The Poetics & Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde &Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College w/ DANICA SAVONICK

The Poetics & Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde &Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College w/ DANICA SAVONICK

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A Conversation with DANICA SAVONICK about her book Open Admissions: The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College

As I was reading Hooks and Freire, a colleague recommended Adrian Rich's essay "Teaching Language in Open Admissions." It was in that essay that I first read about her experiences teaching at CUNY during open admissions, learning that she taught alongside June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Toni Cade Bambara. Eventually, that essay led me to their archival teaching materials. I was really excited because I found in those materials concrete teaching methods, things they were doing in their own classrooms that I then started trying in my classrooms as well. I also really liked their educational philosophies, thinking about what it means for college to be free and the fact that they were teaching during this revolutionary era. What would that look like today? What would it mean? What could free college bring to our society? What does free college make possible? All of those things coming together led me to the project.

(Highlights) ASHLEY DAWSON

(Highlights) ASHLEY DAWSON

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Author of People’s Power, Extreme Cities, Extinction
Professor of Postcolonial Studies at City University of New York

The political struggle is really hard today and I feel like we haven't been winning, but I think it's important not to think of this as either we win it, or there's catastrophe and that's the end. We win or lose, and there’s this big tidal wave that kills us all. That's not the way the climate crisis is going to play out. It’s going to be a long, slow, attritional crisis punctuated by forms of natural disaster that will decimate populations, but it's also going to be something that people will be impacted by for generations and that people will continue to mobilize around, so I think it's important to keep that in mind.

ASHLEY DAWSON

ASHLEY DAWSON

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Author of People’s Power, Extreme Cities, Extinction
Professor of Postcolonial Studies at City University of New York

The political struggle is really hard today and I feel like we haven't been winning, but I think it's important not to think of this as either we win it, or there's catastrophe and that's the end. We win or lose, and there’s this big tidal wave that kills us all. That's not the way the climate crisis is going to play out. It’s going to be a long, slow, attritional crisis punctuated by forms of natural disaster that will decimate populations, but it's also going to be something that people will be impacted by for generations and that people will continue to mobilize around, so I think it's important to keep that in mind.