Why I Teach with HASTAC: Platforms as Critical Pedagogy

Why I Teach with HASTAC: Platforms as Critical Pedagogy

This post is part of a two-part series that considers digital learning platforms as an issue of critical pedagogy. HASTAC as Critical Pedagogy I teach students to write and research with HASTAC.org because I’m committed to critical, engaged, student-centered education that prepares students for the world beyond the classroom. For me, this involves both preparing students for…

Dear Fellow Graduate Student

Dear Fellow Graduate Student

Dear Fellow Graduate Student, As you well know, this is a rough time to be pursuing an advanced degree. We are underfunded, overworked, exploited, and devalued by a society that (to take just one recent example) attempted to tax our tuition waivers as income, which would have made graduate education untenable for most of us…

American Literature, American Learning Interview with Danica Savonick, Cathy Davidson & Jade Davis

American Literature, American Learning Interview with Danica Savonick, Cathy Davidson & Jade Davis

See a glimpse of the student-centered pedagogy that animates “American Literature and American Learning,” a new course offered by the Futures Initiative. Hear from Cathy N. Davidson, Distinguished Professor and Founding Director of the Futures Initiative; Danica Savonick, Doctoral Candidate in English and Graduate Fellow with the Futures Initiative; and Jade E. Davis, Associate Director…

Creating Spaces for Conversation: Three Strategies

Creating Spaces for Conversation: Three Strategies

In a recent blog post, Cathy N. Davidson wrote: “There are personal, cultural, learning, and social reasons people don’t speak up in class.  Students of color and women of all races, introverts, the non-conventional thinkers, those from poor previous educational backgrounds, returning or “nontraditional students,” and those from cultures where speaking out is considered rude…

Because nothing is sufficient, we must use everything

Because nothing is sufficient, we must use everything

“Because nothing is sufficient, we must use everything,” Rebecca Fullan recently remarked, which is how I’ve come to understand the relationship between academia and activism. Since beginning my Ph.D. program in English at the CUNY Graduate Center, I’ve struggled with the relationship between academic institutions and the grassroots, community-based, activist work that takes place on…

Towards a Pedagogy of Equality

Towards a Pedagogy of Equality

Recently, I was invited by the Futures Initiative and HASTAC to offer opening remarks for a year-long conversation, The University Worth Fighting For, a year-long project designed to tie student-centered, engaged practices in our classrooms to larger issues of institutional change, equality, race, gender, and all forms of social justice. Here is an excerpt from my…