Courageous Conversations
Learning Together: LGBTQ2S+ Inclusive Teaching, Research and Scholarship
August 29, 2024
Disrupting the Campus: Lessons from Queer Pedagogy – Dr. Safaneh Mohaghegh Neyshabouri
Join us for an enlightening and provocative exploration into the world of queer pedagogy with Dr. Safaneh Mohaghegh Neyshabouri. This presentation will dive into the transformative power of queer pedagogy, which challenges the status quo of traditional education by promoting critical engagement, dismantling heteronormative assumptions, and celebrating the complexity and fluidity of identities.
Drawing from her rich experience as an educator in Gender and Sexuality Studies and Muslim Cultures, Dr. Mohaghegh Neyshabouri will share how embracing queer pedagogical principles has revolutionized her teaching. Her approach fosters an inclusive, dynamic classroom environment where intersections of identity, power, and knowledge are not only acknowledged but deeply explored.
Discover how these principles have a far-reaching impact beyond the classroom, resonating with broader campus dynamics and challenging institutional norms, as exemplified by recent campus encampments. Through a compelling blend of theoretical insights and real-world teaching experiences, this presentation promises to reveal the profound influence of queer pedagogy on educational practices and social justice movements within academic institutions.
Prepare to be inspired and challenged as we uncover the powerful lessons from queer pedagogy and their potential to disrupt and transform our campuses for the better.
Critically queer as praxis: A transdisciplinary approach to research redressing heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia - Dr. Tonya Callaghan
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit+ (LGBTQ2S+) communities continue to face discrimination in a variety of institutions and settings, whether as students or teachers in schools or as newcomers in Canadian cities. How can teachers, students, and policymakers work together to eliminate oppression of gender and sexual minority groups?
Professor Tonya Callaghan’s comparative research spans continents, from Canada to the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, where they have found positive engagement with youth who are leading the revolution against religiously inspired homophobic oppression. Student activists can and do play key roles in affecting change in their communities, particularly in Catholic schools. Professor Callaghan’s work explores effective ways to resist homophobia and empower students who have felt silenced and shamed.
Professor Callaghan will also discuss their current collaboration with Calgary’s Centre for Newcomers, a research project focusing on LGBTQ2S+ refugees, an already vulnerable group facing increased risks related to mental health, poverty, and homelessness. This research partnership is committed to ensuring that Canadian refugee settlement organizations are better prepared to support LGBTQ2S+ refugees to not only survive but thrive.
Elder Colleen Sitting Eagle will provide blessings in the spirit of equity and reconciliation.
Resources
- Britzman, D. P. (1995). IS THERE a QUEER PEDAGOGY? OR, STOP READING STRAIGHT. Educational Theory, 45(2), 151–165. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1995.00151.x
- Hooks, B. (1995). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. Choice Reviews Online, 32(08), 32–4628. https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.32-4628
- Hytten, K. (2014). Teaching as and for activism: challenges and possibilities. Deleted Journal, 70, 385–394. https://doi.org/10.47925/2014.385
- Callaghan, T. D. (2018). Homophobia in the hallways: Heterosexism and transphobia in Canadian Catholic schools. https://www.amazon.com/Homophobia-Hallways-Heterosexism-Transphobia-Canadian-ebook/dp/B07D1CG6QB
- Callaghan, T. D. (2007). That’s so gay: Homophobia in Canadian Catholic schools. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. https://www.academia.edu/10024534/That_s_so_gay_Homophobia_in_Canadian_Catholic_schools
- Callaghan, T. D., Richard, N., Campbell, C., & Anderson, J. L. (2024). Gender socialization and supportive school settings for elementary-aged LGBTIQ+ children. Children and Youth Services Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107611
- Callaghan, T. D., Esterhuizen, A., Higham, L., & Jeffries, M. (2023). Religious reactions to gender identity: A comparative analysis of select Canadian and Australian Catholic schools. Gender and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2023.2222128
- Callaghan, T. D., & Esterhuizen, A. (2021). ‘Too gay to teach’: Dismissals of lesbian teachers in select North American Catholic schools. Teaching Education, 32(3), 323-337. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2020.1732340
- Callaghan, T. D., & van Leent, L. (2019). Homophobia in Catholic schools: An exploration of teachers’ rights and experiences in Canada and Australia. Journal of Catholic Education, 22(3), 36-57. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ce/vol22/iss3/3/
- Anderson, J. L., & Callaghan, T. D. (2024). From liability to asset: Queer/ing teacher professionalism. In A. Davies, & C. Greensmith (Eds.), Queering professionalism: Problems, potentials, and possibilities in neoliberal times. University of Toronto Press. https://utorontopress.com/9781487550929/queering-professionalism/
- Learning to say goodbye to academic freedom - University Affairs
- ‘Empathy activism’ and how 1 educator is creating more inclusive teaching spaces - UCalgary Today
Dr. Safaneh Mohaghegh Neyshabouri (she/they) is an esteemed assistant professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Calgary. Recognized for her excellence in teaching, she specializes in addressing sensitive topics in her courses. Dr. Mohaghegh Neyshabouri earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Alberta and holds a Master's degree in English Language and Literature from Iran.
Her research explores themes of resistance and social movements, life writing studies, and gender and sexuality studies. She is particularly focused on social justice, women's issues, and everyday resistance. A prolific scholar, Dr. Mohaghegh Neyshabouri is also a creative writer and translator, with her work earning her multiple teaching awards.
Her contributions to academia and beyond were highlighted in a feature-length episode of the CBC Ideas program on Canadian public radio. Before her academic career in Canada, she was a journalist in Iran, where she wrote weekly columns on world literature.
Dr. Tonya Callaghan (she/they) is a Professor with the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education. Their second monograph, Homophobia in the Hallways: Heterosexism and Transphobia in Canadian Catholic Schools (University of Toronto Press) has been highly impactful. The overarching goal of their award-winning research is to integrate theory and practice so that educational stakeholders become motivated to act as allies to members of gender and sexual minority groups in resisting religiously inspired heterosexist oppression. They specialize in critical social justice theories, anti-oppression education, and anti-homophobia education.
Professor Callaghan has been recognized for outstanding commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) at UCalgary with the EDI Faculty Award. They were also honoured with two UCalgary Curriculum Development Awards for designing and coordinating the undergraduate course Diversity in Learning and the Master of Education program Advancing Healthy & Socially Just Schools & Communities, both of which actively promote EDI principles. Their research in the field of EDI explores resistance to anti-homophobia and anti-transphobia education in curriculum and policy.
Since joining UCalgary, they have served as Principal Investigator on 10 funded research projects and as a Co-Investigator on 6 collaborative funded research projects. All funded transdisciplinary projects examined LGBT2SQ+ individuals’ experiences with homophobia and transphobia in a variety of settings (Education, Medicine, Social Work, Psychology, Refugee Settlement Agencies). They have served UCalgary in a myriad of ways ranging from Senator to Academic Co-Lead for Democracy, Justice, and Sustainability with UCalgary’s Institutes for Transdisciplinary Scholarship
Dr. Malinda S. Smith (she/her) is the inaugural Vice Provost and Associate Vice President Research (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) and a full professor of political science at the University of Calgary. Prior to joining the UCalgary she was a full professor of political science at the University of Alberta, where she held various roles including Provost Fellow (EDI Policy) in the Office of the Provost, and Associate Chair (Graduate Studies) in the Department of Political Science.
Dr. Smith has served on numerous higher education governance committees, including as Vice President (Equity Issues) for the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and as Chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion External Review Committee for the Canada Research Chairs. Currently, she serves on SSHRC Governing Council and Executive; as Vice Chair of the Inter-Institutional Advisory Committee for the Scarborough Charter, on Statistics Canada’s Immigration and Ethnocultural Statistics Advisory Committee; and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s External EDI Advisory Board.
Dr. Smith is the coauthor, editor, or coeditor of 7 books, numerous articles, book chapters and reports and has given dozens of invited keynotes and public lectures in the areas of equity, diversity, human rights, and decolonization in higher education, African political economy, and international relations. Dr. Smith is the coauthor of The Equity Myth: Racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian Universities (2017); coeditor of Critical Concepts: An Introduction to Politics (OUP 2023); the Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy (UofT Press, 2022); States of Race: Critical Race Feminism for the 21st Century (BTL 2010). and three books on Africa, including Securing Africa: Post-9/11 Discourses on Terrorism (2010).
Dr. Smith is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including Calgary Black Chambers’ Lifetime Achievement Award (2023), an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Simon Fraser University (2021), Compelling Calgarians (2021), the International Studies Association’s Women’s Caucus’s Susan S. Northcutt Award (2020), 100 Accomplished Black Women Honouree (2020), the ISA-Canada Distinguished Scholar Award (2018-19), P.E. Trudeau Foundation Fellow (2018), the HSBC Community Contributor of the Year Award (2016); and the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ Equity Award (2015).