Artful Stories

Joanne Kilgour Dowdy is Associate Professor at Kent State University, Ohio. A graduate of Juilliard School in the theatre division, Dr. Dowdy continues to use her drama training to prepare teachers for the literacy classroom, and as a performer who facilitates writing development through interactive workshops. Her major research interests include documenting the experiences of Black women involved in education from adult basic literacy to higher education. She is the co-editor (with Dr. Lisa Delpit, Mc Arthur Genius Fellow) of The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom (2002), and the author of GED Stories: Black Women & Their Struggle for Social Equity (Lang, 2003). Ph.D. Stories: Conversations with My Sisters (2008) won the American Educational Research Association Narrative and Research SIG’s Outstanding Book Award IN 2009.

«In a world where intellectual education is important but where the education of the whole person even more so, and where arts education is visibly seen to contribute to the intellectual, emotional, ethical and moral education of the individual, these ‘stories’ provide important material for our young generation of artists and intellectuals.» (Dr. Henry Daniel, Associate Professor, Dance and Performance Studies, Simon Fraser University)«Professor Kilgour-Dowdy has skillfully incubated a liberal ‘meeting place’ in the minds of the reader, where she encourages us to interface with the prodigious life-views of four North American ‘foreign-natives’, who have triumphantly transferred their own matrix of human aspirations from the postcolonial Drama and Theatre Arts of Resistance in Trinidad to the ubiquitous world stage of Higher Education.» (Terrence Wendell Brathwaite, Senior Lecturer/Higher Education Manager, MSc Degree in Integrated Dance Movement Psychotherapy, University of Worcester, England)«Professor Dowdy’s book focuses on four black men, native to the Caribbean, who have made indelible marks on the world’s stage of performing arts. In telling each man’s story, she manages to tell a collective story of a ‘family’ of artists integral to the production of stage performances worldwide. The reader comes away with insight, from these men’s collective perspective, into the art of stage and theatre performance and production.» (J. Lee Greene, Emeritus Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)«This book is valuable as an example of research done right. It will be a useful resource in Research Methods classes as it employs methodological rigor to highlight the intriguing journeys of the artists it profiles.» (Mandi Chikombero, Communication, Research and Evaluation Specialist, Maryland)«I read this book from the perspective of an educator who is passionate about assessments and how students learn about standards of performance, creativity and ingenuity. Students who read this book will have the opportunity to learn from the background stories of these professionals who are also respected members of academia. That these men were all successful because of their work ethic, willingness to learn, centeredness in regard to the national culture which shaped them, understanding of the importance of mentoring, educating themselves and documenting their journey is not to be missed. These men all honored their ‘first teachers’ in their particular fields (another important point) as they described what drove them to continue along their chosen career paths.» (Lennise Baptiste, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Caribbean Health Research Council)