n my classrooms I emphasize the connections between theory and praxis, and the ways that privilege and power exist within our lives and the society around us. Students question the boundaries of what they know, analyze poetry, art museums, historical documents, and their own lives, and apply class concepts to collaborative projects. My courses are interdisciplinary; students gain expertise in various knowledge fields, diverse methodologies, and critical reading practices. A bulk of student work is organized around reading responses and class discussions, complimented by larger essays and research projects that require students to apply the core concepts that they have learned. Art and creative writing, which have been key to feminist and queer theory, are also an important part of my classroom pedagogy. In LGBTQ Identities and Communities, students create comics that explain homophobia, and write theatre skits about bi-erasure, and in Intro to WGSS students write speculative fiction, imaging feminist futures and queer worlds. Through class discussions and activities like Agree-Disagree Movement Activities, and Fishbowl Discussions, students learn to talk about how gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, and other axis of difference structure the worlds that we all move within.
Collaborating with students, rather than merely lecturing to them, provides a learning environment where students’ questions, interests, and knowledge is at the center. In the open environment that I create, conversation flows not only between student and professor, but amongst students as well. My classes are a place where affect is encouraged, and students are given space to be intrigued, upset, surprised, and passionate about what class materials. This can be tricky in classes where the topics are deeply personal and sometimes controversial. My Trans Studies class at Amherst once erupted into a tense discussion over sex markers on legal documents, and I had to step in to remind students how to engage respectfully with each other. I frequently begin my classes with a reminder to breathe, to ask clarifying questions, and to be generous. Guided by Stacey Waite’s ideas on queer pedagogy, I also value silence in the classroom, and provide opportunities for quiet reflection as we move through difficult materials.
I have taught intimate research seminars of 3-5 students, small seminars of 10-15, and discussion classes of 35-45. Given students’ diverse backgrounds, I often facilitate classroom discussions across different racial, economic, sexual, gender, and class backgrounds, and varying experiences with privilege and oppression. For some students the topics we cover are brand-new, strange, and unfamiliar, while others have first-hand lived experience with the theories we are learning about. I organize my courses in a way that creates a productive learning environment for both students who do not know much about a particular issue and those who are eager to delve deeper into the topic. Students have commented on evaluations that I create an environment where it is safe to ask questions and that they appreciate the additional materials and resources that I often provide during lectures and classroom discussions for those who want to learn more.
The relationships that I build with students are teaching’s greatest reward, as I watch them grow and learn over the course of the semester. I love it when students let me know that what they have learned in the classroom has had an impact on their life, identities, and ways of thinking. This is the ultimate goal of my pedagogy: that students are able to recognize how gender, sexuality, race, and other systems of categorization structure their own lives and the society around them, and that they are able to incorporate key concepts like intersectionality, privilege, and oppression into their writing, research, and intellectual conversations.
The Spaces In Between 