Teaching Assistant in Higher Education + Graduate School Research 
Presenting two years of work and research at the 2024 Graduate Symposium.
Art in the American Experience
Abstract
This work focuses on research that showcases art and its interaction with gender, sexuality, and race. Here we discover how communities within specific groups, such as LGBTQIA+ and Black Americans, have created vital visual expression and creativity throughout the American experience. This exploration can be found in times of joy, everyday communication, protest, activism, genocide, slavery, and empowerment. For the last two years, I have researched archives, courses, and independent studies, and completed an internship that allowed me to dive deeper into these perspectives. Results ensured a commonality that art has always been and continues to be a vibrant outlet within these communities. Also, throughout this time, you will find I took a widened feminist approach to the various ways gender, sexuality, and race give us a robust view into the intricate dynamics of this work.
(The written work and zine creations from this work will be available soon.)
Teaching Assistant for Stockton University’s First-Year Seminar Women, Gender and Sexuality While in grad school pursuing a Master of Arts in American Studies, I had the opportunity to be a TA for a freshmen First-Year Seminar Women, Gender and Sexuality class. During my time as a TA, I was also completing independent study work on Feminist Theory and Practice. This work allowed me to discover radical teaching styles while implementing service-learning attributes to my TA pedagogical practices. Students in this First-Year Seminar were required to complete a service-learning activism project, which I was in charge of creating and facilitating. For this part of their service-learning, I knew I wanted to combine art and activism and I also wanted their work to be exhibited as an on-campus installation.
I assigned all the groups an art medium such as photography, collage, drawing, and audio-visual. I also assigned a topic based on the books and curriculum they were learning and discussing during the semester some of which included: LGBTQIA+ rights, women’s rights, climate change, cyberbullying, and sexual violence. Students were also assigned group leadership roles, which included: Lead Organizer, Creative lead, Social media manager, Copywriter, and Reacher. This strategy allowed the students to own their strengths while working in a group atmosphere.
Students had weekly social media posts to manage on @stockton1styractivism and participated in weekly check-ins, group proposals, and creative group work. The mission of these projects was for them to tap into their visual activism from a feminist perspective that could be interacted with by those on campus.
Below you will find photos of the students’ projects in production, the advertising for their final installation event, and their presentations at the event itself.
(A more in-depth reflection of this work will be available soon.)
Visual LGBTQIA+ Experiences
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Visual LGBTQIA+ Experiences 〰️
Research Methods Spring Semester 2022 - Master of Arts American Studies
Black American
Paris is Burning trailer, youtube, May 15, 2019
(MADONNA DID NOT COME UP WITH VOGUING!)
Clips taken from Paris Is Burning, 1990 Directed by Jennie Livingston, YOUTUBE, May 26, 2011
Audre Lorde, Reading from 13th Moon Series 1982 (Tape 1)
Lesbian Herstory Archives AudioVisual Collections, accessed April 20, 2022
Latinx American
‘The Crusade Of Transgender Activist Sylvia Rivera’ BY GISELLE DEFARESON JUNE 8, 2018, bese
Asian American
Stories of Asian American Women, Trans, and Gender non-conforming Queer folks, vimeo, Mia Nakano & Visibility Project, 2011
Five Gay Asian American Men
Description: Gay Asian Americans are an ethnic/sexual minority in California and lack much historical representation.
Digitized by the California Audiovisual Preservation Project (CAVPP). Rights are owned by the GLBT Historical Society. Internet Archive Python library 0.7.9
Asian Gays East Bay contingent marching at Gay Freedom Day, 1978. Photo by Elaine Gay Jarvis (#2018-90). GLBT Historical Society