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Accepted Paper:

Disrupting Binaries Through Queer Feminist Spirituality: Sentipensante, Conocimiento and Radical Pedagogies at the Intersection of Gender and Folklore Studies   
Andrea Glass (University of Delaware)

Paper Short Abstract:

This presentation will facilitate dialogue on intentionally creating spaces that are interdisciplinary, intersectional, and application based, with a strong emphasis on queer, feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial pedagogies. I will use a lesson I teach on queer feminist spirituality and deconstructing spiritual binaries as a case study to demonstrate this and my work as a spiritual activist. I will draw upon Laura Rendón’s latest edition of Sentipensante (Sensing / Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice, and Liberation (2023), Gloria Anzaldúa's “conocimiento,” and my personal experiences to show how I am able to co-create and co-construct knowledge with my students, connect what we are doing inside the classroom to lived experience and social justice, and facilitate open dialogue that centers marginalized experiences and communities.

Paper Abstract:

Working with feminist scholars, and participating in conferences such as El Mundo Zurdo, was instrumental in my ability to implement radical pedagogical approaches in the classroom. As a folklorist and Americanist with an appointment in Women and Gender Studies, I intentionally create spaces that are interdisciplinary, intersectional, and application based, with a strong emphasis on queer, feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial pedagogies.

My classes in Sexuality Studies are not limited to one method, framework or discipline. I dismantle socially constructed binaries, evaluate power dynamics, and assess how structural racism, colonization, capitalism, and patriarchal and heteronormative frameworks influence our ways of living, being, doing and thinking. I will use a lesson I teach on queer feminist spirituality and deconstructing spiritual binaries to demonstrate this and my work as a spiritual activist.

I will speak to how queer feminist spaces allowed me to heal my own traumas and self-reflect, as well as build a community of engaged learners in classes. Laura Rendón’s latest edition of Sentipensante (Sensing / Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice, and Liberation (2023) includes a revolutionary chapter that connects "sentipensante" with Gloria Anzaldúa's “conocimiento.” This chapter greatly informs my work as a feminist educator and scholar. Both Anzaldúa and Rendón’s work encouraged me to look inward at my own personal experiences so that I was able to co-create and co-construct knowledge with my students, connect what we are doing inside the classroom to lived experience and social justice, and facilitate open dialogue that centers marginalized experiences and communities.

Panel Know15
Unwritten feminine education [WG: Feminist Approaches to Ethnology and Folklore] [WG: Cultural Perspectives on Education and Learning]
  Session 2