Neal A. Lester – författare

Once Upon a Time in a Different World, a unique addition to the celebrated Children’s Literature and Culture series, seeks to move discussions and treatments of ideas in African America Children’s literature from the margins to the forefront of literary discourse. Looking at a variety of topics, including the moralities of heterosexism, the veneration of literacy, and the "politics of hair," Neal A. Lester provides a scholarly and accessible compilation of essays that will serve as an invaluable resource for parents, students, and educators. The much-needed reexamination of African American children’s texts follows an engaging call-and-response format, allowing for a lively and illuminating discussion between its primary author and a diverse group of contributors; including educators, scholars, students, parents, and critics. In addition to these distinct dialogues, the book features an enlightening generational conversation between Lester and his teenage daughter as they review the same novels. With critical assessments of Toni and Slade Morrison’s The Big Box and The Book of Mean People, bell hooks’ Happy to Be Nappy, and Anne Schraff’s Until We Meet Again, among many other works, these provocative and fresh essays yield a wealth of perspectives on the intersections of identity formations in childhood and adulthood.

Once Upon a Time in a Different World, a unique addition to the celebrated Children’s Literature and Culture series, seeks to move discussions and treatments of ideas in African America Children’s literature from the margins to the forefront of literary discourse. Looking at a variety of topics, including the moralities of heterosexism, the veneration of literacy, and the "politics of hair," Neal A. Lester provides a scholarly and accessible compilation of essays that will serve as an invaluable resource for parents, students, and educators.The much-needed reexamination of African American children’s texts follows an engaging call-and-response format, allowing for a lively and illuminating discussion between its primary author and a diverse group of contributors; including educators, scholars, students, parents, and critics. In addition to these distinct dialogues, the book features an enlightening generational conversation between Lester and his teenage daughter as they review the same novels. With critical assessments of Toni and Slade Morrison’s The Big Box and The Book of Mean People, bell hooks’ Happy to Be Nappy, and Anne Schraff’s Until We Meet Again, among many other works, these provocative and fresh essays yield a wealth of perspectives on the intersections of identity formations in childhood and adulthood.

In their search for a relationship, whether long- or short-term, how do desiring subjects signify their identities and those of their desiring subjects? The essays in Racialized Politics of Desire in Personal Ads take up this question by exploring how writers of personal ads fashion themselves and those with whom they seek a connection. More specifically, these essays explore the politics of desire—how complex intersections among the social categories of race, gender and sexuality within personal ads reveal a dynamic tapestry of power relations and hierarchies. By focusing on how, in each instance, African Americans both construct and are constructed discursively in the brief narrative space of personals, this collection offers a substantively new genre-based exploration of the politics of desire and makes an important contribution to studies of language and self; identity politics; cultural studies; gendered, sexualized and racialized discourses; and the performance of everyday texts that occupy scholarly attention in a variety of different disciplines. Those interested in American Cultural Studies, African American Studies, Sociology, Communication, Rhetoric, Queer Studies, Critical Race Theory, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, and Race Relations on a professional or lay basis will find this book informative and engaging.

In their search for a relationship, whether long- or short-term, how do desiring subjects signify their identities and those of their desiring subjects? The essays in Racialized Politics of Desire in Personal Ads take up this question by exploring how writers of personal ads fashion themselves and those with whom they seek a connection. More specifically, these essays explore the politics of desire—how complex intersections among the social categories of race, gender and sexuality within personal ads reveal a dynamic tapestry of power relations and hierarchies. By focusing on how, in each instance, African Americans both construct and are constructed discursively in the brief narrative space of personals, this collection offers a substantively new genre-based exploration of the politics of desire and makes an important contribution to studies of language and self; identity politics; cultural studies; gendered, sexualized and racialized discourses; and the performance of everyday texts that occupy scholarly attention in a variety of different disciplines. Those interested in American Cultural Studies, African American Studies, Sociology, Communication, Rhetoric, Queer Studies, Critical Race Theory, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, and Race Relations on a professional or lay basis will find this book informative and engaging.

The first collection focused on the writing of provocative author and performance artist Sapphire, including her groundbreaking novel PUSH that has since become the Academy-award-winning film Precious.

The first collection focused on the writing of provocative author and performance artist Sapphire, including her groundbreaking novel PUSH that has since become the Academy-award-winning film Precious.

Essays and reflections to spark work toward changeAddressing both veterans of justice work and novices seeking points of entry, the essays in this volume showcase practical approaches to diversity, equity, and inclusion: ways to build community, earn trust, tell unheard stories, and develop solutions to problems. Emphasizing values such as empathy, self-reflection, and integrity, the volume is rooted in humanities work but also features contributions from fields as diverse as the performing arts, architecture, and evolutionary biology and represents settings beyond the college campus, such as schools, libraries, museums, and prisons. While bringing insights from higher education, it critiques the system as well, exploring the ways that institutions reinforce power structures and exclude marginalized voices. Interspersed with the essays, brief reflections by activists and artists offer testimony and inspiration.Neal A. Lester, "Introduction"; Ronald Mason, Jr., "The Cost of the System of White Supremacy"; David Pilgrim, "Our Turn"; John Streamas, "Overselling Higher Education to Communities of Color"; Anke Pinkert, "Social Justice Ecologies: Charting Routes for Public Humanities and Postprison Education"; Jess Roberts, "Earned Trust and Albion's Big Read"; Josh Greene, "The Power of Design Justice"; Lore/tta Lemaster, "After Inclusion: A Trans Relational Meditation on (Un)Belonging"; Simon J. Ortiz, "Into the Fray: Let's Go Forward into Justice and Topics Far Reaching"; Austin Davis, "Phoenix"; Nikki Giovanni, "You Do . . . and So Do We"; Maureen T. Reddy, "The Uses and Abuses of Privilege"; Anthony Q. Hazard, Jr., "Teaching Whiteness Studies in the Twenty-First Century"; Leslie Singel and Ash Evans, "Dwelling in the Borders: Scoring Fairly in Advanced Placement Writing"; Jami Proctor Xu, "Listening to and Hearing Others"; Nathan McCullough-Haddix, "Starting with the Children"; Dianne McIntyre, "Social Justice of the Heart"; Gabriele Maier and Sébastien Dubreil, "Engaging Social Justice Transculturally in a Team-Taught Language Course"; Laurie Grobman, Heidi Mau, and Cheryl L. Nicholas, "Social Justice Pedagogy and Collaborative Counterstorytelling: We Are Reading"; Tara Roeder, "Incorporating Antispeciesism in Social Justice Praxis"; Cynthia M. Landrum and Nicole A. Cooke, "Reimagining Social Justice in Public Libraries: A Conversation"; Spencer Crew, "The Social Responsibility of Museums"; Dontá McGilvery, "Absent Justice"; Jane Elliott, "Five Things about the Concept of Justice"; Andrea E. Brewster, Phyllis R. Brown, and Jennifer Merritt Faria, "Social Justice Required? Faculty and Student Engagement with University-Wide Learning Objectives"; Leigh Ann Litwiller Berte, "A Pedagogy of Solutions: Promoting Problem-Solving in Social Justice Teaching"; Joseph L. Graves, Jr., "The Evolutionary Science of Social Justice"; Harry Lennix, "Actorvism = Actor + Activism"; Multicultural Solidarity Coalition, "Burning It Down Means Building Community"; Neal A. Lester, "Project Humanities: A Model of Community Engagement