Cynthia B. Dillard – författare

Feminist research has both held and contested experience as a category of epistemological importance, often as a secular notion. However, spirituality and sacred knowing are also fundamental to a Black/endarkened feminist epistemology in teaching and research, given the historical and cultural experiences of African ascendant women worldwide. How can (re)membering bear witness to our individual and collective spiritual consciousness and generate new questions that inform feminist theory and practice? Learning to (Re)member the Things We’ve Learned to Forget explores that question. Theorizing through sites and journeys across the globe and particularly in Ghana, West Africa, this book explores how spirituality, location, experience, and cultural memory engage and create an endarkened feminist subjectivity that can (re)member, opening possibilities for research and teaching that honors the wisdom, history, and cultural productions of African diasporic women particularly and persons of African heritage generally.

Feminist research has both held and contested experience as a category of epistemological importance, often as a secular notion. However, spirituality and sacred knowing are also fundamental to a Black/endarkened feminist epistemology in teaching and research, given the historical and cultural experiences of African ascendant women worldwide. How can (re)membering bear witness to our individual and collective spiritual consciousness and generate new questions that inform feminist theory and practice? Learning to (Re)member the Things We’ve Learned to Forget explores that question. Theorizing through sites and journeys across the globe and particularly in Ghana, West Africa, this book explores how spirituality, location, experience, and cultural memory engage and create an endarkened feminist subjectivity that can (re)member, opening possibilities for research and teaching that honors the wisdom, history, and cultural productions of African diasporic women particularly and persons of African heritage generally.

This book won the 2014 AESA (American Educational Studies Association) Critics Choice Award.Engaging Culture, Race and Spirituality addresses a critical question rarely addressed in our conversations and the literature about race, culture and diversity: How might spirituality and our inner lives matter in teaching and teacher education that explicitly engages and addresses race and culture? In ways explicit and embodied, this book focuses on how engaging spirituality and the inner life can serve as radical intervention in our dialogues about race and culture in education. Gathered together are the voices of emerging young scholars whose thinking and research explicitly marshal theories of spirituality as critical interventions in their dialogues and discourses about culture and race in teaching and teacher education. Each chapter is followed by a scholar visionary who points to ways for educators and educational researchers to see the usefulness of such spirituality in engaging research, pedagogy and practices. Their collective visions – all deeply political, sometimes humorous, always insightful, and thoughtfully provocative – call us to a new way of thinking about the «evidence of things unseen», about spirituality in education as a site of profound possibilities for change, equity, and social justice.

This book won the 2014 AESA (American Educational Studies Association) Critics Choice Award.Engaging Culture, Race and Spirituality addresses a critical question rarely addressed in our conversations and the literature about race, culture and diversity: How might spirituality and our inner lives matter in teaching and teacher education that explicitly engages and addresses race and culture? In ways explicit and embodied, this book focuses on how engaging spirituality and the inner life can serve as radical intervention in our dialogues about race and culture in education. Gathered together are the voices of emerging young scholars whose thinking and research explicitly marshal theories of spirituality as critical interventions in their dialogues and discourses about culture and race in teaching and teacher education. Each chapter is followed by a scholar visionary who points to ways for educators and educational researchers to see the usefulness of such spirituality in engaging research, pedagogy and practices. Their collective visions – all deeply political, sometimes humorous, always insightful, and thoughtfully provocative – call us to a new way of thinking about the «evidence of things unseen», about spirituality in education as a site of profound possibilities for change, equity, and social justice.

States of Grace: Counterstories of a Black Woman in the Academy recognizes, acknowledges, and centers race and gender through the embodiment of Black womanhood in the academy in the context of grace. Encapsulated in concepts of grace, this book reveals the dynamic, multidimensional presence of a scholar who brings her wholeness into her scholarship and teaching, providing insights and guidance along the way.

States of Grace: Counterstories of a Black Woman in the Academy recognizes, acknowledges, and centers race and gender through the embodiment of Black womanhood in the academy in the context of grace. Encapsulated in concepts of grace, this book reveals the dynamic, multidimensional presence of a scholar who brings her wholeness into her scholarship and teaching, providing insights and guidance along the way.

Out of K.O.S. (Knowledge of Self): Black Masculinity, Psychopathology, and Treatment provides a comprehensive analysis of the development of racialized masculinity in Black males. This text explores the current theories related to gender development and racial identity development and their impact on the formation and expression of Black masculinity. Specifically, this text investigates the intersection between Black masculinity development, racial identity, and race-related traumas/stressors. Out of K.O.S. (Knowledge of Self): Black Masculinity, Psychopathology, and Treatment highlights the dual experience of social oppression and cultural identity suppression as the catalyst for the formation of unintegrated Black masculinity, and its subsequent influence on Black male mental health. Lastly, this book provides a comprehensive discussion concerning therapist variables and clinical interventions that can be helpful when working with Black males in a clinical setting.

Out of K.O.S. (Knowledge of Self): Black Masculinity, Psychopathology, and Treatment provides a comprehensive analysis of the development of racialized masculinity in Black males. This text explores the current theories related to gender development and racial identity development and their impact on the formation and expression of Black masculinity. Specifically, this text investigates the intersection between Black masculinity development, racial identity, and race-related traumas/stressors. Out of K.O.S. (Knowledge of Self): Black Masculinity, Psychopathology, and Treatment highlights the dual experience of social oppression and cultural identity suppression as the catalyst for the formation of unintegrated Black masculinity, and its subsequent influence on Black male mental health. Lastly, this book provides a comprehensive discussion concerning therapist variables and clinical interventions that can be helpful when working with Black males in a clinical setting.

Boondock Kollage: Stories from the Hip Hop South is a collection of twelve short stories that addresses issues of race, place, and identity in the post–Civil Rights American South. Using historical, spectral, and hip hop infused fiction, Boondock Kollage critically engages readers to question the intersections of regionalism and black culture in current American society.

Boondock Kollage: Stories from the Hip Hop South is a collection of twelve short stories that addresses issues of race, place, and identity in the post–Civil Rights American South. Using historical, spectral, and hip hop infused fiction, Boondock Kollage critically engages readers to question the intersections of regionalism and black culture in current American society.

Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders from Trinidad and Tobago is a narrative project that illuminates the historical legacy of entrepreneurship, self-employment, and collective economics within the African diaspora, particularly in the lives of five women leaders of African descent from Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean. By using the financial literacy lens as an analytical tool to interpret these biographies, this book documents the journeys of these independent business women, uncovers the literacy skills they employed, and describes the networking skills that they relied upon personally and professionally. The qualitative data collection methods utilized in this project help to identify lessons that will inform professionals, educators, and business and lay persons about the innovative ways in which teaching and learning take place outside of “formal” business schooling. Information gleaned from this study also serves to broaden traditional understandings of entrepreneurship and economic strategies inherited from majority African descended communities. Additionally, this book illuminates the creative and intellectual modes of learning within the Afrocentric communities that foster successful business practices. Finally, these five successful women pass on to interested learners their methods of modeling, encouraging, and celebrating the means by which independent business people make a positive impact on society.

Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders from Trinidad and Tobago is a narrative project that illuminates the historical legacy of entrepreneurship, self-employment, and collective economics within the African diaspora, particularly in the lives of five women leaders of African descent from Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean. By using the financial literacy lens as an analytical tool to interpret these biographies, this book documents the journeys of these independent business women, uncovers the literacy skills they employed, and describes the networking skills that they relied upon personally and professionally. The qualitative data collection methods utilized in this project help to identify lessons that will inform professionals, educators, and business and lay persons about the innovative ways in which teaching and learning take place outside of “formal” business schooling. Information gleaned from this study also serves to broaden traditional understandings of entrepreneurship and economic strategies inherited from majority African descended communities. Additionally, this book illuminates the creative and intellectual modes of learning within the Afrocentric communities that foster successful business practices. Finally, these five successful women pass on to interested learners their methods of modeling, encouraging, and celebrating the means by which independent business people make a positive impact on society.

Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience is a multi-generational story of growing up black and female in the rural south. At times heartbreaking, at times humorous, Sweetwater captures the artistry, strength, language and creativity shared by first-hand accounts of black women in small-town North Carolina during the twentieth century. The book uncovers the versatility and universality of black women’s experiences and their exceptional capacity to love in the face of adversity, and hope in the midst of calamity. Sweetwater is about the black female experience as it relates to friendship, family, spirituality, poverty, education, addiction, mental illness, romantic relationships, and everyday survival. The merging themes show the resilience and resistance that black women exhibit while negotiating the intersecting oppressions of racism, classism, and sexism.Written from field notes and memory, the author reveals the complexities of black women’s lived experiences by exposing the communicative and interpersonal choices black women make through storytelling. Narrative inquiry and black feminism are offered as creative educational tools for discussing how and why black women’s singular and interior lives are culturally and globally significant.This revised edition preserves the original narratives but features new content including re-views, re-visions and re-considerations for re-writing autoethnography.

Black music is a powerful art form. Artists’ creations often go where words cannot. The music is special—sacred. However, it’s still frequently shoehorned into the ambiguous categories of secular and sacred. Is God Funky or What?: Black Biblical Culture and Contemporary Popular Music complicates the traditional categories of sacred and secular by exposing religious rhetoric and contexts of contemporary popular black music and by revealing the religious-based biblical references and spirituality that form the true cultural context from which these genres emerge. The personal beliefs of black music artists often include, if not revolve around, the heavens. How come we are bombarded by the "thank Gods" in televised award shows, liner notes, or interviews for songs by musicians that some millennials might call "ratchet?" Is God Funky or What? shares anecdotes probing connections between specific forms of popular black music and religion. The qualifications of sacred and secular typically depend on context, lyrics, location, and audience (age, race, religion). Through a woven narrative of lyrics, godly acknowledgments, recorded and original interviews, biographies, and recordings from various genres of black music, this book explores how artists have intertwined views of God, perspectives regarding a higher power, spirituality, and religion in creating their music. Their creations make up an organic corpus called the Artistic Black Canon (ABC). Using the ABC, this book shares and explores its remarkable interpretations and ideas about life, music, spirituality, and religion. Is God Funky or What? also shares how we can better make use of this music in the classroom, as well as better understand how essential it is to the lives of many.

Black music is a powerful art form. Artists’ creations often go where words cannot. The music is special—sacred. However, it’s still frequently shoehorned into the ambiguous categories of secular and sacred. Is God Funky or What?: Black Biblical Culture and Contemporary Popular Music complicates the traditional categories of sacred and secular by exposing religious rhetoric and contexts of contemporary popular black music and by revealing the religious-based biblical references and spirituality that form the true cultural context from which these genres emerge. The personal beliefs of black music artists often include, if not revolve around, the heavens. How come we are bombarded by the "thank Gods" in televised award shows, liner notes, or interviews for songs by musicians that some millennials might call "ratchet?" Is God Funky or What? shares anecdotes probing connections between specific forms of popular black music and religion. The qualifications of sacred and secular typically depend on context, lyrics, location, and audience (age, race, religion). Through a woven narrative of lyrics, godly acknowledgments, recorded and original interviews, biographies, and recordings from various genres of black music, this book explores how artists have intertwined views of God, perspectives regarding a higher power, spirituality, and religion in creating their music. Their creations make up an organic corpus called the Artistic Black Canon (ABC). Using the ABC, this book shares and explores its remarkable interpretations and ideas about life, music, spirituality, and religion. Is God Funky or What? also shares how we can better make use of this music in the classroom, as well as better understand how essential it is to the lives of many.

A Black Woman's Journey from Cotton Picking to College Professor: Lessons about Race, Class, and Gender in America traces the journey and transformation of Mildred Sirls, a young Black girl in rural east Texas in the 1930s who picked cotton to help her family survive, to Dr. Mildred Pratt, Professor Emerita of Social Work, who, by lifting as she climbed, influenced hundreds of students and empowered a community.As a daughter, sister, wife, mother, and scholar-activist, Mildred lived her core beliefs: she felt that it was important to validate individual human dignity; she recognized the power of determination and discipline as keys to success; and she had a commitment to empowering and serving others for the greater good of society. Such values not only characterized the life that she led, they are exemplified by the legacy she left. A Black Woman's Journey from Cotton Picking to College Professor reflects those core values. It celebrates ordinary lives and individuals; it demonstrates the value of hard work; and it illustrates the motto of the National Association of Colored Women, “lifting as we climb.” A Black Woman's Journey from Cotton Picking to College Professor can be used for courses in history, ethnic studies, African-American studies, English, literature, sociology, social work, and women’s studies. It will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, historians, political economists, philosophers, social justice advocates, humanists, humanitarians, faith-based activists, and philanthropists.

A Black Woman's Journey from Cotton Picking to College Professor: Lessons about Race, Class, and Gender in America traces the journey and transformation of Mildred Sirls, a young Black girl in rural east Texas in the 1930s who picked cotton to help her family survive, to Dr. Mildred Pratt, Professor Emerita of Social Work, who, by lifting as she climbed, influenced hundreds of students and empowered a community.As a daughter, sister, wife, mother, and scholar-activist, Mildred lived her core beliefs: she felt that it was important to validate individual human dignity; she recognized the power of determination and discipline as keys to success; and she had a commitment to empowering and serving others for the greater good of society. Such values not only characterized the life that she led, they are exemplified by the legacy she left. A Black Woman's Journey from Cotton Picking to College Professor reflects those core values. It celebrates ordinary lives and individuals; it demonstrates the value of hard work; and it illustrates the motto of the National Association of Colored Women, “lifting as we climb.” A Black Woman's Journey from Cotton Picking to College Professor can be used for courses in history, ethnic studies, African-American studies, English, literature, sociology, social work, and women’s studies. It will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, historians, political economists, philosophers, social justice advocates, humanists, humanitarians, faith-based activists, and philanthropists.

African American Studies: The Discipline and Its Dimensions is a comprehensive resource book that recounts the development of the discipline of African American Studies and provides a basic reference source for sixteen areas of knowledge of the discipline: anthropology, art, dance, economics, education, film, history, literature, music, philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology, political science, science and technology, sports and religion. African American Studies defines bodies of knowledge, methodologies, philosophies, disciplinary concepts, contents, scope, topics scholars have concerned themselves, as well as the growth, development, and present status of the discipline. African American Studies validates that African American Studies is a unique and significant discipline—one that intersects almost every academic discipline and cultural construct—and confirms that the discipline has a noteworthy history and a challenging future. The various bodies of knowledge, the philosophical framework, methodological procedures, and theoretical underpinnings of the discipline have never been clearly delineated from an African-centered perspective.

Racialism and Media: Black Jesus, Black Twitter and the First Black American President is an exploration of how the nature of racial ideology has changed in our society. Yes, there are still ugly racists who push uglier racism, but there are also popular constructions of race routinely woven into mediated images and messages. This book examines selected exemplars of racialism moving beyond traditional racism. In the twenty-first century, we need a more nuanced understanding of racial constructions. Denouncing anything and everything problematic as racist or racism simply does not work, especially if we want to move toward a real solution to America’s race problems. Racialism involves images and messages that are produced, distributed, and consumed repetitively and intertextually based on stereotypes, biased framing, and historical myths about African American culture. These images and messages are eventually normalized through the media, ultimately shaping and influencing societal ideology and behavior. Through the lens of critical race theory these chapters examine issues of intersectionality in Crash, changing Black identity in Black-ish, the balancing of stereotypes in prime-time TV’s Black male and female roles, the power of Black images and messages in advertising, the cultural wealth offered through the Black Twitter platform, biased media framing of the first Black American president, the satirical parody of Black Jesus, contemporary Zip Coon stereotypes in film, the popularity of ghettofabulous black culture, and, finally, the evolution of black representation in science fiction.

Offers both a theoretical and concrete example of what W. E. B. Du Bois called "spiritual strivings."Winner of the 2008 Critics' Choice Awards presented by the American Educational Studies Association This engaging book offers a personal look at how centering spirituality in an academic life transforms its very foundations-its epistemology, paradigm, and methods-and becomes the site for spiritual healing and service to the world. Focusing primarily on her work in Ghana, West Africa, Cynthia B. Dillard presents a unique perspective on Africa as a site for transformative possibilities for African American academics/scholars and explores the deeper spiritual meanings of being "African." Through poetry, personal narrative, meditations, and journal entries, Dillard shares her experiences as an African American scholar and, in the process, provides a concrete example of what W. E. B. Du Bois called "spiritual strivings."

Offers both a theoretical and concrete example of what W. E. B. Du Bois called "spiritual strivings."Winner of the 2008 Critics' Choice Awards presented by the American Educational Studies Association This engaging book offers a personal look at how centering spirituality in an academic life transforms its very foundations-its epistemology, paradigm, and methods-and becomes the site for spiritual healing and service to the world. Focusing primarily on her work in Ghana, West Africa, Cynthia B. Dillard presents a unique perspective on Africa as a site for transformative possibilities for African American academics/scholars and explores the deeper spiritual meanings of being "African." Through poetry, personal narrative, meditations, and journal entries, Dillard shares her experiences as an African American scholar and, in the process, provides a concrete example of what W. E. B. Du Bois called "spiritual strivings."

African American Studies: The Discipline and Its Dimensions is a comprehensive resource book that recounts the development of the discipline of African American Studies and provides a basic reference source for sixteen areas of knowledge of the discipline: anthropology, art, dance, economics, education, film, history, literature, music, philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology, political science, science and technology, sports and religion. African American Studies defines bodies of knowledge, methodologies, philosophies, disciplinary concepts, contents, scope, topics scholars have concerned themselves, as well as the growth, development, and present status of the discipline. African American Studies validates that African American Studies is a unique and significant discipline—one that intersects almost every academic discipline and cultural construct—and confirms that the discipline has a noteworthy history and a challenging future. The various bodies of knowledge, the philosophical framework, methodological procedures, and theoretical underpinnings of the discipline have never been clearly delineated from an African-centered perspective.

Racialism and Media: Black Jesus, Black Twitter and the First Black American President is an exploration of how the nature of racial ideology has changed in our society. Yes, there are still ugly racists who push uglier racism, but there are also popular constructions of race routinely woven into mediated images and messages. This book examines selected exemplars of racialism moving beyond traditional racism. In the twenty-first century, we need a more nuanced understanding of racial constructions. Denouncing anything and everything problematic as racist or racism simply does not work, especially if we want to move toward a real solution to America’s race problems. Racialism involves images and messages that are produced, distributed, and consumed repetitively and intertextually based on stereotypes, biased framing, and historical myths about African American culture. These images and messages are eventually normalized through the media, ultimately shaping and influencing societal ideology and behavior. Through the lens of critical race theory these chapters examine issues of intersectionality in Crash, changing Black identity in Black-ish, the balancing of stereotypes in prime-time TV’s Black male and female roles, the power of Black images and messages in advertising, the cultural wealth offered through the Black Twitter platform, biased media framing of the first Black American president, the satirical parody of Black Jesus, contemporary Zip Coon stereotypes in film, the popularity of ghettofabulous black culture, and, finally, the evolution of black representation in science fiction.