Communication and Identity in the Classroom: Intersectional Perspectives of Critical Pedagogy(Critical Communication Pedagogy)

This collection, edited by Daniel S. Strasser, was unearthed from the demand for more inclusive and expansive dialogues on intersectional identities, ethnicity, neuro-diversity, physical ability, religion, sexual orientation, class, and gender performance in academia. The autoethnographic and narrative accounts within Communication and Identity in the Classroom: Intersectional Perspectives of Critical Pedagogy offer personal, experiential perspectives on the power of identity to influence educators in classroom and mentoring spaces. The multiple perspectives offered here promote dialogue about how personal experience provides the ground upon which we build more dynamic relationships and communities. The contributors’ experiences offer examples for a more expansive understanding of privilege, oppression, and identity. These seeds for conversation nourish discourses that build new communicative bridges between educators and students as we prepare to face the next interaction, class, and challenges and opportunity for resilience. This collection invites educators to be critical of their bodies, of their politics, of their intersecting identities, and acknowledge in words and actions that our bodies are political. Throughout this collection the contributors expand upon theories and methods of critical communication scholarship, radical love, and intersectionality using their embodied pedagogical experiences to ground the scholarship.

Table of Contents:
Preface by Bernadette Marie Calafell Introduction: Communication and Identity in the Classroom: Intersectional Perspectives of Critical Pedagogy Daniel S. Strasser SECTION ONE: Autoethnographic Accounts of Critical, Intersectional Pedagogy Chapter One Finding Space and Place within the Ivory Tower: Conversations on Intersectionality, Voice and Silence Tomeka M. Robinson and Jahnasia Booker Chapter Two You Are Not My Child, I Am Not Your Parent: A Case Against the Infantilization of Students Meggie Mapes and Benny LeMaster Chapter Three Empath(olog)ic Pedagogy: An Autoethnography of Health, Class, and the Classroom Brandi Lawless Chapter Four “Bad Hombre” in the Classroom: Pedagogical Politics of Performing “Brown Man” in a Conservative Time Andrew R. Spieldenner and Antonio De La Garza Chapter Five What Difference Does it Make?: Navigating the Privileged Halls of Academia as a Queer Black Woman Professor Elizabeth Whittington Chapter Six Teaching While Vulnerable: Connection through Shared Vulnerability as a Pedagogical Stepping Stone To Queer Consciousness Richard G. Jones, Jr. Chapter Seven Queer-Femme-Pedagogy: Telling Our Tales // Confessing Our Truths Bri Ozalas and Kathryn Hobson Chapter Eight Pedagogy, Passing and Privilege Rachel Silverman SECTION TWO: Personal Narratives and Reflections on Critical, Intersectional Pedagogy Chapter Nine Sawubona - We See, Value and Respect You: A Critical Pedagogical Invitation to Communicate Eddah M. Mutua Chapter Ten Family Stories, Pedagogy, Inclusive Practices and Autohistoria Sergio Fernando Juárez Chapter Eleven Unmasking the Hegemony of English: Exploring English Neo-Imperialism and the Internationalization of Whiteness Sachiko Tankei-Aminian Chapter Twelve Managing Mental Health in the Classroom: A Narrative Reflection on Pedagogy Andrea L. Meluch Chapter 13 Navigating Intercultural Identities at a Crossroads of Mindfulness and Instruction Aayushi Hingle Chapter 14 Going the Extra Mile: Mentoring Black Undergraduate Students Lance Kyle Bennett Index About the Contributors

About the Author :
Daniel S. Strasser is associate professor of gender and family communication at Rowan University.

Review :
Communication and Identity in the Classroom: Intersectional Perspectives of Critical Pedagogy is an inspiring volume that invites readers to acknowledge and hold space with critical communication studies scholars who testify to the heartaches, confusion, and joys of teaching from positions of precarity. In collecting these voices, Dr. Strasser has shown how turning our attention to these voices can begin to "mend the broken bridges" left by years of exclusion from the ivory tower. This volume, though, is also a powerfully triumphant example of how critical pedagogy scholarship is necessary, perhaps more now than ever. Communication and Identity in the Classroom presents bracing autoethnographic articulations of educational experience; selves critically telling and unpacking experiences in/on the cultural terrain of education that are reflective, reflexive and refractive in their critical intent. Each autoethnography of educational experience thus provides the reader with templates of sociality that help to render extraordinary and everyday experiences readable while inspiring acts of educational justice. Communication and Identity in the Classroom: Intersectional Perspectives of Critical Pedagogy is a must read for those interested in the confluence of keywords in critical cultural analysis: communication, identity, classroom, intersectionality, autoethnography and critical pedagogy. And how these keywords speak in a tensive collaboration to the practiced positionality of human social exchange and meaning making in educational contexts. All of which, recognizes the whole person in the challenged construal of transforming self and society through educational activism, building a politic of critical praxis. In this current political and historical moment, critical pedagogies are as crucial as ever to raising awareness about and making meaningful changes for marginalized people and their communities. In Daniel S. Strasser's Communication and Identity in the Classroom: Intersectional Perspectives of Critical Pedagogy, some of the most brilliant critical pedagogy scholars come together to offer 14 compelling chapters that are deeply personal, continuously thought-provoking, and that constitute indispensable contributions to an ongoing and vital academic movement. This book is essential reading for those who seek to make positive social impacts through their teaching and mentoring. In Communication and Identity in the Classroom: Intersectional Perspectives of Critical Pedagogy, Strasser brought together a collection of powerful autoethnographies and narratives that approach difference not as something that needs to be avoided but as an axiom for effective pedagogy. The critical pieces in this volume center marginalized voices in the academy through intersectional perspectives and provide a rigorous critique of the normative assumptions that operate in our classrooms--it's a must-read for any scholar and educator committed to advancing progressive social change in and beyond their teaching. Invaluable to the zeitgeist of social change in 2020, this book meets calls for diversity and inclusion in the academy through its breadth of intersectionally marginalized voices. The authors inspire solidarity and allyship, while inviting introspection, by uniquely situating their critical pedagogies through lived experience. A robust reader, this collection offers tangible outcomes towards a pedagogical epistemology and praxis that fosters social justice in the classroom. Much (maybe even enough) has been written about pedagogy from a white cisgender male hetero-normative perspective. This diverse collection raises voices that have, until now, been marginalized or under-represented in the scholarly conversations about critical pedagogy. From many standpoints, these striking/evocative intersectional tales bring pedagogical theory and praxis into deep dialogue with a multiplicity of identities. This is important work. If you read this book, you will be startled into action, and your teaching will be transformed. And that is something indeed. Strasser's volume offers a much-needed look at the junctures of identity, power, and pedagogy at a time in the world when doing so matters the most. As the collection's authors share their stories, they gift readers with critical insight into the pain and possibility inherent in navigating the academy. This volume is an essential read for students, teachers, and scholars called to make the classroom a more just place to learn, work, and radically love. This powerful, inclusive, and timely collection of critical essays engage the meaningful ways educators bring to bear their intersectional identities through critical pedagogy, consequently transforming the classroom (physical, virtual, or otherwise) into sites for social change. This collection offers diverse accounts of intersectional experiences that include moments of success, failure, reflection, privilege, oppression, empathy, and growth. This book deserves to be in the repertoire of any teacher invested in developing a more holistic and critical understanding of how we can center social justice, self-reflexivity, vulnerability, and care to create a more ethically engaged pedagogy fueled by radical love. This timely, engaging, and fluid-edited book shows a step forward in the scholarship of Critical Communication Pedagogy. By bringing voices from Other bodies and interweaving the thick and layered intersectionalities, Communication and Identity in the Classroom showcases the vulnerable, embodied, imperfect, and emotional experiences from instructors within and beyond the college classroom. This edited collection is a powerful intervention to disrupt white and Western productions of pedagogy scholarships and is a must read for students and scholars in the field of Communication Studies.