Difficult Subjects: Insights and Strategies for Teaching about Race, Sexuality, and Gender

Description

Difficult Subjects: Insights and Strategies for Teaching about Race, Sexuality and Gender is a collection of essays from scholars across disciplines, institutions, and ranks that offers diverse and multi-faceted approaches to teaching about subjects that prove both challenging and often uncomfortable for both the professor and the student. It encourages college educators to engage in forms of practice that do not pretend that teachers and students are unaffected by world events and incidents that highlight social inequalities. Readers will find the collected essays useful for identifying new approaches to taking on the "difficult subjects" of race, gender, and sexuality. The book will also serve as inspiration for academics who believe that their area of study does not allow for such pedagogical inquiries to also teach in ways that address difficult subjects. Contributors to this volume span a range of disciplines from criminal justice to gender studies to organic chemistry, and demonstrate the productive possibilities that can emerge in college classrooms when faculty consider "identity" as constitutive of rather than divorced from their academic disciplines. Discussions of race, gender, and sexuality are always hot-button issues in the college classroom, whether they emerge in response to a national event or tragedy or constitute the content of the class over a semester-long term. Even seasoned professors who specialize in these areas find it difficult to talk about identity politics in a room full of students. And many professors for whom issues of racial, and sexual identity is not a primary concern find it even more challenging to raise these issues with students. Offering reflections and practical guidance, the book accounts for a range of challenges facing college educators, and encourages faculty to teach with courage and conviction, especially when it feels as though the world around us is crashing down upon our students and ourselves. DIFFICULT SUBJECTS COPYRIGHT CONTENTS FOREWORD ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION PART ONE 1 A CONVERSATION ON CHALLENGING AND USING COMFORT-ZONE RACISM IN THE CLASSROOM 2 WHEN RACIALLY JUST TEACHING BECOMES YOUR OWN HEART 3 ADDRESSING INCIVILITY IN THE CLASSROOM 4 WHITENESS MATTERS 5 BLACK LIVES, BLACK WOMEN, AND THE ACADEMY PART TWO 6 FEELING OUR WAY TO KNOWING 7 FEELING BLACK AND BLUE IN PRESE RVICE TEACHER EDUCATION 8 TRANSFORMATIONAL PEDAGOGIES OF THE ABJECT BODY 9 “THE LEAST WE CAN DO 10bCREATING INCLUSIVEbCLASSROOMS 11 A CALL FOR DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS AROUND DIVERSITY IN STEM COURSES 12 DIVERSITY MATTERS IN THE STEM CLASSROOM 13 BETWEEN CRITIQUE AND PROFESSIONAL AMBITION 14 UNCOMFORTABLE LEARNING IN CLOSING EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS INDEX Also available from Stylus