Quilted Selves: Unforgetting Faculty Creative Identity through Narrative and Arts-Based Inquiry

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 2:15 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Arts based educational research and critical narrative(s)

Abstract

The paper outlines a conceptual and methodological framework for an arts-based narrative inquiry into how faculty use creative practices—such as painting, sculpture, and music—to express, process, and challenge their academic identities. Participants will design 6x6-inch quilt squares representing the intersection of their scholarly and artistic lives, accompanied by reflective narratives. The resulting quilt will serve as both visual data and a collaborative representation, grounded in the concept of “quilt-as-method.” Faculty creative identity is positioned as a form of epistemic resistance and imaginative scholarship. By engaging humanizing and participatory research strategies, the study contributes to re-centering marginalized epistemologies and advancing future-oriented frameworks for knowledge production in higher education.

Author

• Sarah N Dunn Phillips, Johns Hopkins University