Tag Archives: queer pedagogy

Teaching Outrage

Critical Theory, Pedagogy, The Humanities, Theory, , , , ,

In my course on reading popular culture, I spend several weeks teaching students how to discern the ideologies at work in popular culture texts, focusing each week on a particular reading method.  After several weeks of vigorous and intellectually engaged discussion about the vexing nature of popular media, one of my students asked, “So, what do we do, now that we’ve learned how to read texts in this way?”  At first, I was somewhat flummoxed, as this is not normally a question that arises in my lower-level undergraduate courses; I was quite pleasantly surprised to see my students thinking at such a high level.

And, to be honest, I didn’t know how to answer at first, simply because this remains a question with which I also struggle on a daily basis.  However, as I ended up telling my student, we can do a great deal with the outrage we feel at the vexing representational strategies utilized by the popular media.  We can blog, we can write letters, we can even become involved in the production of texts ourselves and reclaim the narratives that have been hijacked and used as weapons against us.  For those who remain politically and socially disenfranchised, gaining a vocabulary in which to express moral and political outrage, as well as what to do with that outrage, can become a solid means of effecting political and social change.

That remains one of the most challenging aspects of teaching the reading of texts.  How to get students to see the stakes of their critical reading strategies?  After all, we live in a culture that routinely tells us to stop over-reading and overreacting to incidents of micro-aggression, to simply sit back and enjoy the entertainment value of popular culture.  Indeed, this impulse to dismiss any critical approach to everyday life–including the “basest” or “dumbest” forms of entertainment–as over-reading is itself a function of a society and a culture that stubbornly refuses (in the main) to engage in self-critical evaluation.  Part of our jobs, as critics and as educators–and I would like to stress that I see the two functions as inextricably linked–is to encourage students to break away from those habits of thought that let these elements of our culture remain unexamined and uncommented upon.  This can be quite challenging, as being critical often gets coded as being a killjoy, as bringing down the life and the energy of the cultural party.

The job of the cultural critic and educator, I argue, is to guide students so that they can see not only the ways in which media propagate and draw upon existing ideologies and systems of power, but also learn how those representations can have real-world effects on shaping and reinforcing existing patterns of thought.  Once they realize how even the most seemingly banal and “entertaining” texts are part of a larger set of discourses that are themselves dependent upon intertwining systems of power, it becomes easier to see why it matters, for example, that Game of Thrones utilizes existing racial stereotypes in its presentation of the Dothraki wedding, or why Looking can be seen as an example of the mainstreaming and commercialization of queer sexualities.  Further, they can also realize that they, as the consumer of these texts, can also have power over them rather than being controlled by them.

This, I think, is one of the great things about teaching in the humanities.  Contrary to what Arthur Krystal claims in his recent piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, there is still a great deal at stake for those who engage in the rigorous and sustained study of texts (especially for those who still occupy a marginalized or denigrated corner of our culture).  We live, after all, in a culture that is hyper-saturated with images and narratives that our students, and we ourselves, have to interpret every single day of our lives.  As a teacher of media, I remain absolutely committed to teaching students not only how and why they should be outraged at what appears in popular culture, but also what is at stake in their outrage.  As I stress again and again, I do not believe in “mere entertainment” or “pure escapism.”  I do, however, believe in pleasures, and the power that can come with both resistant pleasures (as my insistence on queer pleasures demonstrates) and the pleasure of the act of critical engagement.  It’s time that we stop seeing (and stop encouraging our students to see) critical engagement as a chore.  Instead, we need to encourage them to see the pleasure, and the power, of critical outrage.

The Perils and Promise of Queer Pedagogy

Pedagogy, Queer Culture, queer pedagogy, Queer Theory (General), , , , , ,

I recently had the pleasure of co-coordinating a session on creating safer classroom space.  In the process, I designed a skit that presented a scenario in which a student is not comfortable discussing LGBT issues as a result of his religious convictions and upbringing.  In the two sessions that occurred, a number of significant points were raised, including the fact that, while racism and sexism are commonly called out for rebuke, homophobia, often in the guise of religious belief or devotion, is excused or tolerated.  Of course, such duplicity occurs not only in the classroom, as the recent political discourse about religious business’s freedom to decline services to LGBT people makes amply clear.

This tension between tolerance for religious difference and acceptance of LGBT equality and dignity poses significant questions for educators at all levels, but especially at the college and university level, where courses dealing with both of these issues are common.  Whose rights deserve more respect and tolerance?  Does the student whose faith precludes or forbids tolerance for LGBT people (as well as other sexual minorities) need to be sternly rebuked in the classroom or the office?  How do we as educators work with such students to engage in meaningful dialogue, rather than just shutting them down?  I don’t pretend to know the answers to these questions, but they do need to be asked by those of us who have an investment in promoting social justice for sexual and gender minorities, no matter how difficult the answers might be.

Furthermore, designing and performing this sketch, as well as engaging in and sometimes answering questions about it, brought home to me just how much I take for granted as a teacher at private institution in New York that, typically, offers significant institutional support for LGBT issues, faculty, and students.  It may not be a perfect school, but it’s far better than many state and private schools in other parts of the country, including my own Appalachia, as well as in other parts of New York State.  Whether or not we want to realize it, those of us that are pursuing doctoral degrees in prestigious schools in urban centers, especially in the northeast, may one day find ourselves in those geographical spaces where there is not an assumed support for matters LGBT.  As terrifying as that prospect is for some people, we also need to recognize that it is precisely people who live in those areas–both those who share our beliefs and those who don’t–who are most in need of pedagogical experience and investment in engaging with the tough questions raised by the intersections and conflicts between religion and human sexuality.  Furthermore, we need to develop strategies for coping not just with students, but also with administrators that do not support LGBT issues.

I have long thought that it is a mistake for LGBT theorists and thinkers to simply assume that people in rural America should flee their intolerant small town and country environs and escape to the welcoming embrace of the big city.  There is a lot about rural queer identity, and rural live in general, that is worthy of celebration, even if it is sometimes tainted with the idiocy of those who espouse bigoted views.  If we want to effect meaningful social change for people in all parts of the country, we need to start engaging in meaningful and sustained dialogue with those with whom we most vehemently disagree.

There are, of course, no easy or simple answers when it comes to this issue.  Or at least there shouldn’t be.  As tempting as it might be to simply state that homophobia, no matter how fancily dressed it may be in its garments of religious devotion, has no place in our contemporary society, the reality is that things are far more complex.  If we, as educators, want to fulfill our mission of opening up minds and fostering critical engagement with today’s pressing political issues, including those that directly affect gender and sexual minorities, we have to be able to engage with even the most religiously devout of our students in deep and meaningful ways.  This is not going to be an easy task, but it is one that many of us will have to confront as we begin to enter the profession.  We would do well to start engaging in that conversation with our students, with ourselves, and especially with those who don’t agree with us.  And we should do so as soon as possible.