Particularizing the Tensions Between Canonical and Bodily Discourses

Abstract

This case study tells the story of Geneva Wilson, an African American teacher of British literature. The study positions the entirely White male curriculum and Geneva’s Black female body as texts that embody oppositional dominant and nondominant Discourses. Findings reveal a contentious relationship between the categorical canonicity Geneva experienced, and was required to teach, and her body. Intertextual frictions complicated the culturally responsive practices she felt efficacious in actualizing. Geneva mitigated Discoursal incongruences by performing a secondary dominant Discourse and designing subversively culturally responsive experiences for her students. The study highlights the need to nuance and particularize the effects of canonicity and to situate investigations of White male curricula relative to literacy teachers’ storied existences and contextually specific teaching experiences.