Open Knowledge as Pedagogical Praxis: How Wikipedia Can transform American Studies Curricula

Session Submission Type: Non-Paper Session: Professional Development Format

Abstract

Scholars have long recognized the creation and open sharing of knowledge as part of a disciplinary praxis of communicating human diversity, analyzing power, and critiquing inequality. In a media landscape experiencing a crisis of information access, equity, and integrity, open systems for sharing reliable knowledge offer an antidote to dis- and misinformation, and a critical, noncommercial space for communicating specialized knowledge. The Wikipedia Student Program, launched in 2010, merged the rapidly developing movements of open knowledge with open pedagogy. The program was designed to help students at institutions of higher education develop a range of critical skills all while improving Wikipedia content. In the program (facilitated by Wiki Education), students from postsecondary institutions contribute to Wikipedia as a course assignment. This program has only become more relevant as the looming information crisis has intensified.

In this panel, you will hear from three faculty who have incorporated Wikipedia assignments into their American Studies courses. Their research and teaching include: Gender and Sexuality Studies, Ethnic Studies, Black Studies, Latinx Studies and American literature and culture. We will explore the power dynamics embedded within the production and dissemination of knowledge as well as experiences of collaborating in authorship and the production of knowledge, developing a public voice, confronting Wikipedia’s limitations and bias, facing issues around access to knowledge and equity, as well as what it means to produce knowledge responsibly. We will tackle the impact that students can have in ensuring content on Wikipedia is accurate, equitable, and representative. We will touch upon the role Wikipedia can play in elevating the stories and voices of people who have been excised from normative historical narratives and why this endeavor is more critical than ever. Session attendees will learn how to integrate Wikipedia assignments into their own American Studies curricula and gain a more in-depth understanding of the role open knowledge can play in the field of American Studies. We’re also eager to expose this pedagogical opportunity to faculty teaching in Puerto Rico whose experiences and perspectives would surely enrich the world’s largest online encyclopedia.

Sub Unit

• Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association

Chair

• Jennifer L Stoever, SUNY at Binghamton

Panelists

• Juana María Rodríguez, University of California-Berkeley

• Jennifer L Stoever, SUNY at Binghamton

• Mark Bresnan, Colorado State University

• Andrés Vera, Wiki Education

Biographical Information

Mark Bresnan is a Senior Instructor of English at Colorado State University, where he teaches American literature, American Studies, and composition. His scholarship examines the representation of American popular culture in contemporary literature, and publications include articles on the work of Jonathan Lethem, David Foster Wallace, and Jonathan Franzen. He has been incorporating Wikipedia into his American Studies classes since 2023, and recently received a Provost’s Award from Colorado State that will support the implementation of teaching with Wikipedia in other courses and programs across the university.

Juana María Rodríguez is Professor of Ethnic Studies and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley and has been collaborating with Wiki Education in her classrooms since 2016. She is the author of Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex (Duke UP 2024); Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings (NYU 2014), and Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (NYU 2003). In 2023 she was awarded the Kessler Prize for her career long contributions to LGBT Studies.

Jennifer Lynn Stoever is Associate Professor of English at Binghamton University, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog, and author of The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening (NYU Press, 2016). She is a founding member of the Engaged Digital Humanities Working Group at Binghamton University and Co-Director of The Binghamton Punk D.I.Y. Community Archive. A 2018 Whiting Foundation Public-Facing Scholarship seed grant awardee and a 2023 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Jennifer has published research in American Quarterly, Social Text, Radical History Review, Modernist Cultures, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies among others, as well as in The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop (2018) and The Oxford Handbook of Sound Art (2021). Currently, she is co-editing Power in Listening: The Sounding Out! Reader, with Liana Silva and Aaron Trammell (forthcoming on NYU Press), as well as the three-volume Encyclopedia of Sound Studies contracted with Bloomsbury Press (with Michael Bull and Holger Schulze). Her book-in-progress, Living Room Revolutions: Black and Brown Women Collecting Records, Selecting Sounds, and Making New Worlds in the 1970s Bronx and Beyond, inspired the course "Black Women and Creativity in the 1960s and 70s" that she has taught in partnership with Wiki Education since Spring 2024. You can read about her students' work increasing the Wikipedia presence of Black women artists in "Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon honors Black artists" and Wiki Education's“History is only as equitable as its sources and writers."

Andrés Vera is the Equity Outreach Coordinator at Wiki Education. Vera oversees the targeted outreach for courses in equity content areas and the inclusion of diverse institutions in the Wikipedia Student Program. He uses Wiki Education's existing network of instructor advocates to encourage colleagues who teach courses related to race, gender, sexuality, disability, and other equity-related disciplines at other institutions to teach with Wikipedia. Andrés brings a unique perspective to Wiki Education as he works as a music teacher, a music ensemble manager, and a freelance community development professional. He holds a bachelor's degree, master's degree, and a professional diploma in music performance, and he regularly performs around the world as a concert cellist.