Barnard Anti-Racist Reading Group
Barnard Anti-Racist Reading Group
About the Antiracist Reading Group
The Barnard Antiracist Reading Group is intended to serve as a structured and intentional space for Barnard faculty to engage in antiracist work within the context of our disciplines and institutions. We meet once monthly during the fall and spring semesters, for approximately an hour and a half. Each meeting will focus on two or three texts on antiracist pedagogy, broadly conceived, and allow participants to think through connections between foundational texts in the field, more recent scholarship from various disciplines, and their own classroom and institutional practices. Discussions will be framed and gently guided by facilitators, and discussion questions will be made available ahead of time to participants.
We invite all who are craving and committed to doing meaningful antiracist work to our reading group. Our group is open to faculty from all disciplines. Click here to sign up for our listserv and get information on future reading group meetings. Please contact Alex Pittman (apittman@barnard.edu) with any questions.
Structure of the Reading Group
The reading group will meet once every month during the fall and spring semesters, for approximately an hour and a half on Zoom. Each session will have a facilitator, or facilitators, who will help frame and guide the discussion. We encourage participants to sign up to facilitate a session. Please contact Alex Pittman (apittman@barnard.edu) for more information.
Expectations for Participants and Facilitators
In order to have productive, engaged and grounded conversations, we ask that all participants commit to completing the readings ahead of time. We will make all readings and discussion questions available two weeks in advance.
Facilitators will be responsible for framing and guiding the discussion. They may also suggest readings for their session, or they can draw on our running list of potential texts. We also ask that the facilitator(s) describe why they chose the texts they did, including a brief (2-3 sentence) description of how and why one or more of the texts are foundational to their antiracist practice.
If you’re potentially interested in becoming a facilitator but have concerns/questions, we are happy to have a conversation with you. We will provide facilitators for a template with a framework for the session.
Antiracist Reading Group Working Syllabus
What does it mean to teach to transgress?
Ahmed, Sara. “Speaking About Racism.” On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life, Duke UP, 2012, 141-171.
Baldwin, James. “A Talk to Teachers.” James Baldwin: Collected Essays, edited by Toni Morrison, Library of America, 1998, 678-686.
hooks, bell. “Introduction” and “Engaged Pedagogy.” Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, Routledge, 2014. 1-22.
How do racist language politics shape the classroom?
Baker-Bell, April. “‘What’s Anti-Blackness Got to Do Wit It?’” Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity and Pedagogy, Routledge, 2020, 11-38.
Baldwin, James. “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” New York Times, 29 July 1979, https://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-english.html. Accessed 23 September 2020.
Jordan, June. “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan." Reading Culture: Contexts for Critical Reading and Writing, edited by Diana George and John Trimbur, New York: Pearson/Longman, 2007. 160-169.
Facilitator’s note: The readings for this month all focus on Black English; its history, its personal and political uses, and its pedagogical implications. Baldwin’s “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” explores the vital role language, and particularly Black English, plays in expressing the particularities of Black history and experience. In “Nobody Mean More To Me Than You and the Future life of Willie Jordan,” June Jordan brings together two narratives, one the story of how the students in her “The Art of Black English” class come to analyze, define and practice Black English, and the other of Willie Jordan, whose brother Reggie is murdered by the police. Together, these two readings serve as foundational texts for discussions of Black English and linguistic racism, and for April Baker-Bell’s chapter from Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy, which delves into the pedagogical aspects of antiracist language politics in the classroom. Reading all three together allows us to trace how discussions around Black English and antiracist pedagogies have evolved from the 1970s to the present. (D. Ula)
How can we collectively hold ourselves accountable for creating a learning environment and institution in which combats racism?
Jackson, Lauren Michele. "What is an Antiracist Reading List For?" New York Magazine June 4 2020
Lorde, Audre. "Age, Race, Class, Sex: Women Redefining Difference" Sister Outsider Berkeley: Crossing Press 1984
Lorde, Audre. "Proposal for Faculty Seminar at Hunter on Race;" a letter from her archives at Spelman College, published as part of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative
Facilitator's note: All of this month’s readings offer us ways of thinking about “difference”: what is necessary for changing racist structures and what obstacles prevent that kind of change. To me they also point to potential misdirections of anti-racist efforts: the palliative efforts of a list that doesn’t get read or is read as a project of self-improvement (Jackson), the energy drain of oppressed peoples being expected to educate those oppressing them (Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, Sex”), and/or the “that’s not me response” that avoids accountability for what happens at our institutions more broadly (Lorde’s letter to her Hunter colleagues).
The Lorde readings show us how these conversations are not new--within academia and beyond--and yet they continue to feel so relevant. I want to invite us to think about why the forces she describes have been so resistant to change. More specifically, in the introduction to the collection in which Lorde letter appears, the editors write that “She does not say that her colleagues are perpetuating these kinds of violations, but instead makes it clear that as long as such a list can exist, no one is doing their job properly” (8). In this session, I hope we’ll think about what this might mean for us as individuals at an institution.
What are the racial politics of grammar?
Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. “the problem with the passive past tense” Black Perspectives July 10, 2018.
Inoue, Asao B. “Is Grammar Racist?”
Young, Vershawn Ashanti. “Should Writers Use They Own English?” Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies 12, issue 1 (2010): pp. 110-118.
Facilitator's note: This set of readings was inspired by students expressing the pain they feel and how they experience Academic Standard English, which they (along with faculty) often conflate with the term 'grammar.'" Thus, in this context, grammar stands in, not simply as a set of skills, but as something that centers whiteness. The question we ask today is, now that they’ve said this, how are we accountable?
Cite Black Barnard Faculty Cite-a-Thon
In February 2021, for Black History Month, we hosted a Cite Black Barnard Faculty (CBBF) Cite-a-Thon. 17 participants (students, faculty, and staff) joined to engage with a list of suggested texts in multiple media by Black Barnard faculty. After a brief introduction to the CBBF resource, participants had time to read, watch, or listen to the materials selected from the suggested list. They then drafted annotations--these annotations primarily center around how the texts could be used in the classroom; the entries provide not only abstracts or descriptions, but practical guidance on possible uses. The Cite-a-Thon was covered in the Columbia Daily Spectator. The facilitators are currently seeking funding to continue to host cite-a-thons each semester.
Cite Black Barnard Resource
This shared resource is designed to recognize the contributions Black Barnard faculty members have made to scholarship, public intellectual life, and the arts. The guiding principles for this resource come from The Cite Black Women Collective, though it will also include non-women-identifying Barnard faculty. The idea emerged out of the work of the CEP's 2020 Summer Pedagogy Symposium and the Antiracist Reading Group.
We invite faculty, staff, and students to contribute to this resource, using this form.
For an example of the kind of blurb you might write, see the citation gallery on the Cite Black Barnard Website: https://citeblackbarnard.com/citation-gallery. (Please note that the resource currently lists only those who have agreed to be featured; please email awatson@barnard.edu if you’d like to be included).