Talking about Teaching

This semester, I participated in a couple roundtables on teaching the history of the sexuality. The first, unfortunately not recorded, took place in Memphis, TN and was sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Featuring historians working in both universities and elsewhere, the discussion took on the broad topic of “Approaching Difficult Topics in the Classroom.” The second was a roundtable at the annual meeting of the Western Society for French History entitled “Teaching Gender and Sexuality in French History” and was recorded. I’ve embedded the video of my part below; links to the other participants, as well as to the audience discussion portion, is available in the most recent edition of the H-France Salon.

All too often we struggle to just get the next class prepped, so I valued the opportunity to really just stop and think about my teaching. In both cases, I tried to consider how my specific experience teaching gender and sexuality at the University of Southern Mississippi not only tells us something about the deep south, but how we can integrate these topics more fully into our classrooms elsewhere as well. That my institutional context in some ways requires me to think more carefully about how I address sex in particular only heightens, I think, my own awareness of the necessity of developing clear strategies in doing so. At the same time, that sexuality studies is not as present here also reveals the sheer demand for such courses. One thing I have learned is that students have a deep desire to have these conversations. Its up to us to find ways to provide the space for them to do so.

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