Transpedagogies: A roundtable dialogue

V Muñoz, EK Garrison - WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 2008 - muse.jhu.edu
V Muñoz, EK Garrison
WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 2008muse.jhu.edu
At the Kitchen tAble (AgAin) The eleven participants in this roundtable submitted their work
for consideration to the editors of this issue of WSQ. Rather than include just one essay from
authors, the editors wondered how it would work to include a group of authors who had
proposed to tackle trans-focused pedagogical issues within women's studies. The editors
invited us to moderate this “textual conversation” with the understanding that one of our
mandates was to imagine practical ways to produce this more experimental form. To make …
At the Kitchen tAble (AgAin) The eleven participants in this roundtable submitted their work for consideration to the editors of this issue of WSQ. Rather than include just one essay from authors, the editors wondered how it would work to include a group of authors who had proposed to tackle trans-focused pedagogical issues within women’s studies. The editors invited us to moderate this “textual conversation” with the understanding that one of our mandates was to imagine practical ways to produce this more experimental form. To make space for the multiplications and unexpected convergences to pop out of this dialogue, we adopted the term “transpedagogies” as a coalitional concept that includes transsexual, transgender, and gender/queer pedagogical perspectives. While it is imperfect, we are excited by the outcome, as the results reflect a community effort to create a dialogical space that invites further participation. From our first readings of research-based abstracts, we identified a series of themes through which to frame ideas for how this varied group of participants might be placed in conversation with each other. The themes that emerged were named thus: Feminist Trans-Masculinities/Femininities; TransCrossings: Cultures and Histories; Transgendering Male Privilege: Transguys in Feminist and Women’s Studies; Transdisciplinary Work in the Academy; Making the Body In/Visible in the Classroom; and Transforming Women’s Studies. With these themes as a jumping-off point, all the authors and coauthors wrote individual statements grounded in their teaching, scholarship, experiences, and theoretical affiliations. Subsequently, the authors and coauthors provided written shorter responses to two of the statements. And, finally, the authors and coauthors responded briefly to the responses written about their own statements. We compiled everyone’s writing and sent the completed
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