Counterstory in Literature & Education

In this seminar, we will explore and apply Counterstory methodology to educational and other common cultural narratives. Students will study a variety of Counterstories, examine the theory and craft behind them, and create an original Counterstory.  

Counterstory is the narration of experiences of people and communities that are often hidden,  suppressed, or re-interpreted by a culturally dominant group. Counterstories confront dominant  narratives that frame identities, debates, and social relationships, implicitly or explicitly.  Counterstory methodology is frequently a tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the  privilege and dominance subsumed by normative, socially dominant narratives—narratives of  race, class, gender, and other core categories that underlie the exercise and maintenance of social  power relations.  

Counterstory is a method that is most closely associated with Critical Race Theory in Education  and emerges out of the broad “narrative turn” in the humanities and social sciences over the last  several decades. This course will explore the value of this turn, especially for marginalized and  

emergent elements of culture, and the use of counterstory as analysis, critique, and self expression. Through a strongly interdisciplinary approach, we will examine the methodology of  counterstory as it has developed in critical theory, critical pedagogy, and critical race theory  literatures, and we will explore the concept of counterstory as a framework for liberation, cultural  work, and spiritual exploration. And through a strongly interactive and hands-on approach, we  will explore identifying and creating counterstories from our own lived experiences and the  experiences of communities important to us.  

Students in the course will have the opportunity to engage a wide range of fields that counterstory  traverses, such as critical pedagogy, ideological critique, and narratology. At the heart of  counterstory theory, for example, are questions of subjectivity, ontological and epistemological  perspective, the authority to construct “truth”, and the limits of discursive power. And at the  heart of counterstory practice are questions of point of view, multivocality, and especially the  ethics of representation. 

Instructors: anthony antonio, Jonah Willihnganz. Fulfills WAYS-CE, WAYS-ED.