Inequitable Narratives, and Speculating Otherwise: Nontraditional Dissertations as Disruption
Abstract
In this panel discussion, a trio of researchers elaborate upon the possibilities their nontraditional dissertation inquiries have for disrupting inequitable narratives (e.g. westernized literaries and intellectual canons, colonized imaginaries, neoliberalism in education, and the curriculum of gender and sexuality). Drawing from, and building upon, a wide variety of literature (e.g. Black feminist thought, endarkened feminist epistemology, afrofuturism, democratic education, imagination, critical theory, experiential learning, anti-neoliberalism in education, queer theory, critical youth studies), these researchers use Black speculative fiction (Butler, 1993; Bell, 1992; Thomas, 2000; Brown & Imarisha, 2015; Gumbs, 2015; Allen & Cherelle, 2019), speculative essay (Nicholson, 2016; Schubert, 1991; Weston & Block-Schulman, 2020) enhanced with arts-related methods (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Eisner, 2004; Greene, 1997), and bricolage (Lévi-Strauss, 2021/1962; Kincheloe & Berry, 2004; Kincheloe, McLaren, & Steinberg, 2012) as innovative methods for interrupting unacceptable contexts and envisioning alternative futures. Through Black speculative fiction, possibility, reclamation, and wholeness are explored, shifting the focus from dominant institutions and practices to alternative ways of knowing, imagining, and thriving for the past, present, and future. Black women are centered, and insights and implications that span the intersectional existence of many and could lead to the liberation of formal and informal educational institutions and curricula are produced. Leaning into speculative essay as a creative mode for expressing resistance, dominant perceptions regarding the givenness of neoliberalism in education (standardization, in particular) are explored, interrogated, and imagined as otherwise, and arts-related methods (e.g. collage, palimpsest) are discussed as imaginative methods for cultivating experiential pathways for meaning-making. Through bricolage, the ways that popular cultures represent queerness within historical formations of youth, the teen film, streaming television, and youth participatory cultures are probed and braided to uncover the cultural anxieties adults have around youth gender and sexuality and how these anxieties produce a curriculum of gender and sexuality.
Presentation Description
N/A
Location
Room 2
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Cooper, Khristian; Cramsey, Andrea; and Weeks, Thomas, "Inequitable Narratives, and Speculating Otherwise: Nontraditional Dissertations as Disruption" (2025). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 31.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2025/2025/31
Inequitable Narratives, and Speculating Otherwise: Nontraditional Dissertations as Disruption
Room 2
In this panel discussion, a trio of researchers elaborate upon the possibilities their nontraditional dissertation inquiries have for disrupting inequitable narratives (e.g. westernized literaries and intellectual canons, colonized imaginaries, neoliberalism in education, and the curriculum of gender and sexuality). Drawing from, and building upon, a wide variety of literature (e.g. Black feminist thought, endarkened feminist epistemology, afrofuturism, democratic education, imagination, critical theory, experiential learning, anti-neoliberalism in education, queer theory, critical youth studies), these researchers use Black speculative fiction (Butler, 1993; Bell, 1992; Thomas, 2000; Brown & Imarisha, 2015; Gumbs, 2015; Allen & Cherelle, 2019), speculative essay (Nicholson, 2016; Schubert, 1991; Weston & Block-Schulman, 2020) enhanced with arts-related methods (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Eisner, 2004; Greene, 1997), and bricolage (Lévi-Strauss, 2021/1962; Kincheloe & Berry, 2004; Kincheloe, McLaren, & Steinberg, 2012) as innovative methods for interrupting unacceptable contexts and envisioning alternative futures. Through Black speculative fiction, possibility, reclamation, and wholeness are explored, shifting the focus from dominant institutions and practices to alternative ways of knowing, imagining, and thriving for the past, present, and future. Black women are centered, and insights and implications that span the intersectional existence of many and could lead to the liberation of formal and informal educational institutions and curricula are produced. Leaning into speculative essay as a creative mode for expressing resistance, dominant perceptions regarding the givenness of neoliberalism in education (standardization, in particular) are explored, interrogated, and imagined as otherwise, and arts-related methods (e.g. collage, palimpsest) are discussed as imaginative methods for cultivating experiential pathways for meaning-making. Through bricolage, the ways that popular cultures represent queerness within historical formations of youth, the teen film, streaming television, and youth participatory cultures are probed and braided to uncover the cultural anxieties adults have around youth gender and sexuality and how these anxieties produce a curriculum of gender and sexuality.
