Imaging the Spaces between Art and Inclusive Pedagogy

Abstract

This is one of many personal encounters with strangers, including students on the first day of class, that have inspired a deep recognition of the assumptions many people in the United States bring when confronted with people who look or sound like me. The repeated response from strangers to how I look and the position I hold as a university professor reflects a set of expectations about who I am that place me firmly outside the dominant culture in this particular context. Whatever it is I am, two things are evident: first I am perceived as a member of a minority. And second this minority status carries implications for where I am perceived to belong in the context of American society.