6 10 142 https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/1ff7f0be03327eb61add7804f2af30c4.wav be26ff0e5d89556bc1ffa77396d12c39 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lang, Abigail Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Margaret Ng Location The location of the interview College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:17:01 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:00] Abigail Lang: Hello, this is Abby Lang. I am a History and WGSS double major. Today is September 13th, 2018 and I am here with Dr. Margaret Ng from the College of Wooster. So, our first question today is what is your primary area of study and how do you incorporate a feminist or queer approach into your teaching? [00:00:24] Margaret Ng: Hello, thank you Abby and thank you for inviting me to do this interview. So, my primary area of research is geographically East Asia and more specifically China. [I am a historian of medicine.] The medical texts I study were distributed all over East Asia, especially to Japan and Korea and South-East Asia. My focus is on the history of obstetrics. [Childbirth] concerns not only women physically, but also involves families. [Obstetrics is called chanke in Chinese and gynecology is fuke.] Both chanke and fuke are my areas of study. And the other question which is also very big (laughs) is… how do I incorporate feminist or queer pedagogy in my teaching? [00:01:38] AL: Yes. [00:01:38] MN: I usually try to define feminist [pedagogy]. Queer [pedagogy] I don’t define. When I do incorporate it in my teaching, it is usually in the context of a class on sex, sexualities and gender, and the range of bodies and identities you can have in China’s very long history. [I start with the androgynous body found in the Chinese classic, Huandi neijing suwen (Inner Classics of the Yellow Emperor) from early China, then I continue with introducing bodies with more yin and were classified as having yin qualities, feminine in association, etc. These yin bodies often had yin parts, they could be identified as female. The opposite is true for yang bodies or bodies with more yang qualities. There were many throughout history with all that range of yin-yang qualities. A person could have yin parts, i.e. a vagina, but have an abundance of yang qualities and behave as a yang person or a man.] Chinese history is so long and examples from its history is very wide ranging. This allows me to apply [the idea of feminist pedagogy (i.e. the center of women or yin qualities)] and use the same type of terminology in my teaching. However, the closer I get to… periods when there is interaction with European or North American feminist ideology, [the more interesting it becomes.] I try not to read back into history and assume that some of these terms would have the same salience, but I see these terms as very important in helping me ask difficult questions about the past. When I do apply feminist pedagogy, I don’t always explicitly tell my students, especially in the survey class that we have [Traditional Chinese History], but in my class on body and medicine I’m very explicit... By explicit, I would actually name the theorist and their theories. I would also challenge certain norms that I know exist today that didn’t exist then. So, it’s on multiple levels that I’m applying it. [00:03:45] AL: Alright, who or what were some of your biggest influence in these feminist or queer pedagogies? So, things like teachers or mentors, books, life experiences, or even people within your field that influence these pedagogies. [00:04:01] MN: In terms of scholarship, like you I was introduced to some of these early feminist theorists like Judith Butler very early on in my career as a master’s student at McGill. In my undergraduate classes, [my exposure was through literary scholars in my English Literature classes (Canadian women writers like Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Susanna Moodie, Catherine Parr Traill, and American writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker). I did not react positive to second wave feminism, and was drawn more to the third wave.] Most of the feminist theories I studied in graduate school were academic [and I found it hard to apply to my daily life.] It’s really over the course of my… life working in different parts of the world, having worked in Singapore and Japan, where ideas of gender and identities [are] radically different from the West, [and my own experience as a woman coming up against patriarchy where I learn to question and apply the theories. My time at Wooster has allowed me to] formulate my own sense of what it means to be a feminist scholar or to talk about such topics. Working alongside women with strong ideas of feminism and women’s rights have played a very big role in how I redefine myself as a feminist scholar. [My journey towards a strong sense of women’s position in society started earlier.] I went to a Catholic Convent for twelve years in Singapore. It was an all-girls school, bilingual in English and Chinese. My teachers were nuns [or sisters] and they were just amazing. For example, when I was in primary 6 which is around twelve years old, during hymn singing practices, my teacher Sister Patricia introduced to me songs by Madonna’s “Papa don’t Preach,” “La Ista Bonita” and the group Abba. At that time I didn’t realize those were pop music from the West. [In Singapore at that time, coming from a Chinese-Teochew speaking family, I was listening mostly to Chinese music, and in school we were educated in English. I would subsequently realize that Sister Patricia had introduced] popular music from the US and that Madonna was very subversive, especially in the Catholic church. [Sister Patricia was a Catholic nun who was introducing subversive popular music that opposed or critiqued the church.] Therefore, I would say that women in my life have all been very strong and I tend to want to be around strong women too. I would like to qualify that being strong doesn’t make you a feminist of course. I am therefore drawn to women who are strong, but also very intentionally are trying to challenge established systems that limit the role of women. That has been crucial for me. [00:07:04] AL: Alright, when was a time where you saw queer or feminist pedagogy having positive influence or work well in the classroom? [00:07:14] MG: I think that… there has to be a culture in the institution… for that to happen. I recall teaching at McGill University in a history class. I was an adjunct [teaching one course, Modern Chinese History.] I invited somebody to give a talk on Chinese women, and in the talk, the speaker interrogated common stereotypes [and categories of women and gender norms applied to Chinese women.] A student got very upset and came up to me and said, ‘Well, you know, if my parents knew that I was paying good money to study about women and feminism, they’d be very upset’ I was so shocked and mad. I did not know what to do. I’ve never had that experience here. Here, I’ve been able to bring in all types of scholarship that I think is suitable. And I think the culture of an institution is extremely important in engendering and enabling feminist and queer pedagogy or methods of teaching. [00:08:30] AL: Is there any practices that in particular you bring into the classroom or- I recall the other day during class, you were talking about- to us about power structures in the classroom and how you’re the one that stands in the front and we all just kind of pay attention and all our focus is on you and that reminds me, we’ve been reading a book by bell hooks, her book on feminist pedagogy [Teaching to Transgress] and she talks a lot about that, about power structures in the classroom and about creating more of a community of the classroom. And like this power of education and Paulo Freire. Do you- Are you familiar with any of that or is that something you keep in mind usually in the classroom? [00:09:20] MN: Right, power is such an interesting word, right? Because I think when I mentioned it in class I also mentioned that while it seems as if I have power, I actually don’t have as much power as it looks. I was thinking about Foucault [and his ideas on] how power is so diffused and its multilayered, [and that was a moment where I wanted to highlight that point.] I’m actually very conscious about power dynamics in classrooms, and I grapple with who gets to speak, the power of certain voices over those who are quiet or silenced. And I can see that in our class. Some individuals are very used to having certain attention and it’s a power play sometimes where they want the professor’s attention [or for the professor to affirm that positions.] I’m very conscious not to deny that, but more importantly to redistribute that power that students would have. Especially students who are not very proactive in trying to carve out a space to speak. Although I do sometimes ask students who are very quiet or who don’t usually speak up, I try to be respectful because I think some people just do not want to speak in public. I have to respect that. I’m constantly trying to move back and forth to gain that equilibrium. In fact [my] power is totally useless in this context of trying to create a conducive environment in the classroom to learn [and students have a lot more say] and I’m very aware of it. [00:11:06] AL: Alright, and you spoke a little bit about this at your previous institution but, what kind of challenges do you think professors face when bringing feminist or queer pedagogy into the classroom? So, things like implementing the techniques or even the classroom dynamic or even more institutional side like hiring or reviews, tenure. [00:11:33] MN: Those are big questions. (both laugh) So, let’s start with the classroom. I think… the problem would be that I think here at the College especially, students who are taking my classes, they are very aware of my position or my positionality as a scholar who will introduce [non-Western or non-Eurocentric ideas.] I am very invested in introducing multiple perspectives especially those of women, and not just of women, of men and women who have taken on certain identities throughout history that doesn’t conform to the norm or the standards. And added to that is this idea of colonized people, [and the need to provide a space for their voice.] I’m a Southeast Asian. I speak English because I’m a colonial subject. And that I need to be able to move back and forth in these multiple worlds. The intersectionality of multiple things [dominate how I see my work as a teacher of history.] I need to choose what I want to emphasize, which is diverse perspectives and sometimes subversive notions. And I think that students are not always attuned or open to that, because there’s a certain level of urgency about what a feminist agenda might be or a queer agenda might be today, [I do sense some opposition.] But I’m a historian so I’m looking at the past, [that provides more distance from today. At the College of Wooster,] it has so far been pretty welcoming and conducive [to the type of teaching I do.] I’m very intentional when I want to do something that introduces some feminist or queer content, [or how to introduce it in a way that will engage students who are otherwise antagonistic towards these ideas.] In terms of tenure in a higher educational institution, I think the institution is very, very patriarchal. This patriarchy is not only male focused, but women sustain the patriarchy. I think that as long as we don’t have a diverse set of leaders and leadership examples, we’re always going to be stuck in this certain kind of a rut about thinking what good scholarship is, what kind of public speaking is acceptable and I think it’s still very, very conservative in many places. But at the same time, I see myself implicated in it. I don’t beat myself over it, but I know that I’m a part of the problem and I try not to be. [I know that I need to transform and change.] [00:14:50]AL: And speaking about this workshop what motivated you to participate in the workshop and what do you hope to get out of it? [00:14:58] MN: I’ve cross-listed several of my classes with WGSS. These are my classes on Medicine, the history of the Body and [an upper-level class] on the Body and Nation. The content that I introduce is very important in getting students to think very differently [about how we see or treat the body. We interrogate how different types of bodies and experiences engender different types of relationships]. and how these are implicated with state powers. However, I don’t explicitly use some of the language that I know is used in WGSS classes, so I wanted to learn from my colleagues. I think that Chinese feminist and queer scholarship or Taiwanese, Japanese. [Feminist agendas and history are all very interesting and have a lot to offer.] These are however very complicated, and are implicated in language, translation practices, and in geopolitics. [The issues about how women and women’s history and roles in societies continue to be sources of tension in East Asia today.] [00:16:22] AL: And finally, is there anything that we have not talked about yet that you would like to bring up? [00:16:29] MN: (laughs) I think that you know I don’t... No, I don’t have anything. You know, I’m a clean, open slate now and I’m waiting just looking forward to the workshop so that I can learn, yeah. Thank you, and I really appreciate your commitment and your enthusiasm, because this is what makes my work meaningful actually, to see you, you know, and the next generation doing it. Thank you. [00:17:00] AL: Alright, thank you. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Margaret Ng Subject The topic of the resource Women's studies; Women's rights--Cross-cultural studies; Classroom environment; East Asia; Southeast Asia Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lang, Abigail Ng, Margaret Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-09-13 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource College of Wooster Libraries; Queer and Feminist Pedagogy Workshop, funded by the Hewlett-Melon Foundation Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented with Permission from Maragret Ng<br /><br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3 Language A language of the resource Eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Maraget_Ng_Interview.mp3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant College of Wooster; McGill University; China; Singapore; Japan; South-East Asia Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Dr. Margaret Ng. Dr. Ng is a Professor of History at the College of Wooster. She teaches class about traditional and modern China and focuses on the women, family, the body, and medicine. The interview discusses incorporating feminist pedagogies and power structures in the classroom, as well as non-western sources of feminist structures. Dr. Ng's transnational education from her youth in Singapore, education in Canada, and professorship in the United States provides a wide scope perspectives and many histories and feminisms to consider. https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/3e29407a61313b3291ae0950f85ac09c.mp4 1f923b582ad452191f2b33834f457a01 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Harris-Ridker, Matthew Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed LeMaster, Benny Location The location of the interview College of Wooster Digital Studio Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Moving Image Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:18:15 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Benny LeMaster Interview Edited by Matthew Harris-Ridker and Benny LeMaster For Clarity [00:00:00] MHR: All right. I am Matthew Harris-Ridker, I am a Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies major class of 2019. It is September 14th, 2018 and I'm here with Benny LeMaster. Thank you for coming! [00:00:15] BL: Absolutely! [00:00:16] MHR: You're from Arizona State University. [00:00:19] BL: I am! [00:00:20] MHR: Awesome! Well, my first question is what is your primary area of study, and how you incorporate a queer or feminist approach in your teaching? [00:00:26] BL: Sure. I guess I should go back. I just started at Arizona State. I came from California State University Long Beach where I taught primarily in Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies there. That's a whole, sort of, core area of interest. I was an undergraduate major Women's, Gender & Sexuality studies way back when. And so feminism and queerness, but more precisely, intersections of feminism and transness, trans feminism, is a very, sort of, core part of my work. So I start with Cal-State long beach because... as a result of that experience, teaching as much as I was, pedagogy become... became much more of a central, sort of, focus of how I think through these questions. So where I am now, at Arizona State in terms of my professional areas are Critical Cultural Studies and then also Performance Studies. Sort of within those areas, the ways that we perform all manner of privilege and disadvantage in different contexts is generally, I think, how I can reduce it down. [00:01:31] MHR: Very nice! So, who were some of your biggest influences in feminist and queer pedagogy? This can be like teachers you had, books experiences you've had with people in the field. [00:01:42] BL: Sure! I would say my first... like the most profound... The person that had most profound impact was Dr. Angela Bowen, who recently just passed away a few months ago. And Angela Bowen was this amazing black radical lesbian feminist and I stumbled into her class because... It was before it was a WGSS major, I stumbled into that class because it was a capstone. [00:02:08] MHR: Ok. [00:02:09] BL: And I needed to take a class in diversity. But at the time I wasn't really mindful of criticality, diversity or whatnot. And I had read a poem, we read a lot of poems in her class. I wasn't much into poetry at the time, but it was a poem by Gisele Fong called "Corrosion." And this poem... She unpacks the, sort of, internalized racism as an Asian person. And it was jarring for me as a mixed race Asian-White person that I had never encountered another person willing to admit that they were ridiculing their own family of color. And for me as someone who is often read as white in many different contexts, I'm often couched by white privilege. And so it's easier for me to just keep pushing that away and acting as if it's not impacting me. Angela Bowen was a mentor who when I would come to her saying, "I'm really processing some deep feelings," she didn't cottle me. She pressed me and pushed me to learn more about it and to understand that this is work and labor I have to undergo, that I have to do some internal, sort of, toxins and poisons. And it sort of just sent me on a different trajectory. So much so that, what I was originally going to be which was just a truck driver like from the rest of the people of my family, I chose academia instead. A whole different trajectory. In fact, declaring WGSS as my major as well. So she has a profound impact on me. Second reason why she is important to me is I came to feminism through women of color feminism. And I didn't read or encounter white feminist readings/writings until well into my advanced academic training because of Angela Bowen. And so as a result I have a very unique, sort of, entry point into what feminism means. Especially as it, sort of, interacts with my body. Another key person/figure that's real important to me is Elyse Pineau, Dr.Elyse Pineau. She was at Southern Illinois University where I got my doctorate. And she taught me performative approaches to pedagogy. So Performance Pedagogy is, like, one of her Fortes. And in this regard it's really seeing pedagogy as a fully embodied enterprise that is never distinguishing body from mind, but always both at the same time. And not being afraid to get students on their feet whether that's metaphorical or literally, to do activities, moving the body, performing theories. Don't talk performativity, show us performativity. Don't talk oppression, show us oppression. Put it together in some sort of staged way so that we can then unpack the choices you've made to help us, sort of, make sense of that thing. So in that regard Elyse Pineau really helped me understand the textual component of what we are doing. But then there's also the fully embodied emotional component of what we are doing. And the reality is things like privilege and disadvantage can really hurt or enable us to, sort of, be what we want to be if we have access to privilege. So she really helped me to understand that when we encounter the body we can really understand that those emotions really fuel teaching in a very different sort of way. [00:05:09] MHR: Yeah! That sounds like a really interesting way to be introduced to all these topics! [00:05:12] BL: Yeah! I'm very fortunate... [00:05:14] MHR: Yeah! [00:05:14] BL: ... to encounter these particular people on my path. [00:05:16] MHR: Yeah, that's awesome. [00:05:20] BL: Yeah! [00:05:20] MHR: When was a time you saw queer or feminist pedagogy have a positive influence, or work well, in the classroom? [00:05:29] BL: My goodness! Um... [00:05:31] MHR: It's a big question. [00:05:32] BL: Sure. I would say probably the most profound impact was... It was in a course that I taught regularly for a number of years, I'm bringing it to ASU now, called "Queer and Feminist Arts and Cultures." And the way that I design this course... It's mostly students who have never encountered performance. The "P" word terrifies them. There may be one theater person who's like, "yay!" The rest are going, "I don't... ugh! But I'm here because I have to take this class." And so what I would do is we move through these three sections, or these three moves. The first was, what does it mean to think of criticism from a queer and feminist perspective, and how can we sort of critique everyday performance of culture? And in that sort of space, a lot of the heavy work is taking place with students in that we are really unpacking the nuances of a structure like cis-heterosexism. How does cis-heterosexism function in the very minut sort of ways? Or how does it order the basic ways that we move through the world, and how can we, sort of, use that as an analytical framework to make sense of everything taking place around us. The second step/stop that we make in the class is then sort of surveying a number of art practices and applying that first framework onto these art practices. So thus we are looking at a painting, talking about the painter, we're listening to music, reading music while we are also unpacking it through this, like, cis-heterosexism or a variety of lenses that we look at. And then the third stop is they each craft their own performative auto-ethnography, is the term that we use/that I use in my work, and then they perform that. It's an original piece of art that they create whether it's on-stage, or they can paint, or make music. I don't care what performance means to you, just make it work. And why was that profound and important to me in the classroom? In terms of a pedagogy that sort of trajectory and work, I saw in students a profound sort of shift in how they understood themselves as being far more empowered and capable of creating something that is of worth. But that also opens them up to criticisms, so that they're open and inviting that criticism. So in that regard they understand that a critique on something like "queerness" doesn't have to be a personal attack. It can be an intellectual pursuit that's really invigorating and tasty, frankly. Like you really want to engage in that sort of work. And the other side of it was a lot of those students left the class... Most of us were just crying by the end of those classes and a lot of that was releasing a lot of internalized toxic shit, basically, and learning how to release it so that we can just be more vulnerable with one another. And I find that to be the most rewarding queer and feminist pedagogical pursuit when we can, sort of, love self and other and hold both in tension so that we're not sort of, you know, narcissistically holding only ourselves, but also understanding that the way I move through the world has impacts on you, on everyone around me. So I found that really productive in that way. Students created something and they had to learn to sit with other peoples' performances and stories, too. And honor those. [00:08:40] MHR: That sounds like a really cool class! Yeah, I think I'd be one of those students who like... Is like, "I don't want to do performance," but, no, I think that would... Sounds really meaningful and... [00:08:52] BL: Yeah! [00:08:52] MHR: ... and stick, probably really sticks with the students and with you. [00:08:53] BL: A number of them have gone on to create performances... [00:08:58] MHR: Oh wow! [00:08:58] BL: ... in communitites still! Some of them do performance work more professionally. And I think its created a whole career for them. Which is beautiful because that's the work that I'm doing! I'm teaching it and I do it from this perspective, but it's lovely to, sort of, offer an alternative. In the same way that Angela Bowman offered me this alternative path. They're sort of seeing these new spaces through this approach. [00:09:18] MHR: That's awesome. So my next question is what kind of challenges do you think Professors face when bringing either feminist or queer pedagogy into the classrooms. Do you think it's a problem with implementing the techniques, the classroom dynamic, or even, like, hiring. Or how you're reviewed? [00:09:39] BL: Sure. That's a complex question because it's a structural question. Meaning part of the difficulty is we don't have enough faculty who embody minoritized positions to sort of create a vast network of support. And so in this regard it is to say that for me, as a trans identified person, that means often my colleagues will send their trans students to me because they don't want to bear the brunt. They go, "oh, go talk to that person." But it also means that I don't have many spaces and turn to myself for additional, sort of, support. *inaudible* So there is a structural problem there and that's a real issue across all intersecting identities. But when it comes down to, like, personal experience and struggles, I would say that the biggest struggle is the rampid individualism that currently hoarders most of the U.S., sort of, political landscape. Which is to say in order to teach something like cis-heterosexism or white supremacy we have to frame it in the context of larger, sort of, cultural patterned behaviors so that it's never about "you, the individual" or any individual. It's about both of us. And very unconscious ways sustaining this structure in its, sort of, larger way. I think that that's the biggest challenge is getting through people's egos. People who feel guilty, people who feel really sad, or feel like they're being attacked. That's the brunt of I think the difficulty here. And I find that in my work particularly through queer color criticism, or queer and trans of color criticism, it's understanding that the answer to that problem is often in relationality, and teaching not relationships but this, sort of, political alliance we can create so that you and I are relationally bound. It's not about a formal institutional designation, teacher-student. It's about what you're going through. I'm still committed to you and present with you. That, sort of, relational ethic sort of helps to understand that you might feel guilty but let's pull it away from you and talk about this bigger issue over here. Doesn't mean that it's not important for you. It is to say that we're all dancing together. And some of us it's harder to do the dance if you keep holding it up to make it about you. [00:11:57] MHR: Yeah, yeah. I think that's a very relevant statement! Yeah. So, my next question is what motivated you to participate in this workshop we're having at Wooster right now, and, I know it's still the morning, but what do you hope to get out of it? [00:12:15] BL: Sure. I think first and foremost, as a first generation college student who became an academic, pedagogy matters very much to me. Without the support and the people I came in contact with. They kept nurturing and pushing so that I can meet this *inaudible.* And originally as an undergraduate, I find pedagogy to be vital and that sort of frame. The second, teaching is not about the mind. It's about the mind and body. And queer and feminist pedagogy is about trying to combine these and working with other people and *inaudible* around the US and/or the world means having access to strategies that I'm often isolated by myself, and hearing how other people are doing that is really important. Otherwise we are stuck with what we see at either academic conferences, that happen once sometimes twice a year based on whatever it is that you're doing, or it's reading it in published form. And often the published form is difficult to, sort of, discern the, sort of, specifics. Let alone being able to really directly interact with the person who's doing that activity to say, like, "well where's the pushback," and "where did you struggle with this," and "how did you get over... Or did you not find a way through that problem?" So having access to a workshop with other people committed to pedagogy, not just teaching on a forum and then standardizing what the education looks like, but really trying to think about education from a philosophical perspective and what we can change and do with it is very exciting for me. So this, sort of, opportunity is right up my alley. [00:13:47] MHR: Yeah! [00:13:47] BL: And then, also, helps me to understand that I'm not alone in some ways. [00:13:55] MHR: Yeah! I think these, like, conferences that Wooster's having is really cool to just bring them together... [00:13:58] BL: Yeah! [00:13:58] MHR: ... all these people who are within that same Discipline, but also just have so many different ideas and thoughts so... [00:14:04] BL: Absolutely! Yeah, yeah! [00:14:05] MHR: ... thank you for coming! [00:14:05] BL: Absolutely! [00:14:05] MHR: So before we finish, is there anything that you want to talk about more, or haven't brought up, or want to elaborate on? [00:14:13] BL: I would... so in terms of, like, this being archived here, I think that it would be important for me to voice some of the extracurricular work that I've done. And the reason for that is hoping to always encourage others to do similar work. So where I was teaching recently at Cal-State University Long Beach, there were two other out trans faculty members. I would've been the third. The other two had tenure track, sort of, secured positions. I was not. I was an adjunct and temporary. So I didn't have the institutional support in the same way. But those other two were already, sort of, spread pretty thin with where they were doing their work. And what I found where I was located was a community of trans students who didn't have access to someone who could focus on them in any sort of concerted way. And what I crafted what are... I call them "TEG" which is the Trans Empowerment Groups. It's not really a support group. It's empowerment in that we don't necessarily rehearse trauma and end the conversation there. We rehearse trauma and use that as a starting point for political action. So in that regard through TEG it sort of created this community of trans identified people, very broadly defined. And my, sort of, larger work... my training, my pedagogy meant that in this space it was a, sort of, free open forum discussion. I particularly paid attention to moments where I was hearing the internalization of, like, cissexism in the body and using that as a point to intervene to say, "let's reframe what I'm hearing right now. How can we reconceptualize this sort of experience." And the, sort of, long term effect of that has been institutional change starting from students. Like CSU Long Beach now will be, I think, the first in CSU system to have access to hormones with student fees, for instance, which is a huge win for the students. It also means that we've had more access to more bathrooms on campus that are gender neutral. It also means increasing... like they just hired a full-time tenure track Assistant Professor in Trans Studies. Like a full professor now dedicated to this work in the WGSS program as well. And a lot of that begins with the students in this, sort of, empowerment model. Let's say you're missing something but let's not stop there. What would remedy that and what is possible based on what we have access to here? [00:16:46] MHR: Yeah! [00:16:46] BL: So, I found it really useful. [00:16:48] MHR: Yeah! [00:16:48] BL: And it's all based on this... this pedagogy. [00:16:51] MHR: That's awesome! [00:16:51] BL: Yeah! [00:16:52] MHR: I think that's really cool! Shows the power of, like, students can do things too. It's not just all in the administration... [00:17:00] BL: Yeah! [00:17:01] MHR: ... and professors. [00:17:01] BL: Yeah, well, and that's the thing is that I think that any feminist and queer tradition, any radical sort of political tradition, we have to understand that people always have the power. So if students need space students have to demand the space. As a faculty member it falls on administrative ears in some regard. Which is to say, "OK well great! We all need a space!" When students take over and figure it out for themselves, that's what change happens. I have been asking for hormones at my campus... I was I also was an undergrad there, that's where I met Angela Bowen way back when. And I'd been asking for access to hormones since then, which was the early 2000s. And it took this whole time, finally being a faculty member, knowing this, finally, to understand more students need to press this. And we were able to make it happen. Which is, you know, a bummer that it took, you know, 15 years or so to finally be able to recognize what people like myself, and others before me had been fighting for for such a long time. But it was really having a voice at the time. I was alone. Now there are more people. [00:18:02] MHR: Now there's community of people, that's awesome! [00:18:04] BL: Yeah! [00:18:04] MHR: Sounds like very awesome work! [00:18:09] BL: Yay! [00:18:10] MHR: Well, those are all the questions I have. [00:18:11] BL: Great! [00:18:11] MHR: Thank you so much for coming to this workshop and being a part of this interview! [00:18:15] BL: Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yay! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Benny LeMaster Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew LeMaster, Benny Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop, College of Wooster, funded by the Hewlett-Melon Foundation Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented With Permission From Benny LeMaster<br /><br /><a href="%20http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Professor Benny LeMaster. LeMaster is a Professor at Arizona State University where they teach in the The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. In this interview, LeMaster talks about how they incorporate a feminist and queer approach into their teaching. LeMaster also talks about their unique introduction to feminism and how that introduction has shaped how they teach. LeMaster talks about a class they teach called "Queer and Feminist Arts and Cultures" and how they see queer/feminist pedagogy working well in this course. LeMaster talks about the struggle they see when it comes to using queer/feminist pedagogy in the classroom and how conferences like the Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster are so important for pushing the boundaries of education. LeMaster also comments on the importance of student participation in extra-curricular work to enact change on college campuses. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-09-14 Subject The topic of the resource Feminist studies; Feminism; Race; Ethnography; Trans people; Pedagogy; Performance; Minorities in higher education; Sexual minorities in higher education; Hormones Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Benny_LeMaster_Interview.mp4 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Long Beach; Illinois; Arizona; Wooster https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/77b89ff4df558987c6151e054cb5ec5c.mp3 6c63670646cb6b3c8434552a87c35af4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:01] AV: My name is Anna Vogt. I am a senior double major in Psychology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Today is Friday the 14th of September 2018, and I am here today with Jeremy Rapport who teaches at the College of Wooster and who is currently the department chair for Religious Studies. What is your primary area of study and how do you incorporate a feminist or queer approach into your teaching? [00:00:23] JR: My primary area of study is, um, new and alternative religious movements, uh, especially in the United States and especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Um, so that’s what I would call my research area. Now, to some extent I guess I would say I would sort have came in to interest in gender issues, feminist issues, um, kind of as a result of that. So for example, uh, there are a lot of, uh, women leaders in the movements that I study, there are a lot of, um, sort of concerns about how gender is conceived among these sorts of religious movements and late 19th century. Um, and so to some extent the data that I was being presented in the material that I was interested in studying and learning about contained issues that the more I worked on them and the more I thought about them, um, became for me, you know, questions about gender, questions about women’s rights, women’s positions in society, uh, that sort of thing. [00:01:30] AV: Right. Who or what were some of your biggest influences in feminist and queer pedagogy? [00:01:36] JR: Oh boy, that’s a hard one. So, I feel like much of what I would consider to be, um, my use of feminist and queer pedagogy is actually sort of an ongoing developing project. So, when I was in graduate school that sort of thing would not have existed really at all. And I finished my PhD twelve years ago [eight years ago] so it’s not like ancient history or anything like that, um, and, uh, so for example what I would have encountered when I did my work was people who were very interested in figuring out how women functioned in these sorts of movements, right, so, a scholar of Religion, uh, who teaches at Loyola, New Orleans named Catherine Wessinger, who, um, has been, was very influential in giving me to think about why we should be paying attention to women, um, in the ways that she argued we should, um, handful of other, uh, scholars who, um, sort of did this sort of work from the Religious Studies viewpoint, right, so to that extent, right, I think that what is really interesting for me, personally, is that it is a developing process, right, so what I would take to be my use of, say feminist pedagogies in the classroom really comes out of continuing to try to think about 1), what interested my students, 2), what sorts of issues did I think were important to teach about, um, related to, uh, especially religious takes on, uh, women’s issues, gender issues, um, things like that, um, and then 3), just trying to think more specifically about, um, what I thought was a value in the educational process, right, so what’s a value in the educational process? Lots of things, but one of the most basic things that I would think, is that I would hope is happening in my classrooms, is that my students learn that you can’t understand people without respecting them, and so, the various ways that you can study people should always presume that we respect them first and that who they are and what they’ve experienced is something real, and, um, that is, that’s a first step towards understanding people who may be very different from oneself. So.. [00:04:14] AV: Right. So, I took the interdisciplinary course with you, [00:04:24] JR: uh, Race, Gender, uh, Class, and Religion. [00:04:27] JR: Yup. [00:04:27] AV: Uh, a few years back, and I remember that it influenced me a lot in so many ways, because you made me think critically about intersectionality or intersectional issues, uh, that I never thought about before, and that is something that I have taken from your class ever since. When was a time when you saw queer, feminist pedagogy have a positive influence or work well in your classroom? [00:04:52] JR: Well that class is I think the primary example, um, I mean when I first thought of teaching that class, um, you know what I was thinking about primarily was, you know we, this is something that I think needs to be in the Religious Studies curriculum. Right, there is no explicit class that deals with these critical social location issues and identities in our curriculum right now and there needs to be. And, um, uh, so my thinking when I first started doing this class was, students need to be hearing it, students need to be thinking this and students need to be thinking about the ways in which, um, you know, again sort of understanding that person very different from them, means understanding the intersections of different things, right. I don’t know if you remember this, I may not even have used this example in the class, but, um, I frequently talk about how interpreting a person’s experience is like looking at a spider web, right. [00:05:58] AV: I think I do remember that. [00:06:00] JR: [laughs] Exactly. And so, there is a person sitting in the center of the web with all these lines of the web and each line of the web is another aspect of who they are, right. Their gender, their race, their socioeconomic location, their religious history, their family history. Um, and so I really just saw it initially as serving a need that I thought um was critical, um, and I, you know one of the things that’s been really interesting for me, really important for me, um, is the chance that that’s given for me to push my own knowledge, my own experience, my own, um, interactions with students especially, um forward in ways that, you know keep I think, sort of, how would I put it, they keep me on my toes, I guess, maybe that’s how I would put it! [laughs] [00:06:57] AV: What kind of challenges do you think that professors face when bringing feminist and queer pedagogies into the classroom? [00:07:04] JR: Yeah, uh, very good question. Um, so I think there’s a lot actually, um, and they come from lots of different places, right. So, one challenge is that this is not an easier obvious way of teaching, right. So, it’s not apparent what you should be doing in the classroom if you want to engage the concerns of feminist and queer pedagogies. So that’s one issue, the complexity of the task itself. Um, another issue I think is that, um, I mean again, it hasn’t been that long since graduate school, but certainly those concerns were not part of a graduate education, at least not where I came from. Um, and I would say my best guess is certainly in Religious Studies, um, that is largely still not the case although it’s somewhat, it’s slowly getting better. So that’s another challenge, right, there simply isn’t the training of doctoral candidates in these modes of thinking or at least not in any sort of wide scale or levels. So, then there’s what students are bringing into the classroom, right, uh, and some students are very aware and very interested, and very, um, very much willing to participate in the project, some students are not. Um, and I think to some extent, right, is the burden of the professor to demonstrate why this should matter. You know, so in other words, it’s not the fault of the student whose never been exposed to any of these ideas or any of these modes of thinking or interpretation that they come into a classroom and they don’t get it. [laughs] Um, that’s, I mean that’s a part of the educational system process, period. Uh, but that’s a challenge, you know, their gonna be, um, as you mentioned earlier in Religion, Race, Class, and Gender, um, the, uh, you know, that class is, um, it’s a 200 level class, right, so it’s sort of an intermediatory level class, um, and part of what that means is that there’s gonna be students from across the campus from that class. Um, and there’s gonna be students who are very enthusiastic and interested and know quite a bit already, and there’s gonna be students who don’t know anything, um, and so you have to be very aware of who’s in the room, what are their concerns, where are they coming from. Um, but again, I think for me, right, the challenge of that, right, is, um, it’s important and it’s complicated, but at some level, as I said earlier, right, I think much of this goes back to, is you start with respect, you start with assuming that everyone you’re dealing with and talking about and studying and communicating with, and whatever, you know, whoever your discourse partners are in any way, that those people automatically deserve your respect. And so, I guess that, for me, is the first principle. [00:10:21] AV: So, is that maybe one of the reasons that motivated you to participate in this workshop today? [00:10:26] JR: Oh absolutely, yeah! Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, the, my interest in this workshop is, um, especially coming from that place of, this is something I’m still learning, this is something that I need to understand better, to be a more effective teacher, to understand my students better, to understand, um, what that process of respect entails. Um, so yeah, absolutely! [00:10:55] AV: Well, is there anything else that we haven’t discussed yet that you would like to talk about? [00:11:00] JR: Yeah, I, you know, I think a lot about these issues, uh, quite a bit and, you know, my own positionality is something that I still struggle with. You know, I am a white cis-gendered hetero male, right, so I am the thing that everybody sort of expects to be the standard or normal, or everybody’s taught to think is the standard or normal. And that gives me a lot of privileges in the classroom that I know a lot of other people don’t have. And so, I think it becomes, to some extent, really important for people like me, um, to engage these issues, um, because to the extent that anyone who wants to affectively work with students, wants to help students develop their own education, um, anyone who wants to do that really sincerely, has to know the complexity of identity that they’re dealing with, even when it doesn’t necessarily look like it. I don’t know, that seems like a little bit of a wandering response, but yeah, that’s just, uh, I mean it’s one of the challenges of working in education today, and I think, what I appreciate about this workshop is the opportunity to explicitly address these kinds of concerns and think about them and think about how to address them. [00:12:18] AV: Well, thank you for your time. [00:12:20] JR: You’re welcome. [00:12:21] AV: This was all. [00:12:21] JR: Thanks for having me. [00:12:23] AV: [laughs] [00:12:24] JR: And, uh, yeah, I hope your project goes well! [00:12:27] AV: Thank you! Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Sound Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:12:28 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vogt, Anna Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jeremy Rapport Location The location of the interview College of Wooster Digital Studio Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview 00:12:27 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jeremy Rapport Subject The topic of the resource Feminist studies; Feminism; Religious studies; Pedagogy; Intersectionality; Religion, race, and ethnicity Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Professor Jeremy Rapport. Jeremy Rapport is a Professor and the current Department Chair of Religious Studies at The College of Wooster. In this interview, Rapport talks about his experiences with teaching feminist and queer pedagogy in his own classroom. He stresses the importance of feminist and queer pedagogy and the challenges that he faces with feminist and queer pedagogy. Rapport also comments on his position as a white, cis-gendered male incorporating feminist and queer approaches into his teachings. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vogt, Anna Rapport, Jeremy Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-9-14 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource College of Wooster Libraries, Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented With Permission From Jeremy Rapport <br /><br /><a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright&nbsp;</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Jeremy_Rapport_Interview.mp3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Wooster https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/8a1a6890e792d6b07cf26acfd8aab820.mp4 9b7bb384971e663f1d080c8528d8b39d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lang, Abigail Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Gill, Harjant Location The location of the interview College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:08:14 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:02] Abigail Lang: Ok. I am Abby Lang (waves) I am a WGSS and History double major. I am here today on September 14th, 2018 with Harjant Gill from Towson University. So, my first question today is about your primary area of study and how you incorporate queer and feminist pedagogy into your approach to teaching? [00:00:25] Harjant Gill: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me here. I teach anthropology and I’m an ethnographic filmmaker. I teach courses that are in gender, that are in ethnographic film, that are based in South Asia. Most of my work is on masculinities, gender, and sexuality in South Asia. So, in addition to focusing specifically on queer and feminist issues in South Asia, a lot of the courses that I teach tend to focus on, looking at queer and feminist representations in ethnographic film. And also… I try to privilege narratives that are made by or from the perspective of queer and feminist film makers, as well as diasporic film makers, as well. So, kind of broadly, transnational feminist filmmakers. [00:01:26] AL: Mmhmm. Alright, and who or what are some of your biggest influences in feminist and queer pedagogies? So that could be anything from teachers, mentors, books, even life experiences or people just within you field? [00:01:41] HG: Well, I will talk about films instead of books, because there aren’t a lot of books out there that are very influential [where ethnographic film is concerned. Although] I should say, you know, Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan’s work, [specifically, the book Scattered Hegemonies” on] feminist critique and pedagogies is very influential. But most importantly in terms of films I think the filmmakers who’ve had the most sort of influence on my work is Marlon Riggs, who is a queer African American filmmaker and he made Tongues Untied, which is the film that made me to want to pick up a camera and make a film and be a filmmaker. As well as the work of Trinh T Minh-ha. She’s an ethnographic filmmaker. You know, I think a lot of the people who really inspire me tend to be people who are working on the margins or the boundaries or not necessarily part of the canon or are usually excluded from the canon. And you know, so that tends to be my, my sort of area where I draw my influence. [00:02:59] AL: Ok, and when was a time where you saw feminist or queer pedagogy have a positive influence or work well implemented in the classroom? [00:03:08] HG: (pause) Hmm. That’s a good question. [00:03:17] AL: Mmhmm. And the follow up question to that would be what kind of challenges do you think professors face bringing these into the classroom? [00:03:25] HG: Mmhmm. [00:03:26] AL: So like, in implementing the techniques, even the classroom dynamic or even a more institutional level, bringing queer and feminist pedagogy into the hiring process, reviews, promotion, and tenure, like the institutional level. [00:03:41] HG: Of course. So, let me begin with the challenges first and then I’ll take about, you know, successes that I’ve had. I’d say that often times when you’re teaching a kind of knowledge base such as anthropology, which is you know, [an] established discipline, there is an impulse to do kind of do a chronological history of anthropological thought or anthropological theory or ethnographic film or visual anthropology, whatever discipline you’re in. When you’re in sort of a more established discipline you tend to kind of do a chronology and what that does is that tends to privilege a very particular non-queer, you know, non-margins narratives tend- things that are already partly established, academic (makes finger quotes) framework, you know, and knowledge base and what I find that in my work what I do is I tend to kind of flip that around and we begin from the margins and work towards the center and what I find [is] that students then are not thinking about my discipline of anthropology as something that is done in the past, you know? Which, that, if they don’t get or they don’t understand what anthropologists from a hundred years ago or even fifty years ago were talking about or what, that they’re not getting the discipline, you know, I think it can be very sort of, a way of freeing them up to allow them to experiment and realize that this is a discipline that has- that is very multi- it’s multifaceted and has all sorts of different approaches and lots of people who have experimented in different ways and some experiments that have been successful, some haven’t really been successful, some theoretical models that have been useful, some that haven’t been useful. So, by kind of breaking out of that chronological order of things, of that progressive movement of knowledge or acquisition of knowledge, you know, I like to think that my students have a much more transformative experience when I approach my field, my course, with a specifically queer feminist pedagogical perspective… An intention really, because that requires a particular kind of intention to be able to do that. [00:06:25] AL: And what motivated you to participate in this workshop today and what do you hope to get out of it? [00:06:33] HG: Well, it’s… So, I’m just in the process… of starting my position as an associate professor. I just got tenured and this next coming year I will hopefully have a sabbatical and that’ll give me an opportunity to revamp and revise some of my courses that I’ve been teaching for the past 5, 6 years. And even though I really enjoy teaching them, they’re beginning to get a little stagnant. So, I thought being- participating in this workshop would allow me to be able to you know, sort of think about and learn from other queer feminist scholars in my field and in related fields and look at their approaches to teaching and maybe that will inspire me to do the same and as I think about how my classes and my pedagogy evolves, how can I improve on what I’ve been doing and these sort of workshops are really great places to do that because it’s a very intimate environment where you can have this exchange of ideas and suddenly like lots of lightbulbs go off in your head and so that’s why I’m here really, to just be stimulated intellectually. (laughs) And, you know, to sort of recharge almost. [00:08:02] AL: And finally, is there anything that we have not discussed that you would like to bring up? [00:08:06] HG: Uh, no, I think we’ve covered a lot of it. (laughs) [00:08:09] AL: Ok, well, thank you for coming today. [00:08:10] HG: Thank you so much, thank you for having me. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Harjant Gill Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lang, Abigail Gill, Harjant Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-9-14 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource College of Wooster Libraries Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented with permission from Harjant Gill <br /><br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Harjant_Gill_Interview.mp3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant College of Wooster; Townsen University Subject The topic of the resource Women's studies; Women's rights--Cross-cultural studies ; Ethnographic films; Transnationalism; Transnational education; Motion pictures and transnationalism; South Asia Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Harjant Gill. Dr. Gill is a Professor of Anthropology at Towson University. His course focus on topics of visual anthropology and filmmaking. Gill is also an awarded filmmaker who continues to produce films about gender, sexuality, religion, and transnational movement in South Asia, particularly in India. The interview covers topics of visual anthropology, ethnographic film, and alternative pedagogical practices that can be used in these fields. https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/dbab3e72fab0c25600aef8acd0207008.mp3 1819508f46a8024506163e1ef5053819 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview White, Andrew Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Hester, Scarlett Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:00] Andrew White: Hello, this is Andrew White. I am a senior psychology major with a double minor in WGSS and sociology. Today is September 14th. I am here with Dr. Scarlett Hester in the Communications department and she is a professor at the College of Wooster. So the first question is, what is your primary area of study and how do you incorporate a feminist or queer approach into your teaching. [00:00:27] Scarlet Hester: I use a critical rhetorical and media approach in my research. Feminist pedagogy is really just so deeply embedded in my research and my approach to the classroom that this question is actually kind of funny because it makes me have to stop and rethink how I use it. I think that the way I use it the most is that I am constantly trying to have students think about their identity and the way that they self-identify and the way that their identity is perceived by others and the impact of that. Also, in the classroom how that impacts their ability, or not even ability, but comfort in participating in the classroom and in different topics. So, a lot of the classes I teach center race, gender, those types of things so I feel like inherently feminist pedagogy is always part of that and making sure students are comfortable discussing those things. [00:01:44] AW: Next question is, who or what were some of your biggest influences in feminist and queer pedagogies. [00:01:50] SH: I think that I’ve been very fortunate in having mentors that model really good feminist and queer pedagogy. In particular, my master’s program mentor and advisor was really open about trying to make sure everyone was comfortable in the classroom but comfort doesn’t mean not being challenged. So Dr. Kristen McCauliff at Ball State University is one of the really big influences that I try to model after her. I’m also a really big fan of bell hooks and her approaches to pedagogy. Teaching community is something that I kind of try to base my approach to the classroom off of. I would say that they were some of the two biggest influences. [00:02:49] AW: When was a time where you saw a queer or feminist pedagogy have positive influence or work well in the classroom? [00:02:55] SH: I think I’m gonna push back on this question a little bit because I think working well, and this is something I’m bringing into this interview from this workshop is that working well kind of indicates success. And I think that the things that I grapple with as a professor is that sometimes good pedagogy doesn’t always mean success. Sometimes it means a failing either as me facilitating a conversation or if there’s moments of tension in the classroom. I think that traditionally that would be viewed as maybe not successful. But I think that those are maybe not being done well right if people are uncomfortable. But I think that a specific moment that I have seen feminist pedagogy at work perhaps would be when I have students take a privilege quiz. So it’s just a Buzzfeed quiz that I put onto a document and I add some questions right but I think in order to grapple with and engage with the conversations that I want students to have they have to be able to acknowledge their own privilege. I have to do that as well in the classroom so having that be a point of reference for students. Even for students that identify from marginalized groups if there’s any privilege that exists there for them I think that’s something that I’ve seen work in my classroom or that I’ve used and engaged with. [00:04:46] AW: What kind of challenges do you think that professors face when bringing feminist and queer pedagogies to the classroom? [00:04:48] SH: I think one of the challenges is being willing to accept failure; accepting that it may not always work, and being vulnerable. Vulnerability is a huge part I think of queer and feminist pedagogy and as a professor being willing to exhibit that vulnerability because I think for me as a young female professor, a female professor of color, I think that a lot of times I feel like I have to maintain this position of authority. Just because of the identity I embody so sometimes authority and vulnerability don’t necessarily correlate so I think one of the biggest challenges is modeling what I want some students to do and it’s difficult and being vulnerable and allowing those moments of vulnerability with failure I think is really difficult. [00:05:45] AW: What motivated you to participate in this workshop and what do you hope to get out of it? [00:05:51] SH: Well, A I’m a really big nerd and I always want to look for the opportunity to learn. But I think a commitment to feminist and queer pedagogy means that you are always learning. It’s not like you can go I’ve accomplished the ultimate feminist or queer pedagogy like I’m good to go forever. There is always new things to consider, different perspectives to learn and just the opportunity to be a part of other conversations with really dedicated individuals was really exciting to me. So things I’m excited to learn are just being able to expand my approach and how to navigate the classroom space. [00:06:38] AW: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to bring up? [00:06:40] SH: I don’t think so, these are really good questions. [00:06:43] AW: Thank you very much. [00:06:44] SH: Thank you. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Sound Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:06:45 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Scarlett Hester Subject The topic of the resource Feminist studies; Pedagogy; Intersectionality; Identity Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Perry-Williams Postdoctoral Fellow in Communication Scarlett Hester. In this interview, Dr. Hester reflects on how she integrates feminist and queer pedagogies into her teaching. She also discusses her own inspirations in feminist pedagogy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource White, Andrew Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-09-14 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop, College of Wooster, funded by the Hewlett-Melon Foundation Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented with Permission from Scarlett Hester<br /><br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Wooster Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Scarlett_Hester_Interview.mp3 https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/3ecbda3ce90ae9bfe25373aea0bd2883.mp3 4ec258571f644b00f470fc3e641c840c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Malzeke, Hailey Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Proctor, Brittnay Location The location of the interview College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:12:05 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Brittnay Proctor Interview Edited by Hailey Malzeke and Brittnay Proctor for clarity. [00:00:00] HM: I am Hailey Malzeke. I am a double major in Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Today is September 14th and I am here with Dr. Brittnay Proctor, and she is a professor in the WGSS Department here at The College of Wooster. So, the first question that we’re going to start with is what is your primary area of study and how do you incorporate a feminist or queer approach into your teaching? [00:00:26] BP: Thank you for your question. My primary research interests are Black feminist theory, popular culture studies, but mostly I research Black music. I also am writing about the relationship between sound cultures and visual cultures in Black popular music. So, thinking about the relationship between album art and sound as it relates to how we theorize Black -- or what I call Black gender and, to a lesser degree, Black sexuality. In my own teaching I am interested in using and teaching materials that are invested in Black feminism, invested in what was once called Third World Feminisms but now we know it to be more so transnational feminisms, but primarily I teach the work of feminists of color from the United States as well as thinking more globally. I think my approach, or my use of queer studies in my course revolves around again the using the work of Black queer scholars, teaching queer color critique, and using some of the research that is a part of queer color critique as a field, and more generally I try to construct my... my courses around a kind of nonnormative understanding of the field. My hope is to not always center, you know, cis white women or their work in the kind of courses I teach. So, that’s always my aspiration, but you know, sometimes, the institutionalization of WGSS doesn’t always allow for that, but that’s definitely my intention. [00:02:21] HM: Who or what were some of your biggest influences in feminist and queer pedagogy? [00:02:26] BP: That’s a great question... One of my biggest influences is a... scholar named Jayna Brown. She was one of my mentors as an undergraduate at the University of California Riverside, and she, you know, I don’t know if she self-identifies as a Black feminist, but she’s definitely invested in the project of Black feminism and some of my first exposure to Black feminist text was through her. Her work is invested in thinking about Black feminism alongside performance. So, she’s definitely been a big influence to me and she encouraged me to apply to PhD programs, which at the time right out of, or at least two years removed from, undergraduate studies, I didn’t feel very prepared for. She said, “yeah, you’ll never know what people think.” So, I applied to one PhD program and all the rest Masters programs because of her, and I got into the one PhD program that I applied to because of her. Yeah, it’s kind of -- Not to say it’s all because of her, but that’s part of my investment in teaching the work of feminists, particularly Black feminists and... transnational feminists, or women of color or people of color that identify as feminists. I also think that, you know, my kind of... background in the working class has inspired my relationship to... understanding the importance of... you know... the labor of, not just women, but thinking about the labor of those that are... -- that cannot adhere to normative categories of gender and sexuality. In particular I think about my grandmothers and my mother who took...well, both of my grandmothers were domestic workers, and my mother similarly had done in-home service. So, I was exposed to the feminization of certain type of labor early on. Especially as they relate to the labor of Black woman, and Black women’s relationship to domesticity for, not necessarily in relation to their home, but to others -- other folks’ homes. So, you know, to kind of see -- to be exposed to those kinds of disparities early on also makes me feel invested in teaching the work that articulates the kinds of... ways that certain folk have to do certain types of labor and are more vulnerable and susceptible to being exploited when it comes to... labor or having to, in the case of my grandmothers and my mother, having to engage in an occupation that carried the taint of slavery, right? Like, what does it...not to say that being a domestic worker is slavery by another world, but in many ways the kind of primacy of Black women working in the homes of often white people that was reproduced in that I saw my grandmother – my grandmothers having to do and what my mother had to do to survive. So, all of those kinds of things have inspired my investments in... feminist and queer pedagogy. And, in queer pedagogy thinking through a critique of, you know, heteronormativity or heteropatriarchy, right? Like, that field or that analytic being, the way that I engage in that way. [00:06:10] HM: So, when was a time when you saw queer or feminist pedagogy have a positive influence or work well in the classroom? [00:06:17] BP: I think Andrea Smith’s... Three Pillars of White Supremacy is a great text to use to think about... the stakes of gender and sexuality as they relate to race outside of, you know, a kind of identity based formulation or understanding that I think really strikes students, so that in a structural way they have to think about... race, right? And gender and sexuality alongside one another so it’s not so much how one identifies but how, you know, in the case of Andrea Smith’s -- that particular piece, the ways in which being indigenous and a women, or being Black and a woman, or being brown and a woman is a problem for the kind of social order that we live in. It’s not that our identities in and of themselves are... what we kind of have to articulate as the primacy but kind of how who we are is made a problem by this current social order that we’re in. I think that piece and Kimberle Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality is a really profound piece. Especially in the moment which we think intersectionality is meant to articulate identities. Like... I have six intersectionalities. I am a woman, and I am Black, and I’m queer, and I have a mental disability, etcetera, etcetera, right? You know, that’s not the kind of way in which she’s articulating or using intersectionality, or conceiving intersectionality, right? It’s about a structural scaffolding that allows the... matrices of race and gender and class to make Black women and women of color more vulnerable to facing certain forms of violence, right? Make them more vulnerable towards living in poverty, etcetera, etcetera. So, in that way I think her reading is also a great feminist and work that can be considered queer studies work that is trying to disarticulate...you know, identity. You know, the primacy of identity and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, and get students to really think about... structurally and institutionally what is the root of a lot of the violence and ills we face in the world. Those work really well in the classroom I believe. [00:08:56] HM: So, last question. What motivated you to participate in this workshop, and what do you hope to get out of it? [00:09:03] BP: Oh, that’s a great question. I think as a -- someone who is embarking upon their first job outside of -- or after getting my doctorate it’s important for me to kind of sharpen the tools of my pedagogy belt, per say. I feel like (pause) I’m sure many folk coming out of graduate school don’t feel like they’ve gotten adequate training when it comes to thinking about pedagogy and I’ve been fortunate enough to have mentors and experiences in graduate school that allowed me to teach and allowed me, you know, to kind of learn certain forms of pedagogy and engage in skills and learn methods and tools. But I also think this is a great opportunity for me to kind of hone in on some of those skills and think about what might be working for... you know... how I see my own pedagogy and what I want to be as a teacher. Which, from graduate school to now has... you know -- has started to shift and change. Also, because, quite honestly, this... I’m a visiting new faculty and this is my first job and teaching two sections of Intro to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, I’ve had somewhat of a hard time engaging students. Or rather, getting students to feel like they can talk and take up space in the classroom, so I think this was also a way for me to kind of... talk about some of the challenges I’ve been facing and also think about how I might tailor the rest of the course -- And also, just think that sometimes it’s not me, as much as it is a set of circumstances that make teaching this kind of work hard. It’s been really great to just have a sounding board amongst other folk in the field of WGSS and just think about more concretely what it means to do this work in the classroom... because I don’t think that always happens, which is pretty sad. I’m pretty grateful to have been here and have participated. [00:11:21] HM: It sounds like the workshops that I’ve seen the description for sound really cool. So, I’m happy that you were able to experience some great speakers and some great topics that you could actually grow from. [00:11:32] BP: Absolutely, I think so too. [00:11:33] [Both laugh] [00:11:35] HM: Well, thank you for your time and we really appreciate you providing... the voice... that you have. [00:11:42] BP: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, and I think it’s really cool that you guys get to do this in your class. You know, in thinking about pedagogy, this is a great way to expose students to... an alternative means to kind of engage with some of the ideas that you guys are learning in the context of class. So, I think that’s always really cool. Really cool. Okay, well I’ll stop talking. [00:12:04] [Both laugh] [End of Recording] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Brittnay Proctor Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Malzeke, Hailey Proctor, Brittnay Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-9-14 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource College of Wooster Libraries Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented with permission from Brittnay Proctor.<br /><br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Brittnay_Proctor_Interview.mp3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant The College of Wooster; University of California Riverside Subject The topic of the resource Feminist theory; Popular culture--study and teaching; Popular music; Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Dr. Brittnay Proctor. Dr. Proctor is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Wooster in the WGSS department. This interview revolves around her studies in black popular music, black feminist theory, visual cultures, gender and sexuality studies, and performance. Dr. Proctor talks about what has influenced her in her research pursuits, including the women in her family and her own experiences, as well as discusses influential texts she has worked with. https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/3b1fb6f43de36dd3e7561b55e858743e.m4a 0041cca1b7a6a1b03e072aeeae96d94b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bonhomme, Isabel Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Costa, LeeRay Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:03] IB: Hello everyone, so I am here with Dr. LeeRay Costa. My name is Isabel Bonhomme, I am a student at the College of Wooster who is majoring in Anthropology and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. It is September 17th, 2018, um and once again I’m here with Dr. Costa from Hollins University. Hi Dr. Costa. [00:00:21] LC: Hi! [00:00:23] IB: Um, so I’ll just jump right in! First question, what is your primary area of study and also how do you incorporate a feminist or queer approach into your teaching? [00:00:33] LC: Okay so um I’m actually trained as a feminist anthropologist, and I’ve been teaching for 18 years and I’ve sort of moved away from anthropology being my primary area of research and teaching, to really Gender and Women’s Studies, um I do that full time now. And so I’d say the thrust of my research focuses on that, and um historically it’s really been around issues of women’s activism, social movements, and non-governmental organizations, and currently my area of research focuses on the intersection of sort of feminist, and womanist, um, approaches, to, um, activism and spiritual activism, in particular, so how do we use spiritual approaches, um in the service of social justice and making social change. [00:01:23] IB: I actually saw on your, um, website on Hollins’ website, that you did spiritual feminism and spiritual activism, I thought that was really interesting, I’d never really heard of that before so- [00:01:32] LC: Yea! [00:01:33] IB: -interesting. Um, so I also saw on the website that you teach about feminist and contemplative pedagogies? [00:01:38] LC: Mm-hm. [00:01:39] IB: I was wondering if you could speak to how that has impacted how you have approached teaching, um, since, um, including that into your classroom. [00:01:46] LC: Mm-hm. Well so, um, I think- for a long time I-I’ve taken a feminist approach to my pedagogy. And, um, I’d say within- well, and, I think what I realized is when I discovered contemplative pedagogy I realized that I’d already been doing a lot of, um contemplative pedagogical approaches and didn’t really know it, um but then I became much more focused on exploring that and what does it look like to bring those, um approaches to a feminist classroom. So a lot of what this has to do with is creating spaciousness, um, for students, and their learning, and also to go deeper in their learning. So there’s a lot of self-reflection, um in, in the ways that I teach, and so that’s something I was already doing but now I think I’ve brought into that, um, some new techniques to enhance that. So, for example in many of my classes we begin each class with two or three minutes of silence and centering, focusing on our breathing and making sure that we’re actually in our bodies, because so often in academe we’re up here in out heads and we’re off somewhere else and you forget that we have to take care of this vessel, that allows us to do all that we do. So things like that and I also focus a lot um, on deep listening and- and practicing how to really listen to one another, because nobody really teaches us that. And um in terms of the kinds of things that we teach and learn about in Gender and Women’s Studies which often have to do with really difficult issues and conflict, um, oppression and inequality, actually listening to one another and each other’s experiences is really important, so, um, I’ve focused a lot on that as well. And then just, in terms of, kind of, self-exploration, uh self-reflection in the process of learning because when you come to Gender and Women’s Studies in particular, you often have to, um, kind of own up to the privileges that you have, um whatever they might be whether it’s around gender or sexuality or race, um and that can be a hard process for people, because it means that they’re actually having to confro- confront things that they haven’t had to in the- in the past. So that kind of deep self-reflection creates space for exploring that. [00:03:56] IB: Alright, thank you. Um, so sort of going off of that, who or- [00:04:00] LC: Mm-hm. [00:04:00] IB: -what were some of your biggest influences in feminist and queer pedagogies? [00:04:05] LC: Oh, wow. Well, um, some of the folks that I’ve been reading a lot, um, lately, that have been influencing this teaching I do around spiritual activism, um are Gloria Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating. AnaLouise Keating’s, um work really grows out of, um Gloria Anzaldúa’s work. Um, and, um people like bell hooks, for example. Um a lot of the work that inspires me is actually written by women of color. Um I think that they- that centering their work is really important, um in learning about- learning how to think differently about some of these issues, and how, um they speak from a perspective of really being able to see the complexities of the structures of power that we live within, that I think white, um feminists in particular don’t always see- can’t recognize because of the ways that we’ve been socialized into white supremacy. So um, those would be a few. Some other people would be Leela Fernández, um and Layli Mapa- Maparyan, um I’m not sure if I say her name correctly. Um, and also Becky Thompson. Those are probably some of the key figures that I’ve been reading and- and um really using their work. [00:05:13] IB: Great. Um, and then when was a time where you saw queer or feminist pedagogy have a positive influence or work well within your classroom? [00:05:23] LC: Oh, wow. That happens all the time! (laughs) Umm…ah, specific example. Um, well I- I will speak to- [00:05:32] IB: [unintelligable] [00:05:34] LC: What was that? [00:05:35] IB: I was saying, if you can’t think of a specific example, maybe a technique that works well? [00:05:38] LC: Yea, yea. So something that I’ve started doing over the past year and a half that I’ve used in both my undergraduate and graduate classes, is something called horizontal inquiry. And, um, and I got this concept from a professor of dance, um, from Canada. And, so basically what it is, is taking students outside, to lay on the grass, and inviting them to just rest and daydream. Maybe for 5 to 10 minutes- and really giving them no specific prompt, but letting them just sort of look at the sky, and the clouds, or the trees, or to just rest. And then, at, at the- at the close of that, sort of restfulness, um inviting them to do some reflective writing. And then coming back to the content of the class, and having a discussion. And each time that I’ve done this, we’ve had profound conversations, where students are so much more focused, on the topic of the class, they’re able to go deeper, they’re able to really listen to their classmates. Um, and we recently- we did this in my Spiritual Activism class, for example- and, um, the students were so tender with each other, when they were really grappling with this issue of how do we talk to someone who is different from us, who has a very different life experience? So there’s something about, again, creating that space, for restfulness, um, and centering and sort of clearing the mind that, um, allows for a more focused, um, and in-depth discussion. So that’s one of the things that I’ve done. [00:07:05] IB: Yea. Um, and then what kind of challenges do you think that, um, professors such as yourselves face when bringing that kind of feminist and queer pedagogy into the classroom? [00:07:17] LC: Um, well, first of all, um, it- sometimes it makes people uncomfortable. I think that’s the first thing- it’s, it’s sort of not, what’s typical. And, and also people have very different relationships to their bodies, to their breath, to the idea of what a classroom space is like, or should be like. And so, sometimes introducing these kinds of techniques can be unsettling. Um, and, so I try- I try to prime students for that by talking about, at the very beginning of the semester, you know, this is what these techniques are, this is why I’m teaching them to you, this is what some of the outcomes could potentially be- so they sort of know going in, why, you know, I’m using them. And then, once we begin to practice, I always have reflection, um, wri- reflective writing, and, so it’s a way for me to constantly be checking in to see where students are. So if they have individual particular challenges, I can address that with them individually. Um, and, for example, um, sometimes trauma, can be, an issue that comes up for individual people- especially in relationship to their bodies. So having, um, more knowledge on that and being able to check in with individual students when necessary, I think is helpful, because it can be, um, you know, it’s different, it can be unnerving for people until they start to begin to see what this practice is like, and how it actually enhances their learning. [00:08:41] IB: And, I know you weren’t able to actually make it out to the workshop- [00:08:44] LC: Oh I know, I’m so sad! [00:08:46] IB: Um, what motivated you to want to participate in the workshop in the first place? [00:08:50] LC: Oh my gosh. Well, um, I mean, I consider myself to be a lifelong learner, and I love to teach, and so I always want to be learning new approaches to teaching so that I can be the best teacher that I can be. And that whole idea of being, you know, at- at a conference, with a bunch of other teachers and scholars and learning from them, um, is just so attractive and inspiring, and I think, you know, because- again, people are coming to this from their different life experiences, they’re going to be thinking about and approaching things in a way very different from me, and that can, you know, help me recognize things I might have been missing, um and introduce me to new ways of approaching teaching. Um, and, um, so, that, I think that was the primary reason that I, you know, wanted to participate. And I’ve also, you know, um, Christa and I have been working together for a number of years, and so anything that she plans and organizes, I want to be a part of. [00:09:47] IB: That’s awesome to hear. Well thank you, and is there anything else that we haven’t brought up in the interview, that you would just really like to talk about, or, ask about- anything like that. [00:09:56] LC: Um, I guess I would just say, that, um, again when it comes to sort of looking at the intersections of feminist and contemplative pedagogy, what I’ve found is that, um it sort of freed students in a lot of ways to, um think about their own learning and the particular issues that they’re grappling with in new ways, so I hope that it is something that other faculty will consider engaging with and I hope that students will be more open to that because it really, um, the techniques that are used, are excellent for learning but they’re also things that you can take into your everyday life. And into, you know, your work, beyond the academy. So, that’s about it. [00:10:33] IB: Well thank you so so much for participating in this interview, and, um, I wish you all the best with your teaching and with the storm, and everything like that. So, thank you once again. [00:10:43] LC: Thank you, Isabel. [00:10:45] IB: Bye. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Sound Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:10:45 Location The location of the interview Virtual Interview; College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio and Hollins University, Roanoke, Virginia Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with LeeRay Costa Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bonhomme, Isabel Costa, LeeRay Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-September-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented with permission from LeeRay Costa<br /><br />In Copyright<br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LeeRay_Costa_Interview.mp4 Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Dr. LeeRay Costa, professor of Anthropology and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Hollins University. Costa reflects upon her feminist and contemplative pedagogical approaches in the classroom. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop, College of Wooster, funded by the Hewlett-Melon Foundation Subject The topic of the resource Women's studies; Teaching; Critical Pedagogy; Feminism; Anthropology; Minorities; Intersectionality Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Hollins University; Canada https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/f6ba36f2b96bf124cfe857fad59369bd.mp3 d092386f9c7a05db7b9bc4a49f368a07 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Shirley Huston-Findley Subject The topic of the resource Feminist Studies; Theatre and Performance Studies; Feminist Pedagogy Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Professor Shirley Huston-Findley who is a Professor at The College of Wooster, where she teaches in the theatre and dance department. In this interview Huston-Findley talks about how she has found intersections between the world of theatre, especially as a director as well as finding ways to incorporate feminist theory in everything she does. Even though her courses aren’t theoretically based around feminism, she does make sure to incorporate female playwrights, as well as female directors into the readings and discussions in the classroom. She also talks about the way bell hooks influenced the way she looks at pedagogy, and how to incorporate feminist pedagogy into the classroom. She has also been influenced by trying to find ways in which worlds intersect, and looking beyond second wave feminism. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Remtulla, Amrin Huston-Findley, Shirley Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-09-14 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop, College of Wooster, funded by the Hewlett-Melon Foundation Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented With Permission From Benny LeMaster <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="In Copyright">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Huston-Findley_Shirley_Interview.mp3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Wooster https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/4b91c26c7d1d83ae7d315f9d104b5df7.mp4 07d7a56fc82264ee70e8cec0c66bc493 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop Subject The topic of the resource Feminism; Teaching; Pedagogy; Education, Higher; Queer community; Race Description An account of the resource This is a collection of oral histories from professors in WGSS disciplines from across the country who came together for this Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop at the College of Wooster in the fall semester of 2018. Each professor discusses how they incorporate queer and feminist perspectives in the classroom as well as the struggles when implementing these techniques in higher education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sirot, Laura; Shange, Savannah; Huston-Findley, Shirley; LeMaster, Benny; Costa, LeeRay; Proctor, Brittnay; Hester, Scarlett; Gill, Harjant; Rapport, Jeremy; Ng, Margaret Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp3; Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Moving Image Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Savannah Shange Subject The topic of the resource Feminist Studies; Race; Blackness; Anthropology; Queer Theory; Performance; Pedagogy Description An account of the resource This is an interview with Savannah Shangey who is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz where they teach in the Anthropology department. In this interview Shangey talks about how she always looks for how blackness shows up, typically in an educational environment, and how the afterlife of slavery is being lived in this moment by a variety of people. They also talk about ways in which gender and sexuality are not just vectors of oppression, but also of liberation. They also talk about how pedagogy is in the classroom, but it also about how you teach someone to be something, so for them she learnt that on the dance floor as those spaces were places where someone would figure out their identity. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Remtulla, Amrin Shangey, Savannah Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-09-14 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Feminist and Queer Pedagogies Workshop, College of Wooster, funded by the Hewlett-Melon Foundation Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Presented With Permission From Savannah Shangey <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp4 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Savannah_Shangey-Interview.Mp4 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Wooster https://woosterdigital.org/wgssatwoo/files/original/596e79c6fa06e2c8f15dde5764391f44.jpg cb370a0c36b88286aad505ae1a34697a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Campus and Community Activism Description An account of the resource This collection contains oral histories, pictures, statements and other historical works that document the history of the College of Wooster and the Wooster community's communal activism. Items come from different leaders in the community and other individuals who have participated in and documented Wooster's activist history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Feminist Pedagogy in Action Students, Fall Semester 2018-2019 as follows: Harris-Ridker, Matthew Remtulla, Amrin Bonhomme, Isabel Malzeke, Hailey White, Andrew Lang, Abigail Vogt, Anna Day, Morgan Kouyaté, Alicea Stewart, Emery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Drs. Christa Craven and Olivia Navarro-Farr at the 2017 Women’s March in Wooster, Ohio. Subject The topic of the resource Women's studies; Social justice; Feminism Description An account of the resource This photograph is of Drs. Christa Craven and Olivia Navarro-Farr at the 2017 Women's March in Wooster, Ohio. One the left is Dr. Craven, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the College of Wooster (Chair of WGSS Program 2012-2017). On the right is Dr. Navarro-Farr, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at the College of Wooster. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Susan Lehman Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Unpublished Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 01-2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Craven, Christa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPEG Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant January 2017; Wooster, Ohio