Loneliness through the lens of Black feminist love-politics: pedagogical practices amid pandemic online learning

Purpose Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including contact restrictions and the switch to virtual classes, loneliness has become a pressing concern for college students and their learning. This study aims to interrogate current discussions about college student loneliness through the lens of Black feminist love-politics to reimagine online pedagogical practices. Design/methodology/approach Using a broad literature base and anecdotes from personal teaching experiences, the authors contend that Black Feminist perspectives on love, care and solidarity can illuminate the sociopolitical dimensions of loneliness in pedagogically productive ways. Findings The authors explore various pedagogical practices that are inspired by Black feminist approaches that aim to promote solidarity, love and care in either virtual or in-person classrooms. These pedagogical suggestions result from the authors’ teaching experiences amid online learning and current literature in education. Practical implications The authors seek to support educators’ understanding of the most pervasive yet misunderstood emotional experiences of student learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores strategies for addressing feelings of loneliness within online learning-related contexts in higher education. This discussion will be particularly relevant for educators and students from historically marginalized populations. Originality/value This work focuses on the plight of community college students, a demographic that has not garnered enough attention in the educational research concerning this pandemic. In addition, this paper offers an account of loneliness that aligns with the political and ideological crisis of today and places it in conversation with Black feminist thought.

(Other)sistering: Black Women Education Leadership Faculty Aligning Identity, Scholarship, and Practice Through Peer Support and Accountability

This inquiry offers insight into how Black women assistant professors traverse the challenging journey toward tenure while acknowledging their connection to their students and communities, research, teaching, and service. By employing a phenomenological approach and utilizing Black feminist thought and community cultural wealth as conceptual and theoretical frameworks, this research advances scholarship identifying commonalities across Black women’s experiences. Further, we offer implications for how the academy can support Black women and other professionals from marginalized populations. Findings include how Black women assistant professors develop and create dynamic support systems amongst themselves to combat the multiple marginalizations of their positionality in the academy––a place where they are historically “outsiders.”

Plainly Audible

This article tells the story of the Amplified Noise Act of 2018, a bill introduced through Washington, DC’s council to discourage street musicians in DC’s Chinatown neighborhood from disturbing local residents and office workers in the area. The punitive measures proposed in the bill included a $300 fine, up to ten days in jail, and/or the seizing of the offending equipment by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The public hearing, protests, and legislative maneuvering that followed encapsulate the racialized and sonic dimensions of gentrification in Washington, DC. I introduce these events through a theoretical framework that I call “intersectional listening.” Drawing on the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw and intellectual genealogies of Black feminist thought, intersectional listening attends to the sonically articulated expressions of identity that are present in processes of gentrification, producing an analysis that attends to the complexities of sound, power, and race in a changing city. Processes of gentrification amplify tensions surrounding sound, music, and noise in both public and private space, and these tensions are deeply racialized because of the ways in which Black people have long been deemed sonically unruly and unmanageable. Ultimately, this article works to decriminalize Black sound and amplify those striving to do the same.

Remembering Rock and Roll with P. P. Arnold

This chapter asks how American singer P. P. Arnold’s vocal performances in the 1960s shaped British popular music production and how she renarrates rock history today. The story of Arnold’s music career reveals how the Black feminine vocality exemplified by Arnold’s style of singing shaped 1960s rock, and how Black women singers navigate experiences of marginalization and narratives of authenticity. Arnold’s recordings for Immediate Records and her work with the Small Faces on songs like “Tin Soldier” reveal how this dynamic manifests musically, while the story of her “lost” album The Turning Tide illustrates the effect that it had on her career. The chapter closes with a section on Arnold’s recent live performances, using Black feminist thought to understand the implications of Arnold’s engagement with 1960s stereotypes of rock authenticity and sexual expressivity in her new work.

Black Feminism Interpretation in Maya Angelo's Poems with Figurative Language and Imaginary Analysis

Poetry is one type of literary work that has characteristics and characteristics makes it different from other literary works. Currently there are many poems written using the experience of discrimination as an object due to various conditions appearing in society. Besides that, there are also many female poets who writing poetry using a feminist approach. The purpose of this study is to identify the types of figurative language and images related to Maya Angelou in black feminism in her poetry. It also analyzes the influence of Maya Angelou's black feminist thought reflected in her poetry through figurative words and images. In this qualitative study, the authors use a descriptive method through several steps, preparation, data collection, and data analysis. The focus of this research is the analysis of figurative language, types of images, and black feminism in Maya Angelo's poems. The figurative language and imagination used in the poems are diverse, such as metaphor, personification, paradox, symbol, irony, irony, visual imagery, and auditory imagery. In this analysis it can be concluded that black feminism movement are courageous, brave and outspoken.

“That chart ain’t for us”: How Black women understand “obesity,” health, and physical activity

In this article, we use qualitative methodology to explore how eight physically active Black women, who self-identify as “obese,” understand and experience health and physical activity, as well as how they position themselves in relation to discourses pertaining to “obesity” and Black femininity. Drawing on Foucauldian-informed critical obesity scholarship and Black feminist thought, we explore the ways in which physically active Black women concurrently resist, reproduce, and navigate racialized and gendered obesity discourse. Our findings advance critical obesity scholarship as we indicate that participants simultaneously adapt to, negotiate, and resist obesity discourse by re-defining health, questioning the BMI, and centering their desire for corporeal “thickness” as critical to their identity as Black women.