Curriculum Theory: Curriculum as a field of study is both complex and diverse with multiple perspectives and approaches. This course will examine the field by looking at curriculum not as a technical document, but as a social process. The course will introduce various theoretical discourses in the field of curriculum (including pragmatist, feminist, poststructural, political, postmodern, phenomenological) and the representative works of several influential curriculum theorists (Dewey, Tyler, Freire, Apple). Students are expected to acquire a working knowledge of contemporary curriculum thought, its historical antecedents, and be able to articulate a position, however temporary, where they find themselves within the field.

Postcolonialism, Globalization, and Education: Postcolonial thought addresses the effects of colonialism – in terms of the exploitation of the material and human resources of one nation by another, and the apparent divides between “East” and “West,” the “Global South” and the “Global North.” It also addresses issues of race, culture, gender, language, body, and psyche (see, for instance, Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks). Globalization engages economic and informational interchanges in hyperdigitized, transnational, twenty-first century contexts. Again, issues of identity, culture, privilege, and the circulation of power come into play.
So, in this class we consider: How are postcolonialism and globalization relevant to education? Why study them in conjunction? How is this study relevant to the challenges and possibilities for transformation in local, national, and global contexts of education? To rethinking curriculum and pedagogy in relation to ever-increasing (or so it seems) diversity and difference?
We will draw on postcolonial and feminist thought, as well as engage in analyses of film and fiction/memoir, as we consider these questions and discuss implications for theory, research, and practice at all levels of education. Core readings include the works of Avatar Brah, Rey Chow, Frantz Fanon, bell hooks, Cameron McCarthy, Trinh Minh-ha. We will also engage films (such as Strange Fruit, Real Women have Curves, Bend it like Beckham) and novels (such as Slumdog Millionaire, Funny Boy).

Curriculum & College Teaching: This course will examine and problematize issues related to curriculum and teaching in higher education institutions in the United States. Throughout our analysis, we will continually be asking the questions: a. what are the multiple values represented in higher education? b. How are each of these values related to preferred teaching and learning strategies/choices; how is knowledge constructed and disrupted through curricular and pedagogical choices; c. what new possibilities for teaching and learning can we, and other educational leaders, construct; and finally d. which current curricular strategies/forms would we like to disrupt? This quick paced and interactive course is geared less toward discussing specific methods of curriculum development and teaching and more towards interrogating and understanding the rationales that support certain methods.

Introduction to Feminist Theory: What we do as scholars is inflected intellectually, pedagogically, and institutionally by gender. In this seminar we'll explore how and why that happens through an interdisciplinary analysis of feminist theory. The first third of the class will be a brief survey of modern feminist theory. We'll then consider in more depth how thinkers identified as "feminist" may varyingly support, repudiate, or modify standard thinking--whether canonical or feminist--on key issues. Discussion format, a journal entry for each class, several short essays, 15-20 pp. final essay, and a class presentation. Whenever possible, projects will be related to students' fields of training and research interests.

Topics in Literacy Studies – Special Topic: Ethnographies of Literacy: This seminar combines the study of a particular qualitative research methodology - ethnography - with examinations of how this methodology functions within the field of social literacies. Literacy studies is an ideal discipline for ethnographic methods, in that its attention to specific, situated practices requires researchers capable of immersing themselves in communities of practice in order to elicit insider understandings of particular ways of reading and writing. In this class, students will study ethnographic methodologies, including interviewing, data collection, working with human subjects, etc. We will read a number of ethnographies focusing on reading and writing practices in specific social contexts, and each student will develop a research project that incorporates ethnographic methods.