Bio

"The important thing here, I believe, is that truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in power…truth isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its régime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true" (Foucault, 1980; p. 131-132).

My theoretical framework

The quote that opens my bio, in some ways, best reflects my scholarship to this point.  The nature of Truth and how it has been and currently is deployed is of central importance to my social, cultural, economic and historical inquiry.  Through these types of discursive realities, we can examine how power relationships are formulated and maintained.  Adding to this central interest is also an overarching paradigm of cultural studies. Power, Truth, the nature of knowledge, representation and ideology are central to my analysis of social problems and ways that communities can actively resist these contemporary realities during late capitalism. I have also developed a political and scholarly interest in critical animal studies and finding ways to problematize the binary that separates human and nonhumans in the context of educational theory and research. My work is also informed by critical, liberatory and radical social theories. My dissertation focused on four text-based classroom simulations and I argued that these reproduced dominant ideologies. I combined my analysis with suggestions for how classroom teachers can integrate simulations more critically. My activist interests are grounded in anarchist politics and I am a firm supporter of groups that utilize direct action to engender social change.

"Run comrades, the old world is behind you." CrimethInc.

My publication record

I have articles that have appeared in The Social Studies, The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, Educational Studies, and Theory and Research in Social Education.  Two forthcoming articles will also be published in Critical Education and Equity & Excellence in Education in 2010. I have also authored several book chapters in various edited collections. I have also co-edited a book entitled, Contemporary Anarchist Studies: An introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy (Routledge, 2009) and a book with E. Wayne Ross (Sense Publishers, 2010) entitled, Critical Theories, Radical Pedagogies, and Social Education: Towards New Perspectives for Social Studies Education. I have also published book reviews in Workplace: A journal for academic labor, Teacher’s College Record and Educational Studies. I am also currently editing a "special section" for the online journal Critical Education on nonhuman animals and educational theory and research. I have also written several encyclopedia entries dealing with critical pedagogy, teacher unions, and anarchist theory. 

Research

My research interests center upon these main themes and is interdisciplinary in nature.

-Cultural studies

-Anarchist theory

-Postcolonialism

-"Race" and its implications 

-Animal studies and Educational theory

-Theories of representation

-Education and human rights

-Critical discourse studies

-Critical pedagogy

-Critical theory

-Autoethnography

-Spatial theory