Andrea Bryant (Independent Scholar)

While life in the academy often precludes acknowledging one’s own personal and familial life histories and experiences, generative and embodied scholarship in the humanities requires a thorough reckoning with our positionality and intersectionality. In this creative session, participants traverse from the personal to the professional by paying homage to the roots that lead to routes.

This creative session invites all participants to express aspects of their personal identities that factor into both professional academic work and personal experiences of life in the academy. As a creative session, genre and modality are flexible. Genres can range anywhere from poetry to (non-)fiction as well as dance. Presentational modalities can include, but are not limited to, the gestural, spoken, written, visual, and audial.

After panelists have performed, drawn, presented and/or read their work, there will be a collaborative discussion followed by an interactive discussion between attendees and performers. If there is ample time, an engaging discussion regarding the connections between the personal and the professional will conclude the session. We will end by jointly considering how our personal life experiences augment our abilities as instructors, writers, scholars, and life-long learners.

The creative session will consist of 3-6 presenters who will perform, present, or draw aspects of their personal identities that factor into both professional academic work and personal experiences of life in the academy. Genre and modality are flexible.