Polished ‘Hoes’, Dancehall Queens, and Sexual Freaks: Voices From the Margins of Caribbean Literature

poster abstractPolished Hoes, Dance Hall Queens, and Sexual Freaks: Women’s Voices From the Margins is a book-length project that will examine multiply marginalized Caribbean women’s narratives of resistance as they challenge and transform the sexual politics of black communities. Scholarship in black studies, particularly in the Caribbean, tends to reward normative behavior and marginalizes women who do not conform to set standards, deeming them deviants and denying them black citizenship–access to national belonging–within their disparate nations. Those considered “deviants” and their troubled identities are not deemed worthy of national belonging. Analyzing Anglophone literature, film, news reports, texts written by underground groups, and popular culture, in English, Polished Hoes addresses two main questions: how do marginalized Caribbean women create radical identities and counter-subcultures as they resist oppression? And what new radical politics and communities evolve from these? Polished Hoes proposes a new black resistance theory grounded in the experiences of multiply marginalized women and their challenges to various forms of oppression

What's post racial discourse got to do with it? Obama and implications for multiculturalism in college classrooms

With the election and re-election of Barack Obama as the first Black President of the United States came the vexing yet perhaps expected conclusion that issues of race and ethnicity were no longer grave concerns.  Somehow Obama’s presence suggests the transcendence of race.  While a nod to the political progress made in terms of social race relations may be in order, Obama’s election does not translate into a “color-blind,” “post race” American nation.  This essay explores how current and ongoing conversations about a post race nation shape student perceptions of race and how they directly affect the teaching instruction of professors, like myself, who are invested in multicultural and inclusive pedagogy. As an instructor invested in inclusive learning, my former struggle of getting students to understand the importance of acknowledging the validity of cultural differences has resurfaced as students who buy into the rhetoric of a “post race” nation no longer think it necessary to examine closely racially charged inequities.  Rather than adhere to the problematic ideology of Obama as the embodiment of a “post race” nation, I propose an exploration of his identity and politics as those that encourage fluidity and cultural plurality without denying rightful acknowledgement of race as a viable political reality

Faculty perceptions of multicultural teaching in a large urban university

As college graduates face an increasingly globalized world, it is imperative to consider issues of multicultural instruction in higher education. This study presents qualitative and quantitative findings from a survey of faculty at a large, urban, midwestern university regarding perceptions of multicultural teaching. Faculty were asked how they define multicultural teaching, how they engage in multicultural teaching, what they perceive to be the benefits of multicultural teaching, and what barriers to implementing multicultural teaching they experience. Results indicate faculty members most frequently define multicultural teaching as using diverse teaching pedagogies and materials. In line with their definitions, faculty also report engaging in multicultural teaching through use of inclusive course materials. Faculty identified positive learning outcomes for all students as a primary benefit to engaging in multicultural teaching. The primary barrier reported by faculty is an anticipated resistance from students. Variations in responses based on academic discipline and rank of faculty member are discussed

Constructing Radical Black Female Subjectivities: Survival Pimping in Austin Clarke's <em>The Polished Hoe</em>

This essay seeks to add to progressive scholarship that probes the ways in which black women create safe spaces to unapologetically accept their sexuality and the sexual agency that evolves as a result while simultaneously acknowledging the fluidity of feminine identities. In what follows, the author begin by describing the implications of what bell hooks calls "radical black subjectivity" for the sexual agency that may be secured by women who participate in sex work. Second, she examines how Clarke's protagonists, Ma and Mary, evolve and emerge as sexual agents rather than mere victims in their quest for personhood. Their reinvention of self surpasses personal subjectivity and serves as a testament to the struggles of women like themselves who resist from the margins, validating such experiences as worthy of scholarly critique. The third part of the essay challenges the simplistic and troubling idea that women who participate in sex work are merely objects -- objectified by men or self-objectified

Polished ‘Hoes’, Dancehall Queens, and Sexual Freaks: Voices From the Margins of Caribbean Literature

poster abstractPolished Hoes, Dance Hall Queens, and Sexual Freaks: Women’s Voices From the Margins is a book-length project that will examine multiply marginalized Caribbean women’s narratives of resistance as they challenge and transform the sexual politics of black communities. Scholarship in black studies, particularly in the Caribbean, tends to reward normative behavior and marginalizes women who do not conform to set standards, deeming them deviants and denying them black citizenship–access to national belonging–within their disparate nations. Those considered “deviants” and their troubled identities are not deemed worthy of national belonging. Analyzing Anglophone literature, film, news reports, texts written by underground groups, and popular culture, in English, Polished Hoes addresses two main questions: how do marginalized Caribbean women create radical identities and counter-subcultures as they resist oppression? And what new radical politics and communities evolve from these? Polished Hoes proposes a new black resistance theory grounded in the experiences of multiply marginalized women and their challenges to various forms of oppression

Multicultural Teaching: Barriers and Recommendations

A pedagogy that serves students of all backgrounds and trains them to compete in a diverse world is becoming imperative. University educators have been slow to accept the challenge of multicultural teaching, yet it is not clearly understood why this is the case. The authors surveyed 464 faculty members from across disciplines at a large urban, Midwestern campus. This mixed-methods study assessed faculty conceptualizations of multicultural teaching, the degree to which they may be engaged in this practice, and what challenges they face. The findings revealed that faculty members perceived several barriers to multicultural teaching, including student resistance, language barriers, lack of teaching resources, time constraints, and lack of knowledge about multicultural teaching pedagogies. Although the faculty perceived that most barriers were related to student factors, they revealed some degree of insight into their own role in terms of relative effort and lack of knowledge. Furthermore, faculty identified various institutional barriers that could be addressed to facilitate multicultural teaching at institutions of higher education. The importance of multicultural teaching in the current economic and political environment is discussed