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Archive for November, 2005

November 21, 2005

Swisher, Karen Gayton. “Why Indian People Should Be the Ones to Write about Indian Education,” American Indian Quarterly. 20.1 (1996), 83-90.

November 21st 2005 Posted to Native American

In this article Swisher argues that, while many attempts have been made to research the unique needs of Indian students in schools, “much research is still presented from an outsider’s perspective” (83). Swisher claims that non-Indian researchers cannot accurately represent life on the reservations, the struggle for recognition and the importance of preserving the language and culture of indigenous tribes. “If non-Indian educators have been involved in Indian education because they believe in Indian people and want them to be empowered,” she writes, “they must now demonstrate that belief by stepping aside” (85). (Read the article)

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November 17, 2005

Williams, Patricia J. “On Being the Object of Property (a gift of intelligent rage).” The Alchemy of Race and Rights. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991. 216-236.

November 17th 2005 Posted to Race and the Academic Institution, Critical Race Theory and Pedagogy, Race, Gender and Sexuality, Pedagogy and Mixed Race, African American, Court & Policy Issues

Utilizing a combination of feminist personal narrative and legal discourse, Williams analyzes how contract law and the legal institution exercise a “deadening power” by creating in the individual “a passive relationship to the document: it is the contract that governs, that ‘does’ everything, that absorbs all responsibility and deflects all other recourse.” (224) She explores in particular how this quality of contract negatively affects those who have been institutionally (and thus legally) formulated as inferior: people of color and women. (Read the article)

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November 14, 2005

Suleri, Sara. “Women Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition.” Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Ed. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1998. 116-125.

November 14th 2005 Posted to Race and the Academic Institution, Race, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Globalization, The Academy

In the context of the culture wars of the mid-1990s, Suleri calls for a reassessment of the terms under which we study gender and race, particularly as it is manifested in the discourse of postcolonial feminism. While Suleri is highly critical and ultimately dismissive of the popular contention that the academy is ceding itself solely to the issues of marginalized groups in the name of “political correctness,” she argues that it is necessary for academics to critique the very discourses under attack from the media. (Read the article)

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November 3, 2005

Giroux, Henry A. “Insurgent Multiculturalism and the Promise of Pedagogy,” Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader. Ed. David Theo Goldberg. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994, 325-343.

November 03rd 2005 Posted to Critical Race Theory and Pedagogy, The Academy

In this article Giroux argues that both conservative and liberal forms of multiculturalism do not go far enough to expose white racism and promote social justice. Whether in the classroom, the corporation or in the political arena, multicultural discourse tends to essentialize minority cultures and ignore underlying power structures. Giroux proposes a form of “insurgent multiculturalism” that would “strip white supremacy of its legitimacy and authority” (326). According to Giroux, schools and institutions of higher learning should use this “insurgent” version of multiculturalism as a “tool for critical understanding and the pluralizing of differences; it must also be used as an ethical and political referent which allows teachers and students to understand how power works in the interest of dominant social relations, and how such relations can be challenged and transformed” (337). (Read the article)

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