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Theoretical perspectives of feminist pedagogy provide an alternative lens to examine the teaching and learning process within music education programs in higher education. Music programs have traditionally emphasized formal constructions and static content, which typically are associated with Western European, patriarchal ideologies. Feminist pedagogy, originating in social constructivism and critical theory, offers an instructional approach for a more democratic and diverse curriculum and pedagogy. Extending from feminist pedagogy is Black feminist pedagogy, which offers a more specialized instructional approach for underrepresented populations in education. Both feminist pedagogy and Black feminist pedagogy foster a unique intersection for institutions of higher education whose historic mission integrates race and gender as part of its targeted efforts. When examining the music education literature, particularly as it relates to diverse groups, a feminist instructional approach addresses the interconnections of race and gender as social and cultural constructions, which are almost absent from higher education research altogether. Using the intrinsic case study model and qualitative data, I examine ways feminist pedagogy and Black feminist pedagogy, are integrated into the undergraduate music program at Spelman College, a historically Black college for women. I also investigate how course curricula are inclusive of both traditional feminist and Black feminist pedagogical principles. I explore how discourses of gender, as well as race, play a role in the pedagogical practices of teachers within a single-sex institution committed to the education and empowerment of women of color. Furthermore, I describe ways in which students are influenced by both traditional feminist and Black feminist pedagogical approaches, and how music educators are fulfilling the need to teach music outside their own experiences, which are in some cases, a Western European patriarchal approach. Using Barbara Coeyman’s (1996) four principles of traditional feminist pedagogy for women’s studies in music and the general music major curriculum (i.e., diversity, opportunities for all voices, shared responsibility, and orientation to action), as a theoretical framework the following three components were examined in this study: context (structural influences of gender and race), content (curriculum and course design), and pedagogy (classroom instruction and goals). Data was ascertained through triangulated measures of interviews with faculty and students, observations of class time and performances, and document collection of relevant data sources (e.g., course syllabi, music department handbook, and performance programs). I used findings from the research to demonstrate how discourses of gender and race permeate the institutional environment at Spelman College, and have direct links to curricula structure, as well as the institutional mission of the teaching and learning process of its students. I also used findings to further enhance the knowledge base of music education literature and implications for African-American females in higher education. Finally, suggestions were given as to how music educators can design and teach within a music environment that is socially and culturally inclusive for all students.

This dissertation examines how relatives of gun-violence victims, specifically Black women, move about their environments in the aftermath of sudden and tragic loss. I explore the following research questions: 1) How do Black women, who are co-victims of gun homicide, navigate spaces of trauma? 2) How does the experience of trauma extend into other spaces and spatialities of their lives? 3) What are the social, political, and health implications for Black women with limited mobility who are co-victims of gun homicide? This study draws on a literature synthesis on health geographies, geotrauma, and Black Feminist Geographies, as well as auto-methods, specifically a Black Feminist auto-ethnography (BFA). BFA involves analyzing your own experiences in relation to others in their family and community. My autoethnography of my lived experiences in the neighborhood I grew up in started with the observation of my mother in the aftermath of losing my brother to gun violence in 2012. My dissertation develops a research agenda to theorize how racism, poverty, and trauma compound and how Black women craft survival strategies as they navigate landscapes of trauma. I describe the ways that conventional approaches to understanding gun violence can overlook the layers of trauma and fail to capture the nuances or lived experience of being a co-victim of gun violence. I propose BFA to center and understand the lived experience of co-victims of gun violence and to bear witness to the ways we engage with the world around us while processing the trauma that is carried with us. My autoethnography uncovers key strategies my mother and I used to cope with our loss, especially in the face of institutional failures from the policy. This research points towards a need for better mental health resources for co-victims of gun violence as they process their grief. / Geography

Using Black feminist criticism, this study will examine the influence of the multifaceted yet simultaneous system of oppression on individuality and mutuality in the aftermath of slavery, as depicted in Toni Morrison’s works in Beloved and Jazz. Furthermore, this essay will explore the effects of the intersecting system of oppression on the characters’ identity formation. It will also investigate the influence of intersecting systems of oppression on the characters’ perception of motherhood. This study will highlight the ways in which Morrison’s two novels show how racism and sexism affect Black women’s maternal authority even after they have claimed ownership of themselves.

Since the summer of 2020, following the execution of Mr. George Floyd, many institutions of higher education established or strengthened their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In attempting to create more equitable, diverse, inclusive, and antiracist campuses to foster student success and belonging on campus, another inequity is born. Higher education institutions have failed to center the wellbeing of educators tasked with leading these efforts. This qualitative study used semistructured interviews with 10 Black women leading DEI efforts throughout the California Community College system to explore the impact of racialized stress and trauma on holistic wellbeing. Central questions guided this study: 1) How does racialized stress and trauma impact the wellbeing of Black women community college educators? 2) What are the most common sources of racialized stress and trauma experienced by Black women community college educators? and 3) What coping and healing strategies do Black women community college educators currently leverage to address racialized workplace stressors and trauma? Findings indicate racialized stress and trauma in the workplace negatively impact the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of Black women leading diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. DEI leaders may encounter equity scapegoating and the stigma of equity in their work. On the other hand, Black women leverage many coping mechanisms to buffer the effects of racialized stressors. This study xi supports the need for practitioners and leaders to address systemic issues of racism through critical self-reflection, critical actions, and building sustainable support for DEI leaders.

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While many Simone de Beauvoir scholars have discussed the importance of the category of the erotic in Beauvoir's philosophical works, none explored the importance of Beauvoir's early autobiographical works to our understanding of the development of Beauvoir's ethical philosophy nor have they suggested how Beauvoir's ethical engagement with the erotic might be pertinent to black feminist philosophy. As such, this dissertation is a two-fold project. First, it presents an account of the lived experience of Beauvoir as illustrated through her early autobiographical works. This account focuses primarily on Beauvoir's romantic relationships and traces the development of her conversions leading to her most important philosophical contribution, that of existential ethics, through her accounts of these romantic relationships. Using Beauvoir's Diary of a Philosophy Student, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Wartime Diary, The Prime of Life, and Letters to Sartre, I maintain that it is only through our close engagement with these early autobiographical writings about her philosophical understanding of her romantic relationships that we are able to understand how Beauvoir comes into the ethical views that will inform the rest of her writing career. Beauvoir's focus on embodiment, facticity, conversion, and lived experience illustrate the extent to which these matters are inextricable from her existential ethics. Beauvoir claims in her philosophical ethical writings that the erotic moment serves a privileged moment when we encounter the other. Both Beauvoir's autobiographical writings and her ethical writings provide us with what is termed a "disposition toward the erotic," which is an attitude that stems from reflection upon and lived experience with the other in love or an erotic encounter, where we choose to encounter non-beloved others in a manner similar to that which we encounter the beloved other. In this way, a disposition toward the erotic is the foundation of Beauvoir's ethical assertions, with regard to what obligations we have toward the freedoms of others and how and why it is our ethical duty to fight against oppressive circumstances. The second part of this project draws a bridge between Beauvoir's ethical writings concerning the topic of the erotic and black feminism. As such, I begin my discussion of black feminism by talking about Black women's lived experience as recounted through black feminism itself. After this, I focus on Audre Lorde's "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power," bell hooks' series of books on love and Patricia Hill-Collins' Black Sexual Politics, since these serve as sources of direct black feminist engagement with the question of the erotic. I maintain that, in very important ways, black women's lived experience with the erotic has also informed the aims of the project of black feminism. As such, I illustrate how black women's lived experience has been colored by oppressive views of black women's embodiment and sexuality. I argue, as opposed to oppressive understandings of black women and their relationships toward their bodies, that this disposition toward the erotic is a stance that black feminism fundamentally shares with Beauvoir's existential ethics. / Philosophy