Resisting Racist Sexism: Black Girl Literacies and Black Feminist Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Activism

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This panel gathers Black feminist literacy scholars who unapologetically center Black feminism as critical literacy interventions against racist-sexism in schools. These papers demonstrate how Black girls engage with Black feminist genealogies (hooks, 1984, 1994, 1999; Lorde, 1984; Collins, 2009; Combahee River Collective, 1977; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991) as a source of resistance. The first paper illustrates how a teacher engaged her Black students’ multiple literacies when reading fictional representations of enslavement; the second paper explores Black girls’ spatial positioning (Butler, 2018) through critical autoehnographic storytelling; the third paper maps how Black girls engage digital writing against sexual harassment in schools as Black feminist “pedagogies of complaint” (Ahmed, 2021). Taken together, our research-activism offers urgent Black feminist futures for writing and literacies.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chair

• Detra Price-Dennis, The Ohio State University

Papers

• Black Girl Literacies and the Teaching of Enslavement - Stephanie Robillard, St. Mary's College of California

• An Analysis of Black Women's Place-Making in Colonized School Spaces - Kristen DeLatour, University of Massachusetts - Boston; Morgan Jane Grant, Barnard College; Lauren Leigh Kelly, Rutgers University

• Black Girl #MeToo Activism and Literacies as "Feminist Pedagogies of Complaint" - Ileana Jiménez, Teachers College, Columbia University

Discussant

• Detra Price-Dennis, The Ohio State University