Cultivating Anti-Racist Feminist Pedagogy Queerly

This presentation draws on both the radical genealogy of science fiction author Octavia Butler’s (1993) recurring theme of change as a constant and the work of New York Times best-selling author, adrienne maree brown, in her social justice organizing and self-help text, Emergent Strategy (2017) (brown does not capitalize her name) to create critical classroom practices. brown 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. As a Women’s and Gender Studies faculty, teaching is a central component of my academic feminist practice. The people who enroll in my classes struggle to pay for their education and negotiate multiple hurdles on their way to the university: childcare responsibilities, underemployment or low wage full-time plus work, long commutes. Their time in the classroom is valuable - and I take seriously my work to create teaching and learning environments. I draw on popular culture, particularly speculative fiction, to make feminist theories and ideas relevant, visionary and accessible to my students. If we cannot even imagine freedom and liberation, how can we work for it? I am interested in research and dialogue surrounding pedagogy as I am committed to using this platform for transformation and liberation. My pedagogical practice is characterized by feminism, anti-racism/anti-oppression, and queerness. For me the practice of teaching and learning is an opportunity to create meaningful connections in the present and to imagine how we can create more justice and freedom for all people in the future. Emergent Strategy is a clear description of liberatory philosophy and for brown (2017) it has principles to help us change and grow. These operate as interventions that enable all of us in classrooms to imagine a liberated future: Trust the people, what you pay attention to grows, less prep more presence, never a failure always a lesson, and change is constant (p. 41-42). Building from this school of vibrant feminist of color science fiction, this presentation takes up both these Emergent Strategy principles and the tensions in contemporary classrooms to explore why and how to cultivate anti-racist feminist pedagogy queerly. This work was generously supported by the Audrey Reynolds Distinguished Teaching Award 2018