Fookn Conversation - Talking About “Academicky” Stuff

In this fifth episode, Dr. Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Aparna Mishra-Tarc, an Associate Professor at York University. During their conversation, Dr. Mishra-Tarc shares her perspectives on the pedagogical figures of the “teacher” and "child" in relation to the COVID-19 Pandemic. She discusses her new book Pedagogy in the Novels of J.M. Coetzee: The Affects of Literature. She addresses some of the following concepts: pedagogy, psychical dimensions of our inner life, object-relations theory, our curricular attachments to knowledge, autobiographical writing, revolt, relational violence, reparation, thinking and being thoughtless, symbolizing unbearable feelings, affect, ethics of humility, love of literature, grief, and so much more.

In this fourth episode, Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Vidya Shah, an Assistant Professor at York University committed to equity and justice. During their conversation, Dr. Shah shares her perspectives on leadership and systemic inequities in relation to our lived experiences with the COVID-19 Pandemic. She addresses some of the following concepts: educational leadership, settler colonialism, disproportionate racialized impacts of systemic inequities during a global crisis, the importance of collecting identity-based data, invisiblizing whiteness, intersecting impacts of racializations, access, opportunity gaps, questioning privilege, social justice, critical pedagogy, equity empires, identity-based data, Socially Engaged Buddhism, attachment, dis-identification, learning versus schooling, sustaining community partnerships and relationships, youth, curriculum and so much more.

In this third episode, Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Hongyu Wang, a curriculum scholar at Oklahoma State University. In 2019, she was the recipient of the OSU-Tulsa President’s Outstanding Teaching Award. During their conversation, Dr. Wang shares her perspectives on nonviolence education in relation to our current lived experiences. She addresses some of the following concepts: systemic inequities, neoliberal drive to compete, cross-cultural journeys in China and the United States, life history research, currere, teaching nonviolence education as a positive life force, interconnectedness, interdependence, Carl Jung’s archetypes, collective consciousness, and shadow work, psychic integration, personhood, poststructuralism, relationality, and so much more.

In this second episode, Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Lindsay Gibson, an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. Prior to his work in higher education, he taught secondary school history and social studies within the Kelowna public schooling system for twelve years.

During their conversation, Lindsay shares his perspectives on what we might learn from the discipline of history education in relation to the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic and COVID-19. He addresses some of the following concepts: trauma, equity, historical thinking, historical consciousness, virtual reality, construction of historical representations, teaching ethical judgement, historical harms, and Twitter curation.

In this first episode, Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Dwayne Donald who is a descendent of the Papachase Cree. Dwayne works as an Associate Professor within the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. During their conversation, Dwayne shares his perspectives on the current material, political, and spiritual contexts of living in social isolation and how it might provide an opportunity for us to rethink what it might mean to live well as human beings. He addresses some of the following concepts: nehiyaw concepts of 4, balance, unlearning, ethical relationality, treaty education, and serving as an oskâpêwis (an Elder’s helper).