Teaching
Philosophy
“When education is the practice of freedom, students are not the only ones who are asked to share, to confess. Engaged pedagogy does not seek simply to empower students. Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow and are empowered by the process.”
-bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress
I teach with the assumption that every encounter holds within it a possibility for transformation— for students and for me. That assumption guides everything: the course readings, the assignments, the collaborative playlists we create, and (when possible) where we even meet to have class. If there is one thing I believe about the world as it is now, it is that it is in desperate need of transformation. If there is one thing I believe about teaching, it is that it can be the critical, radical tool that inspires the work of such transformation.
As my syllabi read: We are, in short, learning in/with/through crises. You have no idea how these crises are showing up in the lives of your peers or instructor. Throughout the semester, I ask that we practice something like grace – a willingness to show up, be in community with each other, to give a benefit of the doubt when trust has been earned. Grace is not an excuse for ‘bad’ or offensive behavior. Instead, it is an invitation to think and be in possibility together.
Courses Taught
Black Geographies
Food in the Racialized City
Just Food?: Race, Gender, and Class in the U.S. South
Black Studies Methods (Graduate)
Embodied Ethnography (Graduate)
Letters of Recommendation
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