  Imobhio E. (2021). Media literacy, education, and a global pandemic: lessons learned in a gender and pop culture classroom. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 8(3). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-3/media-literacy-education-and-a-global-pandemic-lessons-learned-in-a-gender-and-pop-culture-classroom/

MLA

Lowell Mason, Jessica, and Imobhio, Ebehitale. “Media Literacy, Education, and a Global Pandemic: Lessons Learned in a Gender and Pop Culture Classroom.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 8, no. 3, 2021, http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-3/media-literacy-education-and-a-global-pandemic-lessons-learned-in-a-gender-and-pop-culture-classroom/

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What We Owe Our Students: The Good Place, Pedagogy, and the Architecture of Engaged Learning 

Shala Mills
State University of New York at New Paltz
New Paltz, New York, USA
millss@newpaltz.edu

Darrell Hamlin
Fort Hays State University
Hays, Kansas, USA
dahamlin@fhsu.edu

Abstract

Pedagogy is the architecture of a learning environment. The discipline of philosophy has often operated according to a pedagogy of conversation, clarity, and reflection, certainly since the era of Socratic dialogue in the streets of Athens. We argue that The Good Place occupies that space, re-setting this pedagogy as an architecture of learning through entertainment associated with ultimate matters of eternal disposition. A critical character driving conversation, clarity, and reflection across four seasons of the story’s arc is a philosopher – doomed by their own indecisive flaws – who teaches deep understanding of ethical development through a variety of relevant philosophic problems originating from intellectual history. Confronted with the complexities of an intricately connected world and highly motivated by the weight of ultimate choices, the protagonists bring a sense of how a well-constructed “classroom” can prepare students to meet ordinary challenges, extraordinary obstacles, and even existential crises. The Good Place is a classroom with a purposeful syllabus and highly motivated participants, structured for viewers to extract ethical insights of the highest consequence — if they are willing to keep trying to get it right. By comparison, this article unpacks how the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ Global Challenges blended model course is a valuable example of high impact teaching practices which, like The Good Place, engage students through content connected to issues that confront them personally and professionally, providing them with opportunities for repetition and mastery.

Keywords: pedagogy, popular culture, wicked problems, Bloom’s taxonomy, high impact practices, global challenges, The Good Place

Author Bios

Shala Mills, Associate Provost for Academic Planning & Learning Innovation at State University of New York at New Paltz, was formerly Chair and Professor of Political Science at Fort Hays State University (Kansas).  She is the recipient of numerous teaching and advising awards. She has taught courses in the areas of law and the courts, current political issues, sustainability, food and politics, and global challenges. She served as one of the AASCU Global Engagement Scholars, was the National Coordinator for the AASCU Global Challenges Project, and was the 2017 recipient of AASCU’s Barbara Burch Award for Faculty Leadership in Civic Engagement.  Her most recent publications have been in the areas of academic assessment and leadership and global challenges.

Darrell Hamlin, Associate Professor of Political Science at Fort Hays State University (Kansas), is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Civic Leadership at FHSU and Managing Editor for the eJournal of Public Affairs.  He previously served as Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at FHSU and as Assistant Professor of Political Science at Spring Hill College (Alabama). Hamlin was one of the original AASCU Global Engagement Scholars, and his scholarly interests relate to the culture and politics of democracy.

Suggested Reference

APA

Mills, S., & Hamlin, D. (2021). What we owe our students: The Good Place, pedagogy, and the architecture of engaged learning. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 8(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-2/what-we-owe-our-students-the-good-place-pedagogy-and-the-architecture-of-engaged-learning/

MLA

Mills, Shala, and Darrell Hamlin. “What We Owe Our Students: The Good Place, Pedagogy, and the Architecture of Engaged Learning.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 8, no. 2, 2021, http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-2/what-we-owe-our-students-the-good-place-pedagogy-and-the-architecture-of-engaged-learning/

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Experimental Forms and Identity Politics in 21st Century American Poetry

Ronnie Stephens
Tarrant County College
Arlington, TX 76063
ronnie.stephens@tccd.edu

Abstract

“Experimental Forms and Identity Politics in 21st Century American Poetry” explores the function of form in American poetry and its proximity to whiteness. Through an analysis of experimental and nontraditional forms I argue that poets Fatimah Asghar, Jericho Brown, Franny Choi, Natalie Diaz, Ilya Kaminsky, and Danez Smith challenge traditional notions of what a poem is; these authors use graphics and co-opt familiar text objects to challenge larger assumptions about gender identity, ableism, and the immigrant experience. These experimental forms are grounded in a larger poetic tradition that alters traditional forms, such as the sonnet, to disrupt and further dialogue related to oppressive tactics in American poetry. They also signal an intentional departure from strict forms associated with colonialism and mark a shift in contemporary American poetry. For educators, including nontraditional and experimental form poems in the curriculum encourages students to engage poetry as a living genre. It also invites conversation about the implications of gatekeeping in both the publishing and education industries. The co-opting and evolution of form is not just a rebellion against classic American poetry but an opportunity for students of color to engage with the literary canon on their own terms.

Keywords: Poetry, Counternarrative, #DisruptTexts, Decolonize, Technology, Sonnet, Cyborg, Pedagogy

Suggested References

APA

Stephens, R. (2021). Experimental forms and identity politics in 21st century American poetry. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 8(2).  http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-2/experimental-forms-and-identity-politics-in-21st-century-american-poetry/.

MLA

Stephens, Ronnie. “Experimental Forms and Identity Politics in 21st Century American Poetry”. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 8, no. 2, 2021. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-2/experimental-forms-and-identity-politics-in-21st-century-american-poetry/.

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Conceptualizing Empathy and Prosocial Action: Teaching Film within theLiterature Classroom

Mayuri Deka
University of the Bahamas
Nassau, The Bahamas
mayuri.deka@ub.edu.bs

Abstract

The experience of viewing a movie in the global era is multi-faceted. A viewer’s response to a cinematic experience as Carl Plantinga explains in Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator’s Experience is not only admiration for the aesthetics and techniques employed in the movie but also in the emotions aroused by the storyline. Audiences react to the story and characters presented with directed emotions by imagining either their mental lives and feelings or their situations. Empathy occurs within this framework of imagination where the audience engages with the story and character based on these directed emotions. The audience could not only empathize with the story or character by experiencing a similar emotion but also think about a similar situation they have experienced and attribute the emotion they experienced to the story or character. Watching a film such as How to Train Your Dragon (2010) would allow the instructor to help students sustain a coherent identity and find similarities with more and more diverse groups of people, leading to a reduction in prejudice while promoting an empathic identity. This facilitation of the development of complex identity-contents in the students based on universal affective states and life-conditions should result in them taking practical steps to alleviate the Other’s suffering and engage in social change through empathic reflection.

Keywords: Film, literature, empathy, Self/Other, pedagogy

Author Bio

Dr. Mayuri Deka is the Chair of English Studies at The University of the Bahamas. She has published and presented numerous papers on the areas of multi-ethnic identities, diasporic literatures, Postcolonial literatures, cinema, and pedagogy. Articles and chapters can be found in South Asian Review, The Journal of the School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies,Teaching Hemingway and Race and such. She is in the process of writing her book on pro-social pedagogy and social justice. Deka has taught a wide range of American and World literature courses, including texts from various diasporas and focusing on the interactions within cultures and races.

Suggested References

APA

Deka, M. (2021). Conceptualizing empathy and prosocial action: Teaching film within the literature classroom. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 8(3). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-2/conceptualizing-empathy-and-prosocial-action-teaching-film-within-theliterature-classroom/

MLA

Deka, Mayuri. “Conceptualizing Empathy and Prosocial Action: Teaching Film within the Literature Classroom.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 8, no. 3. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-2/conceptualizing-empathy-and-prosocial-action-teaching-film-within-theliterature-classroom/

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Queerly Cultivating Anti-Racist Feminist Pedagogy

Laurie Fuller
Northeastern Illinois University
Chicago, Illinois, USA
lsfuller@neiu.edu    

Abstract

Queerly Cultivating Anti-Racist Feminist Pedagogy raises questions and analyzes classroom practices based on adrienne maree brown’s (2017) Emergent Strategy, a radical self-help manual for our current political climate that calls for a paradigm shift in organizing work. A Black, mixed, queer, pansexual, feminist writer, pleasure activist, facilitator and sci-fi scholar, brown builds on a continuous tradition of women of color feminists resisting oppression to bring together science fiction and permaculture, biomimicry and organizing, pleasure and activism. She offers fresh perspectives on how to imagine liberation and provides dynamic ways to think about teaching and learning. Emergent Strategy provides principles to help us change and grow, essential for all pedagogical work, and asks us to imagine liberation. In fact, emergent strategy principles can be integrated into classroom teaching and educational practices to create more meaningful learning, engagement, and measurable success: Trust people, what you pay attention to grows, less prep more presence, never a failure always a lesson, and change is constant (brown, 2017, pp. 41-42).  This article addresses present moment classroom concerns using these five principles to explore why and how to cultivate anti-racist feminist pedagogy and to do it queerly. In this case, queer is an action, a verb, something to do, and something to do to counter normative approaches, to queer them. Thus, queerly cultivating anti-racist feminist pedagogy questions the status quo, and can be used to challenge taken for granted, problematic and oppressive classroom practices and educational theories.

Keywords: Feminist, Anti-Racist, Queer, Pedagogy, Privilege, Oppression, Organizing, Emergent Strategy, Teaching

Author Bio

Laurie Fuller’s feminist teaching and learning practices center the use of imagination as a key tool to transform the contemporary conditions of oppression and to engender new ways of being in liberated, free and accountable societies. As the Audrey Reynolds Distinguished Teaching Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, Laurie uses anti-racist, queer and speculative texts in the classroom to cultivate transformative justice. She has published articles in journals such as QSE, GLQ, Radical Pedagogy, Radical Teacher and the Journal of International Women’s Studies.

Suggested Citation

APA
Fuller, L. (2020). Queerly cultivating anti-racist feminist pedagogy. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 7(2) http://journaldialogue.org/v7-issue-2/queerly-cultivating-anti-racist-feminist-pedagogy/

MLA
Fuller, Laurie. Queerly Cultivating Anti-Racist Feminist Pedagogy. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 7, no. 2, 2020. http://journaldialogue.org/v7-issue-2/queerly-cultivating-anti-racist-feminist-pedagogy/

 

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Pedagogy, Ideology, & Composition: Is There a Better Way to Teach?

Erin Guydish Buchholz
The Grier School
Birmingham, Pennsylvania, United States
erin.guydish@wilkes.edu

Abstract

While academia tends to focus on differentiating various groups of students, prioritizing similar learning practices can have surprising and potentially transforming outcomes. In classrooms that are often filled with students who do not quite comprehend the significance of critical thinking processes or practices, the role they will play as global citizens, or why studying abstract topics is necessary, interchanging effective pedagogy from one classroom or student type to another may result in more engaged and productive learning. Additionally, students may mature and create their personas more clearly when classes interject ‘basic’ classroom practices such as modeling respect while discussing politics or more ‘advanced’ techniques like scaffold writing and hands-on activities. If instructors are more reflective as they interact with students as adult learners, their lessons may provide chances to explore identities, ideologies, and a deeper comprehension of the impacts of their actions within and on society. 

This article will discuss a combination of personal experience and research-based pedagogy with the aim of illustrating useful ways to stimulate students’ critical thinking abilities. While many educators and recent assessments have focused on significant learning experiences and valuable course outcomes, this research focuses on creating practices to serve students better within writing courses, general education, and in their future careers. Interchanging conversational practices, writing activities, and research processes across classrooms with specific student demographics (such as developmental learners, international students, non-traditional students, and traditional college learners) may be key in helping students understand how their academic education could serve them more usefully in their post-graduation communities. 

Keywords: pedagogy, reflective practices, diverse learners, student-centered learning, general education 

Author Bio

Erin Guydish Buchholz completed her studies at Wilkes University and the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She has spent her time teaching at a variety of higher education institutions. Currently, she holds a position teaching American Literature at an all girls’ boarding school where she enjoys the opportunity to encourage young women to become empowered. 

Suggested Reference Citation

APA
Guydish Buchholz, E. (2020). Pedagogy, ideology, & composition: Is there a better way to teach? Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 7(1). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v7-issue-1/pedagogy-ideology-composition-is-there-a-better-way-to-teach/

MLA
Guydish Buchholz, Erin. “Pedagogy, Ideology, & Composition: Is There a Better Way to Teach?” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 7, no. 1, 2020. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v7-issue-1/pedagogy-ideology-composition-is-there-a-better-way-to-teach/

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