Teaching

My teaching is guided by a desire to help students become better readers and navigators of the world they live in. The courses I teach explore how knowledge is produced and disseminated in a variety of narrative forms, from literature and film to visual art, music, and current events, all of which shape how we come to know different cultures, histories, identities, and nationalities. By engaging with an eclectic range of texts in the classroom, I encourage students to examine the politics of representation and knowledge production that influence our engagement with others and the world. All of my courses emphasize how race, gender, sexuality, and class are deeply intertwined categories that accrue meaning through their representation, reproduction, and circulation in literature, history, and popular media.

My commitments to difference and diversity as material and epistemological challenges also extends to the student-centered classroom space I try to cultivate. Recognizing that my students come from diverse backgrounds and enter the class with unique life experiences, a range of personal and professional goals, and varying degrees of comfort with the English language, has challenged and inspired me to evolve my teaching practices to provide differentiated forms of support. I have learned that acknowledging the diversity of my students creates a platform for collectively developing strategies for critical reading and writing that allows the classroom to serve as a space for thoughtful dialogue and debate, where students can work together to find points of entry into difficult texts. My teaching therefore relies heavily on student facilitators, presentations, listening dyads, and group activities that aim to build a learning community around the principles of critical generosity, a respect for difference, and a value for collaborative labor.

Learn more about the courses I have taught here.

Photo by congerdesign on Pixabay.