29.024 - Dystopian Futures, Black Queer Sex, and Racial Rememory: New Critical Perspectives on Education Through Film

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

American cinema has a long tradition of centering schooling within its stories, often in uncomplicated but impactful ways. Shifting our gaze to more unconventional depictions of education in films, and analyzing those depictions through theoretical frameworks typically located beyond educational research, can generate new imaginings of the possibilities and pitfalls of educational enterprises. Through contextual analyses of films that break from normative portrayals of American schooling, the papers in this session will (1) explore how learners, teaching and learning, and educative contexts are reimagined in atypical filmic narratives on education, and (2) consider how these films can inform new thinking on the nature, scope, and stakes of education.

Sub Unit

• Division B - Curriculum Studies / Division B - Section 1: Culture and Commentary (The Readings/Makings of Curriculum)

Chair

• Edward Brockenbrough, University of Pennsylvania

Papers

• Feminist (Re)Visions of Dystopian Futures: Learning to Fight in Hunger Games and Divergent - Kristen Luschen, Hampshire College

• Dildos, Enemas, and Good Friends: Teaching Black Queer Sex(ualities) in Pariah and The Skinny - Edward Brockenbrough, University of Pennsylvania

• Race, Mission, Rememory: Disrupting the "Anachronistic Black College" as a Controlling Image in School Daze - Hilton Kelly, Davidson College

Discussant

• Ezekiel J. Dixon-Roman, The University of Pennsylvania