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- Early Childhood Literacy, Critical Literacy, Affect (Cultural Theory), Affect/Emotion, Gender, Gilles Deleuze, and 37 moreRace and Ethnicity, Gender and Race, New Materialism, Posthumanism, Jane Bennett, Sara Ahmed, Feminist Theory, Constructions of femininity, Constructions of masculinity, Literacy, Early Childhood Education, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Gender and education, Postfeminism, Gender Discourse, Feminist new materialism, Qualitative methodology, Qualitative Research, Gender Studies, Education, Affect, Curriculum Studies, Bodies and Culture, Feminism, Social Justice in Education, Qualitative Research Methods, Critical Pedagogy, Feminist Research Methods, Teacher Education, Sound, Sound studies, Soundscape Studies, Language and Literacy, Elementary Education, Gender and Sexuality, Cultural Studies, and Queer Theoryedit
Amidst numerous curricular reforms across the USA that censor reading materials and promote standardized literacy policies, the authors ask in this article: What rights do early childhood teachers and students have in curriculum-making,... more
Amidst numerous curricular reforms across the USA that censor reading materials and promote standardized literacy policies, the authors ask in this article: What rights do early childhood teachers and students have in curriculum-making, and to the very materiality of their own classrooms? More broadly, they wonder: How do material regulations in US schools impact the curricular work of restorative justice in early literacy classrooms? The authors examine one curriculum material used in classrooms across the USA, using theories of materiality to explain its orientation, disorientation, and reorientation within discourses around anti-critical race theory and pro-“science of reading” legislation. Moreover, they aim to explore the potentialities of curricula as agents of restorative justice and, consequently, the threats to justice from the disorientations expressed around specific curriculum materials.
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In this theoretical and conceptual article, we consider how meaning-making, literacies, identities, power, privilege, and in/equities are entangled with/in non/human sociomaterial force relations. Inspired by Rose, we build theoretically... more
In this theoretical and conceptual article, we consider how meaning-making, literacies, identities, power, privilege, and in/equities are entangled with/in non/human sociomaterial force relations. Inspired by Rose, we build theoretically on the philosophical principles of hip-hop—flow, rupture, layering, and sampling. Conceptually, we invite literacy educators to attune to “in-the-red frequencies,” or “noisy” political philosophies and practices that Black people have used to create alternative realities to white supremacist patriarchal systems of oppression. Afrodiasporic approaches to mobility and sounding pivot us away from humanist ways of knowing/being/doing/researching literacy and toward more creative, emergent, and “fugitive modes.” Ultimately, we argue that theorizing affective literacies via flow↔rupture↔layering↔sampling enables ethical teaching, learning, and research practices that respect multiple perspectives, histories, and truths; account for affect, power, privilege, positioning, and complicity; and highlight “otherwise worlds” not predicated on hegemonic whiteness, anti-Blackness, and sociopolitical violence.
Research Interests:
In this article, we ‘think with’ the theoretical concepts of flow, rupture, layering, and sampling to affectively attune to ‘in-the-red frequencies’ flowing across/ with-in a New York City primary classroom—that is, alternative sonic... more
In this article, we ‘think with’ the theoretical concepts of flow, rupture, layering, and sampling to affectively attune to ‘in-the-red frequencies’ flowing across/
with-in a New York City primary classroom—that is, alternative sonic frequencies that trouble and refuse hegemonic literacy practices. These hip-hop concepts theorise affect in relation to Black intellectual frameworks for moving, feeling, and sounding. Such frameworks honour philosophical practices emerging from Black people’s lived experiences—practices that, historically, have been perceptually coded out of legibility by
white supremacist institutions. Ultimately, we argue that thinking with flow↔rupture↔layering↔sampling enables more equitable practices that push literacies
‘into the red,’ namely, by respecting multiple perspectives, histories, and truths; accounting for power, privilege, positioning, and complicity; and highlighting ‘otherwise’ social worlds not predicated on hegemonic whiteness, anti-blackness, and socio-political
violence.
with-in a New York City primary classroom—that is, alternative sonic frequencies that trouble and refuse hegemonic literacy practices. These hip-hop concepts theorise affect in relation to Black intellectual frameworks for moving, feeling, and sounding. Such frameworks honour philosophical practices emerging from Black people’s lived experiences—practices that, historically, have been perceptually coded out of legibility by
white supremacist institutions. Ultimately, we argue that thinking with flow↔rupture↔layering↔sampling enables more equitable practices that push literacies
‘into the red,’ namely, by respecting multiple perspectives, histories, and truths; accounting for power, privilege, positioning, and complicity; and highlighting ‘otherwise’ social worlds not predicated on hegemonic whiteness, anti-blackness, and socio-political
violence.
Research Interests:
In this paper, I explore moments in past research when my sensemaking faltered, my confusion/joy/longing proliferated, and my own feelings got the best of me. I discuss the generative potential of these 'analytical conundrums' via a queer... more
In this paper, I explore moments in past research when my sensemaking faltered, my confusion/joy/longing proliferated, and my own feelings got the best of me. I discuss the generative potential of these 'analytical conundrums' via a queer map of messy 'complaints'. Within/across these complaints, I playfully attune to the sonic frequencies of happily ever after with/in diverse, intersecting dimensionalities. As I imagine them here, complaint mappings are provocations that invite us to sense/queer/reimagine educational research/practices/pedagogies that encourage subjects to live in one world-where having 'a life' becomes synonymous with having the right kind of intimate life. Specifically, I map out how literacy events are more-than-human scenes of entanglement, wherein gender/sex/uality/desire do not reside within individuals or things, but rather emerge via complex, entangled, and 'mobile' processes of attaching↔relating. It is my hope that mapping these 'complaints' will help tell these moments otherwise by generating a kind of un/happiness that embraces relationality, chance, possibility and wonder.
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What are the ethical responsibilities of doing and teaching qualitative inquiry at a time when Black and Brown bodies are under assault, an expression of White supremacy that has become ever more visible in the wake of the election of... more
What are the ethical responsibilities of doing and teaching qualitative inquiry at a time when Black and Brown bodies are under assault, an expression of White supremacy that has become ever more visible in the wake of the election of Donald Trump? And how might scholars who “think with” posthumanist theories respond to the call for more “humanizing” methodologies being made by African American and Latinx researchers? This article responds to this moment by presenting a conversation among three literacy scholars about the ethical challenges they have encountered in their own engagements with posthumanist theories, and the implications this has for doing/teaching qualitative inquiry. We call for more openness about the limits as well as the possibilities of posthumanisms, and more attention to ethics for justice. The entanglements of human/nonhuman assemblages in these dangerous times call on us to act, not only think, with theory.
Within this article, I attend to the slippages among sound, silence, noise, voice and ir/rationality to map out the ways white supremacist forces subtly moved with/in a primary classroom (NYC) through a host of bodies and sounds to... more
Within this article, I attend to the slippages among sound, silence, noise, voice and ir/rationality to map out the ways white supremacist forces subtly moved with/in a primary classroom (NYC) through a host of bodies and sounds to reinforce processes of affective assimilation – or demands for first graders to ‘feel white’. Specifically, I explore how particular sounds as well as the insistence on silence – that is, sound directed in a certain way – circulated within Readers Workshop to discipline students into ‘white’ affective rhythms. In effect, students – mainly boys of colour – who did not consume/produce the sounds of whiteness were initially labelled as ‘struggling readers’. I then show how students resisted the norm through their affective attachments to the book character Messy Bessey and my name/physical body. Ultimately, the students’ love for Bessey/me enabled new affective entanglements between humans and nonhumans that ran ‘pedagogical interference’ into the school’s mandated literacy curriculum and racialized identity scripts, thereby opening up opportunities for ‘struggling readers’ to become ‘successful’. I conclude by inviting literacy educators to consider what it might mean to say no to those space-times that make social and cultural discriminations possible and, in turn, say yes to other ‘fleshy’ worlds where more response-able ways of listening, sounding, knowing, being and doing exist.
Research Interests: Literacy, Posthumanism, Qualitative methodology, Race and Ethnicity, Sound studies, and 11 moreCritical Posthumanism, Qualitative Research, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Affect/Emotion, Affect (Cultural Theory), Critical Whiteness Studies, Non-representational theories, Critical Literacy, Body and Flesh Politics, Alexander Weheliye, and Postqualitative inquiry
Within this article, I think with (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) posthumanist theories of affect and assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) to argue that literacy learning within a first grade classroom (NYC) involved allure (Thrift, 2008), or... more
Within this article, I think with (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) posthumanist theories of affect and assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) to argue that literacy learning within a first grade classroom (NYC) involved allure (Thrift, 2008), or more-than-human technologies of public intimacy that were affectively contagious and seemed to take on a life of their own. By doing so, I contribute a new dimension to literacy-gender debates by exploring how the im/material practices of allure emerge to produce entanglement, bliss, and even violence. While male students' entangled reading practices disrupted popular assumptions of "failing boys," thereby making new gendered and literate subjectivities possible, these practices, at times, further reinforced rigid heteronormativities. Ultimately, attending to literacy learning as alluring invites more ethically response-able (Barad, 2007) considerations that take seriously how the forces of gender, sexuality, and race work to animate/contain bodies, spaces, and things, as well as shape the un/making of students as "successfully literate."
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In this article, we “think with” theories of affect and transmedial storytelling to explore the cruel optimism that standardised reading pedagogies (e.g. read alouds; leveled readers/independent reading) can produce for readers. We draw... more
In this article, we “think with” theories of affect and transmedial storytelling to explore the cruel optimism that standardised reading pedagogies (e.g. read alouds; leveled readers/independent reading) can produce for readers. We draw on particular moments in a first grade classroom to argue that such pedagogies transmit “normalizing” affects that promise upward mobility, college and career readiness/success, classroom community, and happiness but instead produce literate identities, which cruelly reinforce the racialised, gendered and classist myth of meritocracy. According to Blackman (2019), cruel optimism is harmful because it normalises particular fictions and fantasies that are presented as scientific truths without acknowledging that these dominant stories are but one narrative, thereby closing off other ways of knowing, being and doing. This work offers pedagogical possibilities for bodies that are often read as unsuccessful (e.g. disengaged and struggling) and/or successful (e.g. happy and engaged) and explains how the guise of optimism can fail to acknowledge the larger social, political and economic forces at play. These forces shape the unfolding of academic realities that are simultaneously connected to the past, present and future.
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This article reimagines classroom texts as unpredictable 'willful objects' that transmit 'sticky' intensities. The author argues that such intensities permeate classroom spaces and affectively position students in ways that inflict... more
This article reimagines classroom texts as unpredictable 'willful objects' that transmit 'sticky' intensities. The author argues that such intensities permeate classroom spaces and affectively position students in ways that inflict trauma, defined here as an insidious, daily injury that fosters and reinforces a narrow view of race, gender and/or sexuality. Honing in on these more-than-human encounters opens up possibilities to explore how the classroom, as an active body, provides testimony to the historical traumas that live on in the present – on the skin of students and teachers who are obligated to live with and/or bear witness to such injuries. Educators are invited to consider how a kind of healing can occur through a pedagogy of exposure, which seeks to not only expose but also recover traumatic wounds by embracing an affective, albeit risky, relationship to past and present histories of violence.
#BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) has garnered considerable attention in recent years with its commitment to honor all black lives, yet the affective dimensions of this global cause remain largely under-theorized. Within this piece, I explore how... more
#BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) has garnered considerable attention in recent years with its commitment to honor all black lives, yet the affective dimensions of this global cause remain largely under-theorized. Within this piece, I explore how #BLM, as a larger sociopolitical movement, works to collectively bind strangers together by transmitting affects that produce a sense of immediacy, intimacy, and belonging. I argue that these affective intensities incite an 'unpredictable intimacy' that closely connects strangers to black bodies and intensifies the forces of race, gender, and hetero/ sexuality in ways that—counter to the movement's purpose— violate the bodies of queer/black women, in particular, via the processes of replication and erasure. I conclude by proposing that, while #BLM aims to empower black lives and build a collective, we remember the political possibilities that affect and queer theories have to offer in order to attend to, and potentially disrupt, the violence that such collectives bring.
In light of the historical failure of boys of color in US schools, this article sheds light onto the ways in which normative discourses of literacy and learning shape the experiences of immigrant boys and how they are perceived and... more
In light of the historical failure of boys of color in US schools, this article sheds light onto the ways in which normative discourses of literacy and learning shape the experiences of immigrant boys and how they are perceived and defined as un/successful students. Findings indicate that although these boys—deemed to be " at-risk " or " struggling readers " —were not knowledgeable of prevalent school discourses and interactional sequences, they had sophisticated linguistic understandings and knowledgeable communicative practices. Yet, " good " and " successful " literate subjects were defined according to how well a child's literacy behaviors aligned with school norms and expectations. Implications highlight the need to recognize and challenge gender-specific and behavioral norms that continue to disadvantage boys whose literacy practices do not mirror normative expectations.
Abstract Purpose The purpose of this article is to explore the sonic vibrations, infectious rhythms, and alternative frequencies that are often unheard and overlooked within mainstream educational spaces–that is, perceptually coded out of... more
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to explore the sonic vibrations, infectious rhythms, and alternative frequencies that are often unheard and overlooked within mainstream educational spaces–that is, perceptually coded out of legibility by those who read/see/feel/hear the world through “whiteness.”
Design/methodology/approach
“Plugging into” (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012) posthuman theories of affect (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Henriques, 2010) and assemblage (Weheliye, 2014), the author argues that “literate bodies,” along with all forms of matter, continually vibrate, move, swell and rebel (Deleuze, 1990)–creating momentum that is often difficult not to get tangled up in.
Findings
This article maps out how a specific sociohistorical concept of sound works to affectively orient bodies and impact student becomings, namely, by producing students as un/successful readers and in/human subjects. At the same time, the author attends to the subtle ways that first graders rebelliously move(d) with alternative sonic frequencies to resist/disrupt mandated literacy curricula and white, patriarchal ways of knowing, being and doing.
Originality/value
This article highlights the political nature of sound and how, within mainstream educational spaces, certain sonic frequencies become coded out of white supremacist models for knowledge transmission, which re/produce racialized (gendered, classist, etc.) habits and practices of listening/hearing. Literacy educators are invited to “(re)hear” the social in more just ways (James, 2020) by sensing the affects and effects of more-than-human “sonic bodies” (Henriques, 2011), which redirect us to alternative rhythms, rationalities, habits and practices that challenge normative conceptions of what counts as literacy and who counts as successfully literate.
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to explore the sonic vibrations, infectious rhythms, and alternative frequencies that are often unheard and overlooked within mainstream educational spaces–that is, perceptually coded out of legibility by those who read/see/feel/hear the world through “whiteness.”
Design/methodology/approach
“Plugging into” (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012) posthuman theories of affect (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Henriques, 2010) and assemblage (Weheliye, 2014), the author argues that “literate bodies,” along with all forms of matter, continually vibrate, move, swell and rebel (Deleuze, 1990)–creating momentum that is often difficult not to get tangled up in.
Findings
This article maps out how a specific sociohistorical concept of sound works to affectively orient bodies and impact student becomings, namely, by producing students as un/successful readers and in/human subjects. At the same time, the author attends to the subtle ways that first graders rebelliously move(d) with alternative sonic frequencies to resist/disrupt mandated literacy curricula and white, patriarchal ways of knowing, being and doing.
Originality/value
This article highlights the political nature of sound and how, within mainstream educational spaces, certain sonic frequencies become coded out of white supremacist models for knowledge transmission, which re/produce racialized (gendered, classist, etc.) habits and practices of listening/hearing. Literacy educators are invited to “(re)hear” the social in more just ways (James, 2020) by sensing the affects and effects of more-than-human “sonic bodies” (Henriques, 2011), which redirect us to alternative rhythms, rationalities, habits and practices that challenge normative conceptions of what counts as literacy and who counts as successfully literate.
Research Interests:
In this article, we playfully revisit the same data scene, but from three different perspectives. We call these revisits re-turns to data. These re-turns draw upon moments with young boys playing at a makerspace located in a multiracial,... more
In this article, we playfully revisit the same data scene, but from three different perspectives. We call these revisits re-turns to data. These re-turns draw upon moments with young boys playing at a makerspace located in a multiracial, working-class community. This idea of re-turn is not simply about revisiting a data scene; it is about re-sensing the social and what it means to be human through feeling with blackness. We offer Crawley’s theory of sonic epistemologies as a way to think and feel blackness, that is, to create otherwise worlds/knowledges/subjects. We argue that tuning into the sonic—or feeling with blackness—can help literacy educators thinking with affect to sense and develop nonhumanist ways of knowing/being/doing literacy, while simultaneously acknowledging the potential dangers of reinscribing whiteness. We propose that retheorizing affect in relation to blackness is necessary for literacy education, research, and ultimately, collective healing and justice.
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This chapter draws from a primarily qualitative study with two first grade dual language classrooms over the course of a semester. The authors detail how multimodal writing engagements provide an avenue for Latino young children, whose... more
This chapter draws from a primarily qualitative study with two first grade dual language classrooms over the course of a semester. The authors detail how multimodal writing engagements provide an avenue for Latino young children, whose language and knowledge is often devalued in schools, to reframe their community experiences at the center of academic inquiry. Through the medium of photography, children are able to enact agency to position the multiple contexts they navigate—marked by linguistic dynamism and diverse transnational experiences—as resources that could expand conceptions of school-based literacy practices.
Whether you are an undergraduate/Master/PhD student, an early career academic, a tenured faculty person, or someone outside of the academy all-together, the Society for the Study of Affect Summer Seminars provides an AMAZING opportunity... more
Whether you are an undergraduate/Master/PhD student, an early career academic, a tenured faculty person, or someone outside of the academy all-together, the Society for the Study of Affect Summer Seminars provides an AMAZING opportunity to learn, interact, and create alongside two dozen of the most engaging folks (established and up-and-coming scholars) working in/around affect studies from all around the world! COME BE A PARTICIPANT!!
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Political Theory, Transgender Studies, Medieval Studies, and 15 moreQueer Theory, Posthumanism, Critical Pedagogy, Critical Race Theory, Theories of Gender and Transgender, Affect Theory, Affect/Emotion, Transnational Feminism, Affect Studies, Affect (Cultural Theory), Affect (Philosophy), Decolonial Thought, Religious Studies, Affect, and New Materialism
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Passions are high in education, and this edited volume offers bold new ways to conceive of the affective intensities shaping our present historical moment. Concerns over school practices deemed "ineffective," "disruptive," "irrational,"... more
Passions are high in education, and this edited volume offers bold new ways to conceive of the affective intensities shaping our present historical moment. Concerns over school practices deemed "ineffective," "disruptive," "irrational," or even "promising" are matters modulated by and through feelings, such as, optimism, shame, enhanced concentration, or empathy. The recent turn to affect offers vibrant methodological and theoretical material for an educational present marked by high stakes rhetoric, heated debate, teacher and student vulnerabilities, and extreme educational measures. Affect studies are a part of new materialist and post-humanist turns, and this volume connects these new theoretical directions within education. This comprehensive volume on affect crosses educational subfields and responds to the transdisciplinary interest in thinking through pedagogy, education, and feeling. This comprehensive reader addresses affect in education from a wide range of styles, topics, and perspectives. This collection offers an introduction to theory, empirical research studies, interviews with affect studies scholars, and an assessment of the current and future significance of affect studies in education. Contributors utilize a range of theoretical and interpretive approaches to thinking with and through schooling phenomena. Interviews with affect scholars in the humanities and social sciences address affective dimensions of teaching. The editors' introduction, different foci, and interdisciplinary genres of writing help readers feel their ways into what affect studies in education does and might do. This field-defining collection will be of interest to a range of readers-from graduate students to established scholars-with varying levels of expertise and familiarity putting affect theories to work in education. All the contributions are accessible to those new to the theory, methods, and debates in this vibrant area of educational studies.