Personal/Public Scholarship - Böcker

Who Look at Me?!: Shifting the Gaze of Education through Blackness, Queerness, and the Body explores how we, as a society, see Blackness and in particular Black youth. Drawing on a range of sources, the authors argue that the ability to operationalize the sentiment that #BlackLivesMatter, requires seeing Blackness wholly, as queer, and as a site of subversive knowledge production. Continuing the work of June Jordan and Langston Hughes, and based on their work as a Black queer artist collective known as Hill L. Waters, Who Look at Me?! provides alternative tools for reading about and engaging with the lived experiences of Black youth and educational research for and about Black youth. In this way, the book presents not only the possibilities of envisioning teaching and research practices but presents examples that embrace, celebrate, and make room for the fullness of Black and queer bodies and experiences. This work will appeal to those interested in emancipatory methodological and educational practices as well as interdisciplinary conversations related to sociocultural constructions of race and sexuality, politics of Blackness, and race in education.

Who Look at Me?!: Shifting the Gaze of Education through Blackness, Queerness, and the Body explores how we, as a society, see Blackness and in particular Black youth. Drawing on a range of sources, the authors argue that the ability to operationalize the sentiment that #BlackLivesMatter, requires seeing Blackness wholly, as queer, and as a site of subversive knowledge production. Continuing the work of June Jordan and Langston Hughes, and based on their work as a Black queer artist collective known as Hill L. Waters, Who Look at Me?! provides alternative tools for reading about and engaging with the lived experiences of Black youth and educational research for and about Black youth. In this way, the book presents not only the possibilities of envisioning teaching and research practices but presents examples that embrace, celebrate, and make room for the fullness of Black and queer bodies and experiences. This work will appeal to those interested in emancipatory methodological and educational practices as well as interdisciplinary conversations related to sociocultural constructions of race and sexuality, politics of Blackness, and race in education.

A Brill | Sense Bestseller!What if everything you thought you knew about Black people generally, and educating Black children specifically, was based on BS (bad stats)? We often hear things like, “Black boys are a dying breed,” “There are more Black men in prison than college,” “Black children fail because single mothers raise them,” and “Black students don’t read.” In No BS, Ivory A. Toldson uses data analysis, anecdotes, and powerful commentary to dispel common myths and challenge conventional beliefs about educating Black children. With provocative, engaging, and at times humorous prose, Toldson teaches educators, parents, advocates, and students how to avoid BS, raise expectations, and create an educational agenda for Black children that is based on good data, thoughtful analysis, and compassion. No BS helps people understand why Black people need people who believe in Black people enough not to believe every bad thing they hear about Black people.

A Brill | Sense Bestseller!What if everything you thought you knew about Black people generally, and educating Black children specifically, was based on BS (bad stats)? We often hear things like, “Black boys are a dying breed,” “There are more Black men in prison than college,” “Black children fail because single mothers raise them,” and “Black students don’t read.” In No BS, Ivory A. Toldson uses data analysis, anecdotes, and powerful commentary to dispel common myths and challenge conventional beliefs about educating Black children. With provocative, engaging, and at times humorous prose, Toldson teaches educators, parents, advocates, and students how to avoid BS, raise expectations, and create an educational agenda for Black children that is based on good data, thoughtful analysis, and compassion. No BS helps people understand why Black people need people who believe in Black people enough not to believe every bad thing they hear about Black people.

Scientists and Poets #Resist is a collection of creative nonfiction, personal narrative, and poetry. This volume is a conversation between poets and scientists and a dialogue between art and science. The authors are poets, scientists, and poet-scientists who use the seven words—"vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based"—banned by the Trump administration in official Health and Human Service documents in December 2017 in their contributions. The contributors use the seven words to discuss their work, reactions to their work, and the creative environment in which they work. The resulting collection is an act of resistance, a political commentary, a conversation between scientists and poets, and a dialogue of collective voices using banned words as a rallying cry—Scientists and Poets #Resist—a warning that censorship is an issue connecting us all, an issue requiring a collective aesthetic response. This book can be read for pleasure, is a great choice for book clubs, and can be used as a springboard for reflection and discussion in a range of courses in the social sciences, education, and creative writing.

Scientists and Poets #Resist is a collection of creative nonfiction, personal narrative, and poetry. This volume is a conversation between poets and scientists and a dialogue between art and science. The authors are poets, scientists, and poet-scientists who use the seven words—"vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based"—banned by the Trump administration in official Health and Human Service documents in December 2017 in their contributions. The contributors use the seven words to discuss their work, reactions to their work, and the creative environment in which they work. The resulting collection is an act of resistance, a political commentary, a conversation between scientists and poets, and a dialogue of collective voices using banned words as a rallying cry—Scientists and Poets #Resist—a warning that censorship is an issue connecting us all, an issue requiring a collective aesthetic response. This book can be read for pleasure, is a great choice for book clubs, and can be used as a springboard for reflection and discussion in a range of courses in the social sciences, education, and creative writing.

The chapters in Art as an Agent for Social Change, presented as snapshots, focus on exploring the power of drama, dance, visual arts, media, music, poetry and film as educative, artistic, imaginative, embodied and relational art forms that are agents of personal and societal change. A range of methods and ontological views are used by the authors in this unique contribution to scholarship, illustrating the comprehensive methodologies and theories that ground arts-based research in Canada, the US, Norway, India, Hong Kong and South Africa.Weaving together a series of chapters (snapshots) under the themes of community building, collaboration and teaching and pedagogy, this book offers examples of how Art as an Agent for Social Change is of particular relevance for many different and often overlapping groups including community artists, K-university instructors, teachers, students, and arts-based educational researchers interested in using the arts to explore social justice in educative ways. This book provokes us to think critically and creatively about what really matters!

The chapters in Art as an Agent for Social Change, presented as snapshots, focus on exploring the power of drama, dance, visual arts, media, music, poetry and film as educative, artistic, imaginative, embodied and relational art forms that are agents of personal and societal change. A range of methods and ontological views are used by the authors in this unique contribution to scholarship, illustrating the comprehensive methodologies and theories that ground arts-based research in Canada, the US, Norway, India, Hong Kong and South Africa.Weaving together a series of chapters (snapshots) under the themes of community building, collaboration and teaching and pedagogy, this book offers examples of how Art as an Agent for Social Change is of particular relevance for many different and often overlapping groups including community artists, K-university instructors, teachers, students, and arts-based educational researchers interested in using the arts to explore social justice in educative ways. This book provokes us to think critically and creatively about what really matters!

Do I Look at You with Love? were the words uttered by Mark Freeman’s mother when she learned, once again, that he was her son. This book explores the experience of dementia as it transpired during the course of the final twelve years of her life, from the time of her diagnosis until her death in 2016 at age 93. As a longtime student of memory, identity, and narrative, as well as the son of a woman with dementia, he had a remarkable opportunity to try to understand and tell her story. Much of the story is tragic. But there were other periods and other dimensions of relationship that were beautiful and that could not have emerged without her very affliction. In the midst of affliction there were gifts, arriving unbidden, that served to alert Freeman and his family to what is most precious and real. These are part of the story too. Part narrative psychology, part memoir, part meditation on the beauty and light that might be found amidst the ravages of time and memory, Freeman’s moving story is emblematic of nothing less than the bittersweet reality of life itself.

Do I Look at You with Love? were the words uttered by Mark Freeman’s mother when she learned, once again, that he was her son. This book explores the experience of dementia as it transpired during the course of the final twelve years of her life, from the time of her diagnosis until her death in 2016 at age 93. As a longtime student of memory, identity, and narrative, as well as the son of a woman with dementia, he had a remarkable opportunity to try to understand and tell her story. Much of the story is tragic. But there were other periods and other dimensions of relationship that were beautiful and that could not have emerged without her very affliction. In the midst of affliction there were gifts, arriving unbidden, that served to alert Freeman and his family to what is most precious and real. These are part of the story too. Part narrative psychology, part memoir, part meditation on the beauty and light that might be found amidst the ravages of time and memory, Freeman’s moving story is emblematic of nothing less than the bittersweet reality of life itself.

The current socio-political climate in the United States sheds a critical, glaring light on the racism and white supremacy which has been part of the fabric of this country since the seventeenth century. Barack Obama’s tenure as president resulted in a major increase in white hate groups, hate crimes, and unrelenting violence against innocent Black men and women by police. In response, people of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, religions, ages and classes have taken to the streets in protest, and increased decades long efforts to organize against racism and for a more empathetic, just, democratic society. Social change about racism must begin with acknowledgement followed by open, focused, critical dialogue.Still Hanging: Using Performance Texts to Deconstruct Racism, referencing both the resilience of Black people in the face of institutionalized racism and systemic oppression, and the fact that Black people continue to be literally and metaphorically lynched in 2020, is designed to use the power of lived experience specific performance texts as frames for engaging faculty, students and others interested in beginning to deconstruct racism and construct an anti-racist way of being.

The current socio-political climate in the United States sheds a critical, glaring light on the racism and white supremacy which has been part of the fabric of this country since the seventeenth century. Barack Obama’s tenure as president resulted in a major increase in white hate groups, hate crimes, and unrelenting violence against innocent Black men and women by police. In response, people of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, religions, ages and classes have taken to the streets in protest, and increased decades long efforts to organize against racism and for a more empathetic, just, democratic society. Social change about racism must begin with acknowledgement followed by open, focused, critical dialogue.Still Hanging: Using Performance Texts to Deconstruct Racism, referencing both the resilience of Black people in the face of institutionalized racism and systemic oppression, and the fact that Black people continue to be literally and metaphorically lynched in 2020, is designed to use the power of lived experience specific performance texts as frames for engaging faculty, students and others interested in beginning to deconstruct racism and construct an anti-racist way of being.

The reality of disability—of what it means to be disabled—has primarily been written by non-disabled people. Disability and disabled individuals are often described with pity, presented as burdens, or are background figures in larger non-disabled narratives. Redefining Disability challenges the outsider-dominated approach to disability by centering the disabled experience.This edited volume, featuring all disabled authors and creators, combines traditional academic works with personal reflections, visual art, and poetry. These works address disability and race, sexuality and disability, disability cultures, accommodation, self-diagnosis, and how we manage the obstacles ableist institutions place in our way. The authors address a variety of disabilities, including sensory, chronic pain, mobility, developmental disorders, and mental illness. It is through these testimonies that we hope to redefine disability on our terms; to clearly state that disability is not a bad word, and that all disabled lives have value.Redefining Disability is interdisciplinary, with broad application for undergraduate courses, graduate seminars, or to read for pleasure. Each entry contains discussion questions and/or activities for educators to use in the classroom.