Feminist Space Invaders: Killjoy Conversations in Neoliberal Universities

Abstract

As teachers of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies (GWS), whenever we think about our pedagogical goals, we imagine our classrooms as spaces in which students can learn not only the what, but also the how and why of feminism. The strategies we employ, and the ways in which we invite students to imagine what could be, are meant to expand our collective agency, courage, and creativity in the interests of transforming oppressive practices in formal schooling and beyond. While developing our classes, we thought about what new connections we could foster between our students and each other as teachers, given that we were located on different university campuses. We asked ourselves what the possibilities for and benefits of sharing space might be, as well as how the process of forging connections itself could be a subversive practice. Particularly since feminist theory is a dynamic practice of study in which communicating across difference is so imperative, we took the opportunity to foster a cross-campus dialogue between our classes. In setting up the collaboration, we decided that facilitating an ongoing conversation between the two groups would best achieve the goals of helping our students to “pull back the curtain” on how the other class was processing this information. By intentionally invading each other’s spaces, we hoped to open up possibilities for our students to share new insights with each other as well as to demonstrate ways in which the classroom experience can be pushed and prodded beyond standard, normative practices.