Against the Grain: Deep Reading as Abolitionist Praxis in Education

• In Event: The Educational Possibilities of Truth-Telling: Dismantling Dominant Narratives of Race, Place, and Histories

Abstract

The work of deep reading, or reading against the grain, is a means of complex, layered communion for the purpose of explicating the potentialities of texts, which is to say, the function of a text as imagined by the writer/curator/artist. In this way, ethical engagement with Black theories and concepts can animate questions and insights in the service of liberation across space and time, and militate against colonial logic that hinders remembrance. Thus, this conceptual manuscript deploys an abolitionist frame to grapple with how deep reading as a curricular practice can ethically advance collaborative intellectual praxis, or interdisciplinary research, teaching, and study in education.

Authors

• Wilson Kwamogi Okello, Pennsylvania State University

• Nichole M. Garcia, Rutgers University