Teaching to Survive

Keeping Black Girls and Black Girlhood Studies on Campus

in Girlhood Studies
Author:
Tammy C. Owens Skidmore College, USA towens1@skidmore.edu

Search for other papers by Tammy C. Owens in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed Close
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6233-7838
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2022.150308
Keywords:
American childhood; college; higher education; intersections; popular culture; social media
Restricted access
USD  $22.00
Click here to view the full Terms and Conditions

All currencies in US Dollar

PayPal Logo

Abstract

It has been a hard-fought battle to secure Black Girlhood Studies as an essential college course that examines Black experiences of American childhood. To ensure its survivability, I argue that scholars must establish many homes for Black Girlhood Studies beyond Gender Studies and Black Studies departments. Further, given the illegibility of Black girls as youthful or innocent children, scholars must advocate for Black Girlhood Studies as a college course in academic departments or programs in which Black girls are potentially subjects of faculty or student research. I draw on my experiences teaching Black Girlhood Studies as a Black woman professor and ground my analysis in Black feminist conversations that emerged during the twentieth century to solidify Black Women's Studies in the academy.

Contributor Notes

Tammy C. Owens (ORCID 0000-0001-6233-7838) is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her current research examines the intersections of race and American childhood. She is also a social worker who speaks publicly and publishes writing on topics such as Black feminism, motherhood, Black women's work lives, and relationships. Email: towens1@skidmore.edu

  • Collapse
  • Expand

Girlhood Studies

An Interdisciplinary Journal

Cover Girlhood Studies
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
15
Keywords:
American childhood; college; higher education; intersections; popular culture; social media
Print Publication Date:
01 Dec 2022
Online Publication Date:
01 Dec 2022
Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022

  • Bernstein, Robin. 2011. Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights. New York, NY: New York University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Brown, Ruth Nicole. 2009. Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward a Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

  • Brown, Ruth Nicole. 2013. Hear Our Truths: The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood. Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press.

  • Christian, Barbara. 1989. “But Who Do You Really Belong to—Black Studies or Women's Studies?” Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 17: 17–23. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00497878.1989.9978786.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Combahee River Collective. 1995. “A Black Feminist Statement.” In Words of Fire: An Anthology of Africana-American Feminist Thought, ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, 232–240. New York, NY: The New Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gates, Henry Louis. 2009. The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers. New York, NY: Basic Books.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gaunt, Kyra D. 2006. The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop. New York, NY: New York University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Halliday, Aria S., ed. 2019. The Black Girlhood Studies Collection. Toronto, ON: Women's Press.

  • hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge.

  • Hull, Akasha (Gloria T.), and Barbara Smith. 1982. “Introduction: The Politics of Black Women's Studies.” In All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us are Brave: Black Women's Studies, ed. Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott and Barbara Smith, xvii—xxxiv. New York, NY: The Feminist Press at CUNY.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jacobs, Harriet. (1861) 1987. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, ed. Jean Fagan Yellin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • June, Audrey Williams, and Brian O'Leary. 2021. “How Many Black Women Have Tenure on Your Campus? Search Here.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 May. https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-many-Black-women-have-tenure-on-your-campus-search-here.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Olney, James. 1984. ‘I Was Born’: Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature. Callaloo 20: 46–73.

  • Owens, Tammy C., Durell M. Callier, Jessica L. Robinson, and Porshé R. Garner. 2017. “Towards an Interdisciplinary Field of Black Girlhood Studies.” Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 6 (3): 116–132. https://doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2017.6.3.116.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Schaeffer, Katherine. 2021. “America's Public School Teachers Are Far Less Racially and Ethnically Diverse than their Students.” Pew Research Center, 15 March. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

Metrics

All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 958 491 104
Full Text Views 80 3 0
PDF Downloads 89 6 0