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came to women's studies through my activist scholarship about
Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. One day I was visiting a
settlement school in Eastern Kentucky with my education students,
and while listening to teachers describe the economic reality
of the region, I understood the connection between feminism
and Freire's philosophy and pedagogy. From that experience
I was able to "perceive a previous perception" of
women's studies at Berea College, and decided to put my energy
into building an intellectually exciting program. I took
a brown bag lunch program (Peanut Butter and Gender) ,and
turned it into a popular invited speakers series with a reputation
for the best lunch in town. Students began to create independent
majors, and over a three year period, we had more women's
studies "majors" than many other departments. In
May 2001, the faculty voted to accept women's studies as
a new major in the curriculum. With the institutionalization
of the major, we have added two new courses to our core requirements,
and look forward to increasing the size of the women's studies
faculty in the near future.
The courses I currently teach in women's studies are
WST 124, Introduction to Women's Studies, WST 458, Senior
Seminar in Women's Studies, and WST 315, Classic Texts
in Women's Studies. In addition, I also teach a first year
required general studies course, GSTR 100 Stories: Journeys
in Personal Courage, and an upper level and GSTR 355, World
Issues Seminar, "A High Price to Pay: Women in the
Global Economy." Some of my most rewarding teaching
experiences have taken place outside the United States.
In 1995, I worked with CoCampion Communities to lead a
group of college students to El Salvador to help rebuild
a school. In 1997, I taught a course, "Knocking on
Debt's Door," in Nicaragua, with Witness for Peace.
I received a senior fulbright lectureship, and taught a
graduate seminar on the thought of Paulo Freire in the
faculty of Education at the University of Zimbabwe.
In addition to the classroom teaching, I have organized
faculty development programs for colleagues. In 1998, Rosemary
Radford Ruether and I co-led a travel seminar, "Gender
and Revolution," throughout Nicaragua, to study the
effects of the Sandanista revolution on women. In 2000,
I co-led another faculty travel seminar, "Globalization
and the Environment, "to the US/Mexican border, southern
Mexico, and Costa Rica.
My research interests have focused on the pedagogy of
Paulo Freire in Brazil, El Salvador, and Zimbabwe, using
the concept of "moral imagination" to see beyond
the US borders to include the perspectives of Freire's
marginalized others, or what are now referred to as the "excluded." More
recently, my study has shifted to the thought of economist
Franz Hinkelammert (Department of Ecumenical Investigations
in San Jose, Costa Rica).Using Hinkelammert's critique
of western civilization and present trends in globalization,
I co-authored a book, A Kinder and Gentler Tyranny: Illusions
of the New World Order, with Michael Rivage-Seul in 1995.Currently,
I am interested in sustainable community projects led by
women in various third world locations.
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