Critique and Creativity: Intersectionality in the Intro. Classroom

Critique and Creativity: Intersectionality in the Intro. Classroom Teaching a large introductory-level course in Gender and Race Studies presents some unique challenges anticipating both conflict and consensus in the classroom. Students arrive with a broad tangle of distinct and germane lived experiences. Many of them perceive emotional and political as well as intellectual dimensions in course content. Within this fragmented context of perspectives, what are some of the limitations and possibilities inherent in different pedagogical approaches? Using the sociological concept of the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ as a guiding framework, this talk considers two specific course objectives—developing students’ capacities for critique and for creative intervention—alongside intersectional course-design strategies. Central to the discussion is the question of conflict: What spaces and assignments encourage productive disagreement? When and how might conflict be anticipated and defused preemptively—and to what purpose? Using insights from pedagogical theory as well as examples from actual classroom scenarios, this talk highlights the symbiosis of abstraction and subjectivity in intersectional pedagogies, focusing on how the specific alignment of distinct goals can spell the difference between complementarity and contradiction