Routledge Visualizing Difference: Performative Audiencing in the Intersectional Classroom (Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality)

In the wealth of literature on intersectionality as a concept, theory, political option and methodology, little has been written on how it might be taught. Proceeding from theory to practice, Visualizing Difference fills in this lacuna and offers an original approach to a visual pedagogy that recognizes the necessity of integrating difference, whilst also inspiring the reader to convey meanings from visuals that directly bear influence upon their lives. This innovative volume proposes a novel approach to empirical investigation of the visual. So far, it has not been demonstrated how interconnections between various social differentials, such as gender, disability, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and nationality intersect in a particular lived experience and shape the reception of visual texts. Oleksy thus focuses on documenting how critical analysis of films empowers students and gives them incentive to oppose normalizing power effects. Through students’ personal narratives, the reader will witness how subjectivity is indicative of the retrospective look at their own lives, which classroom experiences of watching and discussing the films have stimulated. This intriguing book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in Film Audience, Intersectionality, Sociology, Pedagogy and Gender Studies. Review Through the performance of narration, this remarkable book demonstrates how subjectivity can be grasped as lived experience shaped by―and shaping―its physical, political, and socio-cultural contexts. In so doing, Elżbieta Oleksy deploys mature scholarship framed within a breathtakingly imaginative combination of intersectionality, critical pedagogy, and narrative praxis. It is essential reading for anyone interested in genuinely breaking the bounds of methodology, teaching practice, and narration within the social sciences and the humanities. Keith Pringle, Emeritus Professor in Sociology with a specialism in social work at Uppsala University; Professor Emeritus at London Metropolitan University; Honorary Professor at Warwick University; Affiliated Professor at Mälardalen University About the Author Elżbieta H. Oleksy is a Professor and Founding Director of Women’s Studies Centre, University of Lodz, Poland.