Therese Quinn

Doing and feeling research in public: queer organizing for public education and justice

Grounded in activism – fighting the implementation of Department of Defense‐run schools in a public schools system; organizing to fight the largest national teacher education accreditation agency’s removal of sexual orientation and social justice from its accreditation standards; and protesting a state’s decision to hold a public meeting for teacher educators at a private Christian college that ‘condemns’ homosexuality – this article highlights how education is being re‐formed through appeals to ‘private choice’ and at the same time select public issues are devalued by being called private and outside the bounds of normative ‘professional’ attention. This reframing, a hallmark of contemporary neoliberalism, has specific ramifications for queers, as analysis of these cases indicate. Using collaborative participatory research that attends to emotions, the authors argue that feelings are political and problematizing, and useful – they can trigger tactics. With the goal of offering examples of tactics tried, the paper archives evidence – original texts including pledges, letters, flyers, and emails – of queer organizing in education.

Militarism and Education Normal

With the military’s ready and waiting personnel, infrastructure, and resources, no one should be surprised that the JROTC [Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps] is now offered as the alternative to physical education in urban school districts, or that the Department of Defense has responded to the educational crisis by opening and staffing public military schools. Currently, the military is education normal.… [P]ublic schools [have become] recruiting entities, and their targeting is not race, class, or gender neutral. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Exhibits through the “Other Eye”: How Popular Education Can Help Us Make Museums that Push

Abstract This essay begins by considering museum studies in relationship to curriculum studies and new museology. The author notes that traditional museum and school learning modes have focused more on measurement than meaning, while curriculum studies and new museology urge a broader exploration of the social purposes of education. Drawing on the work of Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School, popular education is offered as a model for exhibitors and other museum educators. The essay closes with examples from an exhibit project by graduate students. This section shares analyses of traditional exhibit standards, new critical standards, and popular education-influenced exhibit elements.

Reading Histories of Popular Culture for Man-Crushes, Homoromances, and Other Fraternal Orders of Love

Pre-World War II examples of popular culture reveal surprising tolerance for male homoromance, according to author Jeffery Dennis. His book, We Boys Together: Teenagers in Love Before Girl-Craziness, analyzes media representations of boy-crazy boys before girl-craziness, and documents how compulsive heteronormativity was normalized.