Conversations, Landscapes, Parties, and Desert Islands

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Recently, I team taught an advanced research seminar to second- and thirdyear graduate students. The opportunity to teach with a colleague is rare. Although my colleague taught versions of the course elsewhere, this iteration emerged through conversations. Before the semester started, we talked about learning to read research studies critically, examining how a particular reference might fit into a larger creative and scholarly conversation, and where it might be situated in the landscape of ideas, theories, and practice. One goal is to reflect on the so question: Why does your research matter for art education and visual arts?One challenge for those beginning a research practice In art education Is learning norms for sharing their work with others. We asked our students to begin thinking about literature reviews, reading articles (Boote & Belle, 2005, 2006; Maxwell, 2006) or a book on the subject (Hart, 1998). One metaphor for a literature review comes from Kenneth Burke's description of human communication as a party (1973). Imagine you walk In late; around the room small groups of people are talking. You wander toward one group, trying to pick up the threads of a conversation that seems to have begun hours ago. Eventually, you think you understand enough to make an Informed comment and join In. Although feminists have criticized Implied aggression, a masculine hierarchy, and constricting sense of order (Japp, 1999), Burke's metaphor suggests how overwhelming academic discourse can appear to those seeking to enter the conversation. You may not know that your contributions matter until you overhear other guests quoting you.Attempting to personalize the scholarly conversation, my colleague and I asked the graduate students to Identify desert island references. A desert Island seems about as far removed from a noisy, crowded party as a metaphor can go. I use the metaphor to help me Identify an article or book that Is central to my research thinking at a particular time or for a specific project. Some desert island books that I clung to when I was a new assistant professor now gather dust on my shelves. In many cases, I read them multiple times, citing them In every conference paper or article I wrote. Eventually, these resources became part of my conceptual framework, shaping how I thought about my research, how I framed questions, and what big Ideas guide my work.A recent campus speaker described books he reads with his morning coffee (Slattery, 2015). Family resemblances among his version of desert Island references allowed me to mentally map his scholarly terrain. Conversations, parties, desert Islands, mapping landscapes-these metaphors try to get at the notion that reading what others write In your field Is engaging, not enervating, when you read with a purpose.In the first article of this Issue, Confronting Ableism: Disability Studies Pedagogy In service Art Education, John Derby acknowledges art educators who have entered the conversation on critical disability studies. Reporting results from an action research cycle with preservice teachers, Derby wants to persuade readers that ableism, as explicated by Fiona K. Campbell, author of his central- perhaps desert Island-reference, needs to be confronted by Integrating pedagogical practices derived from disability studies Into pK-12 art education with social change as a goal.Kevin Hsieh also Invited his students to participate In research, reporting results In Pre service Art Teachers' Attitudes Toward Addressing LGBTQ Issues In Their Future Classrooms. Again, like Derby, Hsieh wants to contribute to social change, encouraging future teachers to be advocates or allies for LGBTQ young people. Hsieh brings together scholarly conversations on diversity, social justice, and stereotyping as grounds for his argument that preservice teachers should know how to create safe classroom spaces and reduce harassment.Anana Gonzalez Stokas, author of Letting All Lives Speak: Inequality In Art Education and Baumgarten's Felix Aesthetlcus, wants to construct contemporary theory derived from analysis of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten's (1714-1762) aesthetics. …