Publications and Presentations

An (updating) list of scholarly and creative publications and presentations.

Academic Publications

Link “You Have Forever Changed My Life”: The Need for Academic Rigor in Teaching Humanities in a Global Society (co-author Alexis Brooks de Vita, Ph.D.) Abstract Teaching Humanities to an increasingly globalized, diverse and non-traditional student body needs to inculcate and develop what Kysilka has called thinking skills, to equip students to approach material and concepts that may seem challenging and unfamiliar. Educators may benefit from employing the approaches Gardner has developed in his theory of Multiple Intelligences, to maximally engage students with widely differing academic exposures and skills. Reader Response journaling allows students to explore and engage with unfamiliar texts. Twenty-first-century educators need to be prepared to assess student success less by testing content acquisition and theory repetition than by evaluating student development of analytical strengths and mastery of the skills of analytical performance.
Link “Made into Nothing: Surviving Multifaceted Vulnerability” The Maroon Journal, 2019.
Link "Wiz Kids: An Exploration of Pedagogy in the World of Harry Potter, from Remus Lupin’s Differentiated Reconstructionism to Dolores Umbridge’s Discipline-Focused Essentialism" Abstract The enchanted campus of Hogwarts presents the professional educator with a virtual teaching lab. In the Harry Potter films the Hogwarts classrooms vividly mirror the varied pedagogic approaches and philosophies of teaching found in real world schools. Hogwarts’ instructional methods range from Aristotelian Essentialism to experimental Constructivism, a self-directed educational approach in which students identify and develop their own personal and academic interests, to high-pressure inquiry-based learning, explained and exemplified by the theories and methodologies developed by scholars such as John Dewey, Jean Piaget Paulo Freire, and Lev Vygotsky. Hogwarts’ students are exposed to lecture-filled History of Magic classes, homework-heavy Arithmancy and don’t-touch-the-gryffon-before-you-get-his-permission fieldwork. Just as educational ideologies have been developed to address the issues and meet the needs of real-world societies, Hogwarts, like the real world that is a testing ground for these conflicting ideologies to be applied, must allow these methodologies’ results to play out so that the most effective of them can survive and spread their influence. This chapter examines the pedagogic methods and behaviors of notable Hogwarts professors as well as their effects on students’ learning and success, both within Hogwarts and beyond, in its larger magical world. The goal of this analysis is the comparative study of how accurately applied real-world educational philosophies and practices are in the films of Harry Potter, in order better to understand the consequences of such pedagogic practices in the real world (or “Muggle Educational Systems” as they’re known in this world). In short, this chapter examines how education works at Hogwarts.
Link Book Review: Frances Smith Foster. ‘Til Death or Distance Do Us Part: Love and Marriage in African America, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. In CLA Journal, Vol. 56, No. 3, March 2013.
Link “African American College Preparation through Reading in Secondary Schools” The Griot, Vol. 34, No. 2, Fall 2015.
Link “Without Mouths”: Director’s Observation of the Focus on Communication and Destruction in William Shakespeare’s Othello IUSB, May 2007.
Link “Abiku Babies: Spirit Children and Human Bonding in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak!, and Tina McElroy Ansa’s Baby of the Family” The Griot, Vol. 24, Number 1, Spring 2005.
Link “Beloved and Betrayed: Survival and Authority in Kindred” The Griot, Vol. 22, Number 1, Spring 2003.

Creative Publications

Link “My Bogeyman.” Tales in Firelight and Shadow, Double Dragon Publishing/Blood Moon Publishing, 2014.
Link “Cacie’s Prism.” Love and Darker Passions, Double Dragon Publishing/Blood Moon Publishing, 2012.
Link Poems included in anthologies Forced from the Garden: Poetry and Short Prose by Women. Leon Knight, editor, Robbinsdale, MN: Guild Press, 2003. Full Circle Twenty-Three: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose. Leon Knight, editor, Robbinsdale: Guild Press, 2002. Full Circle Twenty-Two: Poetry and Prose. Ginny Knight, editor, Robbinsdale: Guild Press, 2001.

Presentations

Link “Maggots and Tomato Worms: Impotence and Violence in Coraline and The 1855 Murder Case of Missouri versus Celia, an Enslaved Woman" UHD 12th Annual Gender Conference, University of Houston—Downtown, April 2019.
Link “Increasing student knowledge and improving GPAs with inclusive and culturally responsive textbooks.” Research Week 2019, Texas Southern University, March, 2019.
Link “The Glass Ceiling in the Ivory Tower: An African American woman scholar examines de facto limitations in United States academia.” UHD 11th Annual Gender Conference, University of Houston—Downtown, April 2018.
Link “Let Me Tell You a Story: Mr. Nancy’s Narrative Therapy and Critical Pedagogy in Starz's American Gods.” International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, March 2018.
Link “That’ll Teach You: Mentoring as the Corruption of Innocence in Black Butler, Black Mirror, Dr. Who, and Hex.” International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, March 2016.
Link “Bigger on the Inside: A Humanistic Reconstructionist Approach to the Project-Based Educations of the Companions of Doctor Who.” International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, March 2015.
Link “The Suppression of Sub-Saharan Homo-Sapiens’ Intelligence” College Language Association Convention, New Orleans, March 2014.
Link “Seeing the Unspeakable: Symbiotic Maturation through the Reading of Graphic Novels” ICFA, Orlando, March 2013.
Link “Engaging Students as Multi-literate Scholars” HCC Annual Faculty Conference—“All Tech Considered: Navigating Through Multiliteracies.” Houston, February 2013.
Link “WHO is the Monster: Profiling Dr. Who as Antivillain or Antihero” ICFA, Orlando, March 2012.
Link “The Story Re-Teller: The Narrator as Trickster in Tarsem's The Cell and The Fall, Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland” ICFA, Orlando, March 2011.
Link “’You Have Forever Changed My Life’: Journaling through the Required Reading” 17th Annual HBCU Teaching Effectiveness Symposium, New Orleans, October 2010.
Link “Race, Religion and Approaching the Fantastic”—Panelist International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, March 2010.
Link “Mothers of Peace” Women, War and Revolution Summit/Town Hall Meeting, Texas Southern University, Houston, April 2009.
Link Discussant: Karla Holloway’s BookMarks and Challenges to African American Literacy Texas Southern University, Houston, November 2008.
Link “Birth by Blood and Fire: The Survival and Maturation of Children in Cities and Isolated Environments” Children’s Literature Association 2008 Conference, Normal, June 2008.
Link “Life, Death, Sexuality, and Resurrection: The Transcendent Transsexuality of Children in Literature” International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, March 2008.
Link Discussion of “Abiku Babies” Texas Southern University, English Department: African Literature and African American Literature Course Lectures, Guest Speaker, November 2006 & April 2007.
Link “Astral/Body: Grounding the Metaphysical in Nicholas Wright’s Adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials” Children’s Literature Association 2006 Conference, Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles, 2006.
Link “Seeing the Unspeakable: Symbiotic Maturation through the Reading of Graphic Novels” Modern Language Association 2005 Convention, Washington, DC, 2005.
Link “The Human Connection in Jean Toomer’s Cane, Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple” Southern Conference on African American Studies (SCAASI), 2005.
Link “Abiku Babies: Spirit Children and Bonding in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak!, and Tina McElroy Ansa’s Baby of the Family” Southern Conference on African American Studies (SCAASI), 2004.
Link “Beloved and Betrayed: Survival and Authority in Kindred” Southern Conference on African American Studies (SCAASI), 2003.