Teaching to Transgress

A Teaching & Learning Speaker Series

This speaker series is inspired by scholar, educator, and activist bell hooks’ critical work on liberatory practices and pedagogy. In her book “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice for Freedom,” bell hooks encourages us to think of the classroom as a space to transgress boundaries, a space that connects “the will to know with the will to become.” To her, engaged education was a practice for freedom, and the classroom, a space where liberatory practices can be imagined and rehearsed.

Inspired by her work and her legacy, the Teaching to Transgress Speaker Series seeks to feature radical thinkers, practitioners, and pedagogues, and to foster the exchange of critical and innovative pedagogies and teaching practices. With a focus on I-EDIAA (Indigenizing- Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Anti-racism, Accessibility) the invited speakers will enrich existing programming at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Queen’s University and engage the teaching community in emerging, effective, and novel approaches to teaching and learning.

Winter 2023

Disability Justice in Higher Education: A Conversation with Jeff Preston

with Dr. Jeff Preston, Assoc. Professor, Disability Studies, King’s University College, Western University
Tuesday, January 24, 2023; 12:00 – 1:00pm; Zoom

Dr. Preston is an associate professor of Disability Studies at King's University College at Western University where he teaches classes on disability, popular culture and policy. A long-time advocate and motivational speaker, Jeff's work focuses on the intersection of disability, subjectivity, biopower and culture. Jeff's first book, The Fantasy of Disability, was published in 2017 by Routledge.

Registration Form

External to Queen's Registration Form

Microactions: Moves in Research, Teaching, and Service that can Shift Equity Creeds into Deeds

With Dr. Özlem Sensoy, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University
Monday, February 13, 2023; 2:00 – 3:30pm; Zoom

Registration Form

External to Queen's Registration Form

Most people would agree that one does not need to become a mechanic in order to drive a car more competently, nor a chef to cook a great meal, nor a tennis pro in order to improve one’s game. Yet while many people “agree with” the core values associated with equity, and “believe in” the importance of anti-racist, anti-hetero/sexist, anti-colonial, anti-ableist action, they are hesitant to themselves engage in equity work. There are a few reasons for this, among them a fear of doing harm to already vulnerable or marginalized peoples; As well, action for equity can be difficult to imagine outside of mental images we have of activist marching in the streets, hanging from trees, or laying down in front of traffic on bridges and highways. These images of macro-actions as well as the sheer magnitude of social injustice can easily make one immobilized in the face of it all. In this talk, Özlem Sensoy will draw on her decades of academic work, teaching, and professional development in equity in educational settings to identify small things – microactions – every faculty member can incorporate into their research, teaching, and service that can result in major moves toward greater equity in our campus work life for ourselves, our colleagues, and our students.  

About Dr. Sensoy

Dr. Sensoy's primary field of research is social justice education. Social justice education seeks to reveal how social inequities become embedded in the fabric of society, and to identify strategies for socially just change. Her research examines the opportunities and barriers inherent in advancing a more equitable society, through social justice education. In doing so, Dr. Sensoy studies a dual track: analyzing how inequities are reproduced in social institutions (such as schools, media, policing), and identifying constructive interventions to interrupt them (such as thinking critically about knowledge, pedagogical approaches, and political activism).

Her scholarship draws on and contributes to fields that include: social justice education, multicultural education, critical pedagogy, cultural studies, Islam & Middle East studies, popular culture, critical media literacy, feminist postcolonial theory, and visual research methods.

Registration Form

External to Queen's Registration Form

This Series is supported by:

The Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigenization Fund from the Faculty of Arts and Science