29.027 - On Making Spectacles of Ourselves: Representing Counternormative Memory in Queer and Métis Cultures

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Our presentations will share findings from four Canadian research projects conducted in different educational settings: public high schools, Metis communities, and a community arts-engaged education project for older adults. Our findings suggest that public shows and performances can educate both audience and performers - confirming earlier speculations by Gallop (1995, p. xi) - in that they are embodied, interruptive, and open up fictive spaces in which we can suspend disbelief and practice empathy for others (Zunshine, 2006). Thus, as we try on new ‘spectacles,’ we may be able to circumvent quotidian practices that may have become invisible (Varela, 1999), or at least see them more clearly.

Sub Unit

• Division B - Curriculum Studies / Division B - Section 1: Critical and Post-Foundationalist Perspectives and Practices

Cosponsor

• SIG-Queer Studies

Chair

• Dennis J. Sumara, University of Calgary

Papers

• It Is Hard to See the Brokenness of Those Who Have Learned to Blend In: A Case Study in Catalytic Validity - Claire Elizabeth Robson, Simon Fraser University; Dennis J. Sumara, University of Calgary

• Singing Queer: Queer-Narrative Musical Performance as Pedagogy in Public - Kate Reid, The University of British Columbia

• Reawakening Métis Memory and Consciousness Through the Art of Storying: An Exploration of Decolonizing Education Through Digital Storytelling - Yvonne Poitras Pratt, University of Calgary

• Métis History and Rememoration: Narratives, Memory, and "Realizing the Debt to the Historical Past" - Lyn Denise Daniels, The University of British Columbia

Discussant

• Tara Goldstein, OISE/University of Toronto