Posthumanist Theory in the Service of Antiracist Curriculum Studies Scholarship

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The session offers arguments for and examples of the application of posthuman social theory (broadly defined to include feminist new materialism, Sylvia Wynter’s sociogenics, and theories of non-human agency found in Indigenous studies literature) to the work of curriculum studies focused on anti-racist education and activism. The resilience of institutional racism in the face of critique and organized resistance calls suggests new ways of thinking about anti-racist education are needed. This session features the work of scholars that are searching for protean forms of social analysis that enable shifts between divergent ontologies in the service of their anti-racist educational activism. Four visions of anti-racist curriculum research and practice informed by posthumanist theory are offered and critically discussed.

Sub Unit

• Division B - Curriculum Studies / Division B - Section 3: Theories, Methodologies, and Philosophies of Curriculum Studies

Chair

• Roland W. Mitchell, Louisiana State University

Papers

• Curricular Racism as a Posthuman Agent - Jerry L. Rosiek, University of Oregon

• Curriculum and the Epiphenomenal Materiality of Racism - Reagan P. Mitchell, University of North Carolina School of the Arts

• The Unthought of Racism: Putting New Materialism to Work in Curriculum Studies - Robert James Helfenbein, Mercer University

• Conceiving Curriculum as Apparatus: Application to Antiracist Teaching - Alexander B Pratt, University of Oregon

Discussant

• Awad Ibrahim, University of Ottawa