Kirsten T. Edwards

College teaching on sacred ground: Judeo-Christian influences on Black women faculty pedagogy

Abstract This study examines the perceptions and ideals of Black women faculty in the US who self-identify as possessing strong faith commitments within a Judeo-Christian denomination. The study considers the influence religio-spirituality has on their perceptions of pedagogy and student engagement. There are four major findings that emerged in this study, organized within two veins: (1) Religio-spiritual educator ideal as a guide for ways of being and teaching in the academy; and (2) Religio-spirituality’s relationship to equity and emancipation. This study is significant in that it identifies a largely under-theorized religio-spiritual frame employed by many Black women faculty in the US, and contributes to the literature in its exploration of the ways Judeo-Christian Black women faculty can serve as important resources and change agents in US higher education.

Historically White Universities and Plantation Politics: Anti-Blackness and Higher Education in the Black Lives Matter Era.

In this article, the authors argue that U.S. colleges and universities must grapple with persistent engagements of Black bodies as property. Engaging the research and scholarship on Black faculty, staff, and students, we explain how theorizations of settler colonialism and anti-Blackness (re)interpret the arrangement between historically White universities and Black people. The authors contend that a particular political agenda that engages the Black body as property, not merely concerns for disproportionality and inequality, is deeply embedded in institutional policy and practice. The article concludes with a vision for what awareness of anti-Black settler colonialism means for U.S. higher education.

The Colour of Thought

There are countless illustrations that attest to the level of rigour associated with perusing postgraduate study – some empirical (Abedi & Benkin, 1987; Bowen, & Rudenstine, 1992; Goldie, 1998, 2005; Fischer, & Zigmond, 1998), others anecdotal (Mitchell & Rosiek, 2005; Smallwood, 2004), and still others somewhere inbetween (Baird, 1990; Edwards, 2010; Turner, Miller, & Mitchell-Kernan, 2002).

Stories of Migration: Passing Through, Crossing Over, and Decolonial Transgressing in Academyland

In this chapter the author draws on Black women’s storytelling/testimony, as well as Anzaldua’s conceptions of borderlands and border-crossing to describe her experiences as a Southern Black woman pedagogue in the academy. Using imaginative and creative form, she explores issues of home and not-belonging. Woven into these explorations is an examination of the multiple locations that shape her pedagogical and curricular practice.

When, where, and why we enter: Black women’s curriculum theorising

For people of color have always theorized – but in forms quite different from the Western form of abstract logic. And I am inclined to say that our theorizing (and I intentionally use the verb and not the noun) is often in narrative forms, in the stories we create, in the riddles and proverbs, in the play with language because dynamic rather than fixed ideas seem more to our liking. How else have we managed to survive with such spiritedness the assault on our bodies, social institutions, countries and our humanity? – Christian (1996)

Curriculum homeplacing as complicated conversation: (re)narrating the mentoring of Black women doctoral students

ABSTRACT Through personal and dialogical narratives, we explore the ways Black women mentors (do not) reveal to their mentees their lived-experiences and the personal pain associated with the pursuit of careers in higher education; how and why their narratives of pain and pursuit are negotiated, sanctioned, and/or strategically altered; and the impact these decisions have on the development of Black women graduate students. Drawing on hooks’ notions of ‘imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’ (2015), ‘radical honesty’ (2004), and ‘homeplace’ (1990), we deploy the concept of curriculum homeplacing to more critically examine Black women’s mentoring relationships.

After Trayvon Voices From the Academy Respond to a Tragedy

This discussion among a community at the University of Oklahoma came from work presented at an event called “After Trayvon.” Several issues about social justice, African-American bodies, the experience of microagressions, the role and responsibility of local police, and the critical roles of history and the media were discussed in a forum with the public.

Learning with Sandy Hook: Mass Violence in Educational Settings—An Editorial Commentary

Several events in our nation’s recent history will forever be written into the public’s collective memory. These are moments that, when mentioned, draw our minds and spirits back to the exact space our physical bodies occupied on that day, conjuring their own unique smells, touches, sounds, and visions. At the same time, these moments of mass violence and hysteria carry the consistent markers of public disillusionment, fear, and feelings of betrayal. The unimaginable became a reality, and the lovelessness in the world was again revealed. For us, Kirsten and Elon, although the starting point for this section is the tragic shooting massacre that occurred on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, CT, our understanding of Sandy Hook is inextricably connected to our recollections of Columbine as the first moment in our lives that we understood school as a target for extreme violence. In fact, we were occupying very similar developmental stages during the mass shootings at Columbine, Virginia Polytechnic and A&M University, and Sandy Hook. Similarly, these events have not only influenced our current analysis, but have also shaped the ways we approach our professional work in education. Our understanding of schools as previously protected, safe domains prior to Columbine is ironic in light of our particular schooling experiences prior to college attendance. Sadly, while we perceived schools as protected, we did not think of them as protective; both of us endured bullying throughout middle and high school. Peer and teacher antagonism and aggression have often colored our memories of K–12 schooling. For Kirsten, the first time she understood schools as a place where she belonged was as a graduate student. Before this, she often received messages of inadequacy and worthlessness within the schooling context. Meanwhile, Elon was the victim of cruel boyhood and masculinity policing in school settings. As he has stated elsewhere (Dancy, 2012), this experience worked to shape early perceptions of schools as spaces of violence and spiteful (dis)engagement. Preand post-Columbine, schools for both of the authors have represented violently hostile spaces of (im)possibility. While we theoretically and