Week 8 poor queer studies

The field of queer studies is not excluded in classism; it overlooks scholars who have attended graduate or undergraduate schools that are not in the few top programs. Only those attached to the field’s prominent and privileged thinkers can be seen. It is sad to think that most women and queer scholars of color will not “write their way out of anywhere.” Most poor queer studies students will not leave an impact on the discipline like students in rich queer studies at elite institutions. However, it may be ‘poor queer studies’ that do more to translate and apply these transformative ideas into the real world, since it is the poor working-class students that go onto the non-academic workforce and community. They teach beyond the classroom, bringing queer studies to their coworkers, their family and friends. Mothers in queer studies want to bring the knowledge they learned in the classroom to their children and family. They are doing queer pedagogy in their own roles in life.

I wonder how the shift to distance learning through zoom, has affected these students., now that there is a lack of distance between the student and their home/family.

2 thoughts on “Week 8 poor queer studies

  1. Katina Rogers (she/her)

    Thank you for this reflection, Jess. I’d be very curious to hear your answer to your own question, too, on whether and how the shift to learning at home has affected you. For instance, I know that sometimes your siblings are nearby. Do you find that changes the way you work, listen, read, think? In what ways?

  2. Matt Brim

    Jess,

    I’m happy you mentioned students taking queer studies out into the workforce. This question was most difficult for me to confront when I knew my students would be going into jobs where queer knowledge may not be welcome and may in fact become dangerous knowledge. One of the examples I use in chapter 3 (pp. 112-113) is a student who went from CSI into the police academy, and as you can imagine, that presents the queer studies professor with a set of pedagogical questions that are not easily resolved.

    Matt

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