Teaching and Race

Irene Murphy Lietz holds a B.A. (Marygrove College), M.A. (University of Detroit), and Ph.D. (Union Institute and University). A Professor Emerita of English at Carlow University, Pittsburgh, and long-time teacher of first-year and professional writing, her work focuses on social justice, racism, and gender-based violence.

• Acknowledgments – Introduction – How to Survive, Manage, and Even Encourage Race Talk – Methodology and Literature: How Did We Get to This Place and Time? – Annabell – Roberta – Elaine – Madeline – Next Steps – Index of Authors – Index of Words and Phrases.

“This book offers an in-depth, critical exploration of the potential of a race-themed composition curriculum to encourage racial literacy among college students and their teachers. Lietz’s examination of the attitudes, experiences, and struggles of four students, one biracial and three White women, offers key insights into how students come to identify as racialized individuals and how they acknowledge, critique, or accept the privilege that accompanies whiteness. Each chapter follows a student as she evolves or stagnates in her racial literacy development during the course of her undergraduate career, providing an important longitudinal perspective on the racialized identities and experiences of college-aged women. Rather than maintain distance as a researcher, Lietz critically reflects upon her own pedagogical practices and interrogates her positionality as a teacher and a White woman. In doing so, Lietz models the type of self-reflection integral to effective, equitable instruction and highlights the ideological, sociological, and pedagogical considerations we must all take into account to become antiracist educators. Teaching and Race: How to Survive, Manage, and Even Encourage Race Talk is an important contribution to the growing body of literature on antiracism in writing studies.”—Mara Lee Grayson, Assistant Professor of English, California State University, Dominguez Hills