Scholarship
Creative Research
The center of my research lies within intersections of Black childhood, performance, agency, and liberation. Qualitative, decolonizing, and ontologically rooted research methodologies guide my critical role as ethnographic researcher, producing findings that are comprehensive and in service to those researched.
My research outcomes manifest in a variety of ways: academic publications (essays, articles, and book chapters), film documentary, interactive workshops, plays, and theatrical performance.
Teaching Philosophy
Over the past ten years, I have taught and mentored students from pre-kindergarten to the university graduate level. At the university level, I have designed and taught courses that span across multiple disciplines including Pan-African Studies, Theatre, Film, Performance Studies, and Communications. At the primary and secondary school level I have taught theatre classes, directed and produced school plays and cultural events, and lead after-school performing arts programming. In addition to engaging children and youth in the arts, I have served as a counselor and taught math, science and social studies at summer enrichment camps.
As a university professor, I offer and cultivate methods of engagement with concepts and material that facilitate further learning and thinking. I place emphasis on the most vital components of a university education, which include exposure to existent discourse, critical thinking, and reading/writing proficiency. I engage students and design course lessons with respect to the following intersecting tenets: 1) teaching is guiding; 2) course curriculum with social and cultural relevance provides spaces for student affirmation and cross cultural interaction and inquiry; 3) learning is a continual process rather than a destination; and 4) praxis, the merging of theory and practice is essential in learning processes.
A teacher as guide provides access to information rather than acts as the source of information. In engaging students, at any level, my goal is to welcome the spirit of inquiry, to promote analytical skills and accountability. Through self-assessment activities specifically related to learning, listening, and social styles students become present to their ways of knowing and educational needs. I challenge students to be cognizant of these findings as they engage course material as a way of actively participating in the construction of their own knowledge.
In my courses, students explore the power of research, theatre, and performance to examine and combat varying and interlocking systems of oppression. At the onset of the semester, students complete a hands-on identity activity through which they indicate their targeted and advantaged social group memberships. In examining their own social/cultural standpoints, students deepen their understanding of critical theories and social constructs related, but not limited to race, gender, sexuality, class, and performance and apply them to their own lived experiences. Through my evaluation of students’ written and creative work, as well as their self-evaluations of their performance in the course, I find that students are not only equipped with the theoretical and practical tools to critically understand and analyze social phenomena but also highly motivated to commit themselves to making significant contributions to the world community with the knowledge gained.
When learning is culturally centered, and conceptualized as an emergent process, rather than a destination, the journey of each individual student is honored and respected, fostering collective education and community building. While students submit evaluations at the end of the semester, this community-building model provides space for critical feedback throughout the semester, allowing me to make necessary modifications along the way and for future courses. This praxis-based and collaborative learning space calls for a teaching approach that is patient and flexible with respect to the ways in which course dynamics need to be in constant dialogic conversation with student needs, progression, and engagement with course material. While it is an complex space to cultivate and occupy, it offers my students and me the very thing we seek in collectively gathering in the classroom: opportunities for learning, inspiration, and growth.