Rupturing Antiblackness in English Education: A Roundtable
Rupturing Antiblackness in English Education: A Roundtable
Antiracism: Communities + Collaborations presents “Rupturing Antiblackness in English Education." Co-sponsored by the UMD College of Education’s Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership Department Antiracist Task Force.
Scholars theorize Blackness and antiblackness in English education and contend with the question: “How can educators center Black youth brilliances?” From examinations of whiteness in English education, to critical interrogations of curriculum violence and racial trauma, to multimodal renderings centering Black love and creativity, to critical literacy artifacts produced by students in Black English outer spaces, presenters explicitly center Black youths’ literacy brilliances and resistances. Together they share their studies and findings and discuss how their work honors the full humanity of Black youth living.
Rupturing Antiblackness in English Education: Works Cited (PDF)
Panelists: Justin Coles; Stephanie Toliver; Stephanie Jones; Jennifer Turner; Autumn Griffin
Moderator: Rossina Zamora Liu
Moderator
Rossina Zamora Liu is an assistant clinical professor in the Minority and Urban Education Specialization in the Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership Department at the University of Maryland. She has two terminal degrees from the University of Iowa: an MFA from the re-known Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and a PhD from the Language, Literacy, and Culture Program. As a Critical Race and literacy educator, ethnographic researcher, writing teacher, and writer, she has worked with local artists on independent projects, first-generation college student athletes in yearlong preparatory seminars, high school and middle school students in urban and rural communities, and community college students with diverse lived experiences. She has facilitated art-based writing workshops at homeless shelters, the Veterans Affairs, and various public literacy spaces. She received the J. Michael Parker Award from the Literacy Research Association for her essay on humanizing the practice of witnessing trauma narratives. Currently she is co-authoring a book on the psychology of White supremacy, White privilege, and Power for Oxford University Press.
Panelists
Justin Coles
Justin A. Coles, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Social Justice Education in the department of Student Development at the University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Education. Within the College, Dr. Coles serves as the Director of Arts, Culture, and Political Engagement at the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research. His research agenda converges at the intersections of critical race studies, urban (teacher) education, language & literacy, and Black studies. Dr. Coles is published in the Journal of Teacher Education, Urban Education, The Journal of Negro Education, The High School Journal, Curriculum Inquiry, Race Ethnicity and Education, Equity & Excellence in Education, Journal of Language & Literacy in Education, Urban Education Research & Policy Annuals, and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Dr. Coles serves as Co-Editor-In-Chief for Equity & Excellence in Education.
Twitter: JustinAColesPhD
Stephanie Renne Toliver
Stephanie R. Toliver is an assistant professor of Literacy and Secondary Humanities at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Informed by her love of science fiction and fantasy texts as well as her experience as a 9th and 10th grade English teacher, Toliver’s scholarship centers the freedom dreams of Black youth and honors the historical legacy that Black imaginations have had and will have on activism and social change. Her academic work has been published in several journals, including Journal of Literacy Research, Research in the Teaching of English, Journal of Children’s Literature, and Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Her public scholarship has been featured on LitHub, Huffpost, and the Horn Book.
Twitter: SR_Toliver
Stephanie P Jones
Stephanie P. Jones, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Education at Grinnell College. She examines Black women’s literacy practices and the exploration of racialized trauma in school curriculums. She is part of the inaugural cohort of ACM Mellon Faculty Fellows, a STAR fellowship recipient through the Literacy Research Association and she serves as Grinnell College’s Center for the Humanities Fellow for 2021-2022. She is working on a forthcoming manuscript about the intersections of surveillance, curriculum violence, and racialized trauma.
Twitter: @spatricejones
Mapping Racial Trauma
Jennifer Turner
Dr. Jennifer Turner is an award-winning author, professor, and mentor. She is currently Associate Professor of Reading Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland. Her scholarly agenda centers on two interrelated domains: (1) freedom dreaming, which uses innovative visual-based methods to illuminate the career aspirations, literacy goals and life dreams of Black and other minoritized youth; and (2) culturally responsive literacy pedagogies. She is co-author of the book Change is Gonna Come: Transforming Literacy Education for African American Students, as well as numerous articles, book chapters, and other publications.
Autumn Griffin
Autumn A. Griffin is the McDonnell Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Literacy, Culture, and International Education Division at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. Dr. Griffin’s work largely explores the multimodal and digital literacies of Black youth, centering the ways they take up digital tools to critique the world around them, resist deficit-based narratives, practice joy and celebration, and (re)write their futures. She takes up critical multimodal frameworks to understand the varied literacies of Black youth in and out of classrooms and hopes to use her research to influence literacy policy, pedagogy, and curriculum. Dr. Griffin’s work has been published in Urban Education, Research in the Teaching of English, Language Arts, and Multicultural Education. Her public scholarship includes her award-winning podcast, Blackademia.
Twitter: @autumnadia
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