Sonia Adams

Making Social Justice Irresistible: Toni Cade Bambara’s Engaged Pedagogy, Editorship, and Literary Production

My presentation “Making Social Justice Irresistible: Toni Cade Bambara’s Engaged Pedagogy, Editorship, and Literary Production” focuses on how Bambara, used literature as a tool for advocating social justice within academic institutions, white-dominant publishing industry, and marginalized communities. Through her roles as an English Studies professor for City College’s SEEK Program, editor of two pivotal literary anthologies, and published author, she evoked social justice as a critical praxis for challenging systems of domination- racism, sexism, and classism- working against students and educators from traditionally marginalized groups and people living in disadvantaged communities. For my presentation, I will provide a brief overview of Bambara’s teaching career, editorship, activism, cultural work, and published writings and highlight three of her ground-breaking texts. In Bambara’s essay, “On the Issue of Roles”, she advocates for both male and female students to engage in open dialogue to address issues of overt sexism and racism that not only works against women but their male perpetrators as well within and outside academia. In “Summer 1968 Seek Report”, Bambara offers critical pedagogy for instructors to effectively teach students in developmental English courses as well as commentary on students being pro-active in their education and creating spaces for social change within their academic institution. In Bambara’s short story “Broken Field Running”, she advocates for education as a practice of intellectual freedom, self-awareness and community activism through envisioning a liberation/independent school for young African American students where their teachers reject the banking method of education (dominant in the public-school system) through advocating student-centered learning as they navigate their local inner-city neighborhood. Bambara employs a social justice praxis in these seminal texts in demonstrating how literature can be used as a tool for advocating radical activism, student- centered learning, institutional reform, and professional development initiatives for English Studies departments and its instructors.

Sonia Adams is a PhD Candidate at St. John’s University.