The Weight of the Wake: Mapping the Emotional Geographies of Black Study

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 11:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Agency and Ideologies

Abstract

This study explores the affective expressions of Black graduate students enrolled in a History of Black Education course. Using Black Critical Affective Analysis (BCAA), we analyze written reflections to examine how students navigate and make meaning of Black educational histories through feelings, emotions, and affect. Findings reveal that Black students engage in deep emotional labor as they unlearn dominant narratives, confront historical and ongoing antiblackness, and envision alternative futures. Rather than viewing emotion as peripheral, this study positions Black affect as central to knowledge production, resistance, and historical consciousness. This research contributes to curriculum studies, affect theory, and Black education studies by affirming Black students’ emotional lives as critical sites of learning, identity formation, and transformative possibility.

Authors

• Amber Neal-Stanley, Purdue University

• Kayla Fisher, Purdue University

• Ralph J. McCoy, Purdue University

• Gerald Mwansa, Purdue University

• Christabel Kanayo Anumenechi, Purdue University

• Julius Freeman, Purdue University