Orange and Scarlet: Critical Auto/biographical Strategies of Women's Basketball Coaches Pat Summitt and Vivian Stringer

• In Event: 56.046 - Documenting the Power, Place, and Perseverance of Women

Abstract

Biography and autobiographical genres have expanded to include various forms of innovative life writing. And recently a new group of university educators have created autobiographies worthy of examination from a critical theory perspective. Critical auto/biography projects have the potential to elevate interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge. They also have the power to contribute to social justice projects. This case-study examines the ways in which Pat Summitt and Vivian Stringer, university women's basketball coaches, created and used their autobiographies as cultural critiques of education, gender, race, and social class. A close examination of autobiographies, created by these educators, from a critical auto/biography case-study perspective, provides researchers with new methodological tools for creating and analyzing biographical data about social justice educators.

Author

• Thalia Mulvihill, Ball State University