Black Women in America is an upper-division elective course for students majoring in African American or women's studies at California State University Fullerton (CSUF). The author has taught this course at CSUF at least once a year since 2002 and have changed the course readings, lectures, and assignments on a regular basis. In April 2007,…

Whether teaching undergraduate or graduate classes, the author integrates lesser-known women poets as part of the inquiry, not as curiosities, but as opportunities to discover something in the "raw" as contemporaries might have done. That the author's courses focus on or include in a substantial way the work of women is important, but does not by…

Feminist pedagogy implies performing some kind of feminist teaching practices, while at the same time contesting the very possibility of performing such practices. One needs to start out from the assumption that only what cannot be foreseen will enable one not just to overcome resistance to feminist knowledge and teaching but also to make such…

Everyone is in the midst of an explosion in the popularity of knitting. Shifting the traditional stereotype of what a knitter should be, the youth of today have taken up knitting as a tactile and embodied form of connectivity. In a rapidly changing and unpredictable world, characterized by, among other factors, the unprecedented expansion of…

In the authors' experience, most instructors have dealt with a student "crisis" in some form. When a paper is late, an assignment incomplete, an exam missed, or a lecture skipped, students seeking special accommodations from instructors frequently share (often unsolicited) intimate details about their personal lives. College instructors are…

The goal of this paper is to raise awareness about systems of oppression and privilege, as related to ability and disability in the classroom, and to provide tools to create instructional and institutional transformation. Feminist analyses of privilege, oppression, and intersectionality provide a framework for looking at the diverse experiences of…

Like any good story, the Sufi tale places the listener squarely in the midst of life; that is, precisely where learning takes place. The tale pointed out that learning can be both exhilarating and painful. In college classrooms, teachers (and their students) are spared neither of these emotions when they engage in the learning process. In this…

Addresses what service learning is, how it can advance activism, and why service learning should be incorporated in a course on women and violence. Describes the project, the Hate Crimes Service Learning Project (San Diego, California), undertaken in a Women and Violence course in spring 1998. (CMK)

Explores the reasons why higher education must incorporate gender and multicultural scholarship and perspectives into the curriculum. Argues for the type of multiculturalism that focuses on identifying and deconstructing privilege and hierarchy. Discusses teaching strategies for multiculturalism as critical thinking. (CMK)

Teacher authority is wielded in such a way that it is no longer "the" authority. Authority is used to open a space for students to find their own authority through speaking and writing--through voice. This process, so central to the feminist classroom, leads to the goals of feminist pedagogy as articulated by Robbin Crabtree and David Alan Sapp:…

Several theoretical and pragmatic questions arise when one attempts to employ feminist pedagogy in the classroom (or to study it), such as how to strike a balance between classroom order and instructor de-centering and how to productively address student resistance. In this article, the author describes how she took on her final project for a…

The stakes are high for feminist teachers. Susan A. Basow, Nancy T. Silberg, Kathryn Duncan, Michael Stasio, and others have reported disturbing findings regarding the discrepancy between student evaluations of male professors and female professors. Professors who have identified themselves as feminists or committed to practicing feminist…

Examines three factors contributing to the perceived hostility toward women on university campuses dominated by science and engineering programs. Considers student resistance to direct instruction on gender issues and strategies for overcoming their resistance. Describes two courses that successfully used project-based learning to raise gender…

Examines the ways in which authority and power operate in the classroom. Uses two metaphors to describe the poles of classroom dynamics (the love-relationship and the battlefield model). Suggests that the processes of writing and reading as interpretation and discovery can act as a more suggestive instructional model. (CMK)

Discusses students' reactions to rage focusing on their responses to bell hooks' collection of essays, "Killing Rage." Believes that by studying postcolonial responses to rage feminist teachers can learn how to responsibly articulate and respond to rage. Considers postcolonial and western feminist responses to rage and addresses using socially…