Fookn Conversation - Talking About “Academicky” Stuff

In Episode 35 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Carl E. James who holds the Jean Augustine Chair in Education and is the Senior Advisor on Equity and Representation in the Office of the Vice President of Equity, People and Culture at York University. Dr. Carl E. James draws on the intersectionality of race with ethnicity, gender, class, and citizenship to discuss the lived experiences of marginalized community members. We discussed some of the following issues: negotiating the 4th wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Colour Matters, different sociological research methods, longitudinal impacts, being a 1.5 generation Canadian citizen, negotiating the neoliberal individual, structural and societal materialisms of anti-black racisms, enabling and disabling Black youth within public schooling and higher education, disrupting the web of “at risk” stereotypes, migration to outer suburbs and implications, agency, and so much more.

In Episode 34 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Paul Tarc is an Associate Professor at Western University. Dr. Paul Tarc draws on post-informed theories of representation, ethics, and cosmopolitan critical literacies to share his insights and feelings about the COVID-19 Pandemic. We discussed some of the following issues: negotiating the pandemic at home and work, neoliberal elite economic conceptions of higher education as revenue generation institutions, teaching overseas, internationalization, transnationalism, international students, cosmopolitan literacies, relations of power, privilege, nation-state and university branding, teacher education, troubling the limits of claiming criticality, education without guarantees, tempering social justice pedagogical motivations, and so much more.

In Episode 33 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Taliaferro Baszile, an Associate Dean of Diversity and Student Experience and Professor of Curriculum & Cultural Studies in the Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University. Dr. Taliaferro Baszile, draws on black feminist, critical race, and curriculum theories to share her insights and feelings about the COVID-19 Pandemic. We discussed some of the following issues: living as a family and higher education leader during a Pandemic, ideological failures of Democracy, teaching freedom in the language of oppression, re/curricularizing “the” standard “White American” curriculum, enacting protest within the space out of love, reimagining a world beyond a narratively condemned status, Ellisonian eyes, ontoepistemological qualities of a free mind, currere, Bergamo, and so much more.

In Episode 31 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Sean Carleton, an Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation. Dr. Sean Carleton, draws on the fields of history, settler colonial studies, economics, and education to share his insights on the historical contexts of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Truth, and then Reconciliation Education. We discussed some of the following issues: Canadian Federal election, colonial logics of elimination, nationalistic racist representations in history textbooks, history of schooling in British Columbia, settler denial and anxiety, role of historians, schools, and Church in supporting the colonial project, media, meaningful nation-to-nation relations, Idle No More, and so much more.

In Episode 31 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Michael Cappello, an Associate Professor at the University of Regina. Dr. Cappello draws on educational core studies and anti-oppressive education to share his insights on people’s diverse lived experiences with the COVID-19 Pandemic, in relation to Treaty 4, and “It’s ok to be (Against) White(ness).” We discussed some of the following issues: neoliberal politics and economics of a pandemic, global inequities accessing COVID-19 vaccines, a settler colonial worldview and ideologies of capitalism, race and racisms, racialized systems of advantage, whiteness and its systemic inclusive privileges, unsettling stories of dominance, reimagining citizenship and restorying (restoring) our treaty relations, intergenerational impacts of the Indian Residential Schooling system, legacy of state sponsored policing, troubling token land acknowledgements, Federal election, and so much more.

In Episode 30 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Erin Jessee, a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow. Dr. Jessee draws on oral historical and ethnographic methods to share her insights on people’s diverse lived experiences with genocide, mass atrocities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic.
We discussed some of the following issues: living and working in Glasgow, forensic archeology, anthropology, and oral history research methods, mass grave exhumations, human rights violations, differing conceptions of justice and reconciliation in relation to a post-genocide Rwandan context, ethical and political dilemmas, privileged and/or excluded voices, transference, mental health, well-being, and minimizing harm, the limits of oral history, normalizing systemic violence and harms, examining one’s complicity, trauma-informed pedagogies, her co-authored graphic novel Nyiragitwa: Daughter of Sacyega, and so much more.

In Episode 29 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Petra Munro Hendry, an Endowed Professor Emeritus of the St. Bernard Chapter of the Louisiana State University Alumni Association. Dr. Munro Hendry draws on curriculum studies, history, and philosophy to share her wisdom on the practice of history in relation to the COVID-19 Pandemic, curriculum history, and a history of education from a transatlantic perspective. We discussed some of the following issues: the labour of writing, the inhumane “academy,” scientism, dis-ease with fear, militarization of modern medicine, distancing trauma, viral epistemology of love, compassion, macro and micro historical entanglements, intra-actions, assemblages of trans-Atlantic educational spaces, rogue curriculum, creole pedagogies of enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples, Haitian revolution, counterpublics, moral equality, a universal global community, reimagining conceptions of the “educated” citizen, and so much more.

In Episode 28 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. John Weaver, a Professor of Curriculum Studies at Georgia Southern University. Dr. Weaver draws on his interdisciplinary intellectual work on science, curriculum, and democracy to share his philosophical insights on our lived experiences inside and outside the “university” before, during, and after COVID-19. We discussed some of the following issues: providing essential services to the public, rhetoric of science, economics, reimagining the “university” beyond intellectual traps and administrative busywork, anti-intellectualism, limits of boustrophedonic writing, becoming active in political life, addressing error, art of creating vaccinations, illusions of order and certainty, a critique of science education, science fiction and its speculative insights, perspectivalism, and so much more.

In Episode 27 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Cindy Blackstock, a member of the Gitxsan First Nation and the Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society (FNCFCS). Dr. Blackstock, a Professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University, draws on her interdisciplinary research, Indigenous theories, and social justice advocacy to share insights on the ongoing intergenerational systemic inequities for First Nations children and youth. We discussed some of the following issues: Canada’s inequitable provisions of First Nations child and family services, Mosquito Activism, social movements, moral courage and love, Breath of Life Theory, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal recommendations, Jordan’s Principle, media, TRC Calls to Action, Spirit Bear, the FNCFCS campaigns, and so much more.

In Episode 26 Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Walter S. Gershon an Associate Professor of Critical Foundations of Education at Rowan University. Dr. Walter S. Gershon draws on curriculum, sensory and sound studies to share insights in relation to the COVID-19 Pandemic and systemic racisms. We discussed some of the following issues: accessibility to COVID-19 vaccinations, Sound Arts-Based Research (SABR), sonic theorizing, reverberations and resonances, confluences of being a musician and educational researcher, hearing and mishearing, Ridiculous White Institutions, policing normalcy, historical narrative wars, Franklin Bobbitt and legacy of Eugenics, everyday Afrosurreal experiences, Critical Race Theory, institutional violence, ethical dilemmas collaborating with communities, and so much more.