GRAE 2019 Respondents

Respondent Courtnie Wolfgang

Respondent Courtnie Wolfgang

Dr. Courtnie Wolfgang (she/her) is an assistant professor in the Department of Art Education at Virginia Commonwealth University (USA) and a member of the VCU Open Minds faculty. Her research and teaching foci include intersections of anti-racist, post/feminist, and queer theories with arts pedagogies; community-engaged pedagogies; and justice-oriented Arts Education practices. Recent publication sites include Visual Arts Research, Studies in Art Education, The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, Art Education, and the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education. Her chapter "Teacher preparation during an epidemic of mass incarceration: The challenge and hope of arts and education" appears in Critical Articulations of Hope from the Margins of Art Education (2019) edited by Eeva Anttila and Anniina Suominen. Recent and ongoing projects include collaborative arts-based workshops with adolescent girls in juvenile arbitration, development of arts courses for incarcerated adults at the city jail in Richmond, Virginia, the Performing Statistics curriculum, The Service of Art Ed, and Queering Art Ed.

Dr. Wolfgang will be discussing her paper, "The White Supremacy of Art Education." In this paper, the author discusses legacies of white supremacy in the United States of America and the effects on art education. Through personal reflection, and resourcing the ongoing work to right the misinformation acquired through inherently white-privileged educational experiences, the author suggests the possibility of actively anti-racists arts pedagogies and pedagogies of justice in the arts.

Keywords: Culturally sustaining pedagogies, anti-racist arts pedagogy, equity and justice


Respondent Manisha Sharma

Manisha Sharma photo

Dr. Manisha Sharma is Associate Professor of Art at The University of Arizona and past Coordinator of the Caucus of Social Theory in Art Education. She examines how perceptions of culture and community are formed, internalized, and acted out through the production and consumption of art and visual culture artifacts. 

Her research foci include social justice art education, borderland pedagogies, and South Asian contemporary art and visual culture. She has published and presented her research in peer reviewed journals and books on art education and co-edited, with Dr. Garber and Dr. Hochtritt, a book titled Makers, Crafters, Educators: Working for Cultural Change. She has served on several professional and editorial boards in the field, including Art Education, Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, and Visual Inquiry

Dr. Sharma's will present "Personal and Communal: Conversing at Borders in Art Education," examining an arc of her research and teaching over the past six years to present reflexive insight about performing research in and about borderlands in method, philosophical frameworks, and sites. She explores what happens to research(er) as ethical and emotional experiences of social justice rhetoric meet personal and professional realities; and open discussion on authenticity and play in our choices of conceptual and methodological frames for our work in art education.