Student-Centered Pedagogy in the Chinese Classroom: Let’s Talk About Sexual Empowerment

This paper looks at the politics of teaching sexuality education, healthy and comprehensive focusing on issues specific to female sexuality, in the context of a Chinese university ELL classroom. Through feminist pedagogical approaches and feminist beliefs in healthy sexuality, this article explores how a university ELL classroom was transformed. As with their U.S. peers, many Chinese young people rely on unhealthy and inaccurate information about human sexuality through pornography or dubious internet searches. Through feminist pedagogical approaches that focus on student-centered learning, critical thinking, and open debate, teachers can integrate controversial topics into a classroom setting to benefit the health and well-being of their students. Because my students did not perceive discussing sexuality as a U.S. cultural taboo, as an American teacher and “out” feminist, I was able to integrate lessons on sexuality into my Chinese classroom. However, first I had to lay the groundwork to establish a student-centered community where debate and discussion were central to the work of the cours

Far from the Truth: Teaching the Politics of Sojourner Truth\u27s “Ain\u27t I a Woman?”

If there is a canon of American women’s rhetoric, Sojourner Truth’s speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” is a central text in that collection. Truth’s “Ain’t/Aren’t I a Woman?” speech is included regularly in anthologies of women’s literature, anthologies of women’s rhetoric, and textbooks on history and women’s studies throughout all levels of the curriculum. The version of Truth’s speech that is typically anthologized, transcribed by Frances Gage twelve years after Truth delivered it, communicates an intentionally feminist message

Feminist Ethnographic Case Study: Financial/Emotional Stressors of Parenting Trans-Children

When a child resists gender socialization, many parents struggle to understand the path forward. Even supportive parents trying to help a gender-nonconforming child navigate a gendered world experience stress. These stressors are extended to the family. Through their attempts to navigate support for their gender-nonconforming children, parents are often without support or assistance when faced with systems of institutional power such as education, medicine, and government. This case study examines the complexities of being a supportive parent of a trans-identified child and the emotional, physical, and financial stress on the parent/family, using a feminist ethnographic approach. This case study of Jen[1], a mother of four children including Evan who is a 15-year-old trans boy, attempts to offer the important perspective to educators, administrators, and health care providers. Through reading Jen’s narrative, power brokers and gatekeepers within the medical and educational systems (teachers, administrators, doctors, and other health care providers) can gain some empathetic insight to assist parents

Bonnets, braids, and big afros: the politics of Black characters’ hair

The representations of a Black woman character’s hair say some- thing about her. The hair of a Black character is never neutral and nuances of hair are noticed by Black woman audience members. In my research interviewing 103 Black women about the representations of Black women in the shows/films they consumed, 12% of the participants discussed the politics of Black women’s hair as a marker of authentic representation. This article analyzes contemporary representations of hair in shows primarily directed/produced by Black women, arguing that representations of Black women’s hair can be empowering to Black women audience members. Hair styles, rituals, and the bonding over hair in shows and films are important. Even if these on-screen hair moments seem fleeting and unimportant, they are significant in that they affirm and celebrate the beauty, the connection, the love between and among Black women and their experiences. This article weaves interview excerpts into an analysis of Black women characters in contemporary film/series, making the argument that when Black women are behind the camera, Black girl’s/women’s hair represents power and pride through natural/ Afrocentric styles and these representations matter to the audience

What\u27s so feminist about garters and bustiers? Neo-burlesque as post-feminist sexual liberation

The performance art of burlesque is gaining popularity in North American culture, but with many ‘neo-burlesque’ performers, critical reflection or commentary on the politics of female sexuality is glaringly absent or summarily dismissed. Neo-burlesque could be a feminist rewriting and reclaiming of a Western dance form, which showcased women simpering sexily for her audience. However, in order for neo-burlesque to have a feminist tone, it needs to do more than incorporate women of various ethnicities and body types to transcend patriarchal scripts of female sexuality. Some neo-burlesque includes disruptions of traditional scripts regarding female sexuality that demand the audience think about the complexities of desire, sexuality, and identity, often through a feminist lens. However, these critiques often do not go far enough in their interrogation of power structures and the politics of sexuality. This article makes the argument that the popularity of neo-burlesque in mainstream culture serves to oppress female sexuality in very traditional ways instead of what it purports to do: empower women to celebrate their sexuality through performance

Teackerly A cts of Transgression: How Fem inist Educators are Changing Composition

The purpose of this project is to research how feminists in the field of composition have used feminist pedagogy to change standards of writing instruction. The first two chapters create a collaborative and comprehensive definition of feminist pedagogy, culling three decades of research on the issue to extrapolate a contemporary definition of feminist pedagogy that focuses on 16 themes. The subsequent three chapters of the project document ethnographic studies of three feminist teachers and scholars in the field of composition, investigating how they are practicing feminist pedagogy in classrooms, leadership, and scholarship. The three feminist teachers who are the focus of the ethnographic chapters are Harriet Malinowitz, professor of English at Long Island University and author of Textual Orientations: Lesbian and Gav Students and the Making of Discourse Communities: Lynn Worsham, professor of English at South Florida University and editor of JAC: and Jackie Jones Royster, associate dean of research and faculty affairs at Ohio State University and a composition scholar whose current work centers on African American Women rhetors of the nineteenth century. In the ethnographic chapters I examine how these three feminist leaders in the field of composition are living their feminist pedagogy and how their work helps shape contemporary composition theory and practice

Black Feminists in Serialized Dramas: The Gender/Sex/Sexuality/Race Politics of Being Mary Jane and Scandal

Starring representations of African-American women on television are rare. The versions of Black feminist characters on Scandal (ABC) and Being Mary Jane (BET) create a juxtaposition between a white supremacist Black feminism (Scandal) and an Afrocentric, female-centered rendering of Black feminism (Being Mary Jane)

Transqueer Representations and How We Educate

This article examines the representations of transqueers (specifically female to male transsexuals) in popular media and how these representations shape attitudes of transqueers both with those outside the LBGT community and those within the community. The article discusses how these cultural images of FTM transqueers imply that being accepted often means surgery and hormones in order to “pass” as male, and it challenges educators to work more overtly and diligently to educate toward critical consciousness regarding the sex/gender system and the rigidity of the binary that removes transgendered people as nonentities. The article offers an argument about how to approach these discussions with students and what texts will complicate the sex/gender binary as it is presented to us via the media representations of transqueers

Loss of Dnmt3b function upregulates the tumor modifier Ment and accelerates mouse lymphomagenesis

DNA methyltransferase 3B (Dnmt3b) belongs to a family of enzymes responsible for methylation of cytosine residues in mammals. DNA methylation contributes to the epigenetic control of gene transcription and is deregulated in virtually all human tumors. To better understand the generation of cancer-specific methylation patterns, we genetically inactivated Dnmt3b in a mouse model of MYC-induced lymphomagenesis. Ablation of Dnmt3b function using a conditional knockout in T cells accelerated lymphomagenesis by increasing cellular proliferation, which suggests that Dnmt3b functions as a tumor suppressor. Global methylation profiling revealed numerous gene promoters as potential targets of Dnmt3b activity, the majority of which were demethylated in Dnmt3b–/– lymphomas, but not in Dnmt3b–/– pretumor thymocytes, implicating Dnmt3b in maintenance of cytosine methylation in cancer. Functional analysis identified the gene Gm128 (which we termed herein methylated in normal thymocytes [Ment]) as a target of Dnmt3b activity. We found that Ment was gradually demethylated and overexpressed during tumor progression in Dnmt3b–/– lymphomas. Similarly, MENT was overexpressed in 67% of human lymphomas, and its transcription inversely correlated with methylation and levels of DNMT3B. Importantly, knockdown of Ment inhibited growth of mouse and human cells, whereas overexpression of Ment provided Dnmt3b+/+ cells with a proliferative advantage. Our findings identify Ment as an enhancer of lymphomagenesis that contributes to the tumor suppressor function of Dnmt3b and suggest it could be a potential target for anticancer therapies

Composing Feminisms: How Feminists Have Shaped Composition Theories and Practices

This book offers an updated, precise and comprehensive definition of feminist pedagogy culled from over three decades of scholarship. The author\u27s historical research spans across the curricula but also takes care to focus on the field of composition and how feminist theories of pedagogy have changed the field of writing instruction. It argues that feminist pedagogy has been the spring board for contemporary theories and practices of composition. In addition to the research on how feminist pedagogy has evolved and shapes composition, the author also conducts three ethnographic studies of prominent feminist scholars/teachers. These studies document how feminists have changed the field of composition and how individual academic feminists in composition and rhetoric negotiate and enact their feminisms.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/englishfacbooks/1016/thumbnail.jp