invited speakers.
David James Hudson
Opening Keynote
Title
On Critical Librarianship and Pedagogies of the Practical
Description
Both critical librarianship and critical pedagogy necessarily involve an encounter with questions of theory. Such questions remain uncomfortable within librarianship, however, given our profession’s central imperative of practicality. Drawing examples from critical race analyses of LIS, this talk will explore the politics and pitfalls of practicality as a central pedagogical imperative, arguing that critical librarianship is contingent upon the embrace of unsettling critique as a methodological and ethical necessity.
Speaker Bio
David James Hudson is a Learning & Curriculum Support Librarian and information studies scholar at the University of Guelph, which is located in Attawandaron/Neutral territory (also known as Guelph, Ontario, Canada). As an instruction librarian, he supports the research needs of undergraduate students and faculty in the History and Music departments. His own research is primarily concerned with using critical race and anti-colonial perspectives as a basis for exploring the intersections of librarianship (and LIS more broadly) with structures of racialized power. Current projects in this area include interrogations of the anti-racist politics of central LIS concepts such as “diversity” and “information inequality,” as well as a critical race theoretical unpacking of discourses of clear language and practicality in librarianship. He has also written and presented on topics such as environmental justice and librarianship, intellectual freedom, and library research methodologies. David’s most recent article, “On Dark Continents and Digital Divides: ‘Information Inequality’ and the Reproduction of Racial Otherness in Library and Information Studies,” is forthcoming in Journal of Information Ethics in spring 2016. His interest in social and environmental justice has also found expression in more than 15 years of performance as a spoken word artist, including competition at national and international poetry slams.
David holds a BA in English and Cultural Studies from Trent University, an MA in English from University of Guelph, and an MLIS from the University of Western Ontario. He can be reached at dhudson@uoguelph.ca and on Twitter @davehudson123.
Monica J. Casper
Closing Keynote
Title
Pedagogies of Trauma in the Neoliberal University
Description
Drawing from critical trauma studies, I explore what it means to teach about trauma in spaces that are, themselves, traumatic. Neoliberalism and its kin have created working conditions in the 21st century university that reproduce social inequalities while failing to produce the kinds of structures and practices that foster thriving much less surviving. From tenure denials for women of color to the emotional labor burden among faculty of color, from adjunctification to budget models that privilege formulas over people, trauma has become the defining characteristic of academic life — a far cry from the privileged existence such spaces embodied in the mid-twentieth century for the largely white male intellectual workforce. However, rather than engage in nostalgia for what once might have been for some through the invisible labor of others (e.g., wives, secretaries), I instead focus on what we might do to reclaim academic space from the harmful wages of neoliberalism and trauma. At the same time, I recast our understanding of trauma as in individual experience to one that is deeply structural and collective.
Speaker bio
Monica J. Casper is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. She is also an affiliated faculty member in the School of Sociology and in Africana Studies. Her scholarly and teaching interests include gender, race, bodies, reproduction, health, sexuality, disability, and trauma. She has published several books, including the award-winning The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery and most recently, The Body: Social and Cultural Dissections, with Lisa Jean Moore. Her co-edited volume Critical Trauma Studies is forthcoming from NYU Press, and her manuscript Abbreviated Lives: The Quiet Politics of Infant Mortality is under contract with UC Press in its “Reproductive Justice” series. She is founding co-editor of the NYU Press book series “Biopolitics: Medicine, Technoscience, and Health in the 21st Century,” as well as a managing editor of The Feminist Wire and editor/publisher of TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism. Her creative nonfiction and fiction has been published in a variety of journals, and she was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. More information can be found at www.monicajcasper.com.