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Critical Psychology

In Sociological Review: We Never Left Laramie: White LGBTQ Consciousness Post-Election 2016

Immediately after the election, my colleague/friend Emma Jackson at Goldsmiths asked to be part of The Sociological Review‘s rapid response collection to the US election. I said yes even though I was mostly in a fog about what to write beyond making it for, by, and about queers. No surprise there.

Shortly thereafter, Rhon Manigault-Bryant’s brilliant post “An Open Letter to White Liberal Feminists” on the African-American Intellectual History Society site launched. I was inspired by Manigault-Bryant’s words when she wrote that she was “delighted” that white women were forced to finally reckon with violence and injustice that women of color faced daily. In writing a contemporary historical geography of New York City, I often struggle with the inane notion that lgbtq lives have gotten “better” when there has never been evidence of decreasing rates of LGBTQ youth suicides, harassment of LGBTQ people of color, or violence against …

New Research Project: Trans Tumblr

For about two years, I’ve been collecting data on the use of the #ftm hashtag and, for a shorter time, #mtf hashtag on Tumblr. These oft used trans hashtags, standing for female-to-male and male-to-female respectively, drew my attention as I was coming into my own trans identity. I came upon the world of trans Tumblr, as I call it, in 2010 when I was choosing my own new name. I found a tightly-knit network of trans people who are otherwise unanchored through their geographic diaspora. They were mostly very young, publicly sharing and connecting about the everyday violence and life milestones, accomplishments and losses that fuel life in general and trans life specifically. I was particularly struck by the small number of voices that dominated the conversation, as well as the suicide notes that would float to the surface and the resounding and instant response of those around them …

Reflecting on the 1980s Course

Belinda Carlisle was right: heaven is indeed a place on earth. For me that would be the  experience of teaching my American Conflicts and Cultures in the 1980s course. I, of course, equally loved my Digital Image of the City course as I discussed earlier, but teaching the 1980s was just…fun? Perhaps it’s that as a child of the 1980s, I could step back in time and make recent policy, legal, and social shifts resonate in the bodies and minds of young people born in the late 1990s. Actually, it was attaining that learning objective with a group of really incredible, curious students that was all the fun.

In this post, I’ll share how the course unfolded and how I structured teaching a decade so that it mattered to my students. As a project of public humanities, students worked together to build a timeline of the key events of the …

Sharing My MA Thesis: Aggression in the Quaker Meeting for Worship

Over ten years ago, I spent a year pursuing the role of the instinct for aggression–the instinct to act, behave, take part, stand up, speak out, and so on–in my masters thesis, “’Ecstasy Has Been Given to the Tiger:’ Aggression in the Quaker Meeting for Worship,” which I share below.

ABSTRACT. Together, aggression and Quakerism are two seemingly disparate aspects of the intersection of psychiatry and religion. Society generally encourages disavowing aggression because of its incitement of and pairing with hatred and violence. Quakerism is branded at the other end of the spectrum as entirely passive for its silence (in the worship service) and dedication to peace (evident in its renowned social justice efforts). Yet aggression and Quakerism are intrinsically and necessarily intertwined for any religion’s healthy survival. Drawing upon work by Winnicott, Holbrook, and Ulanov to theorize the place of aggression in Quaker Meeting, I use William James’ method …

Interviewed for “Mental Maps & the Neuroscience of Neighborhood Blight” in Pacific Standard

I was recently quoted in Rick Paulas’ “Mental Maps and the Neuroscience of Neighborhood Blight” for Pacific Standard. It’s incredibly exciting to see critical geographic work in the public eye.

I excerpt the selections where I was interviewed from the end of the article below:

For a contemporary example of this phenomenon, check out the media’s portrayal of the Black Lives Matter movement. Protests become riots, protestors become thugs, dramatic images of broken windows and burning cars are beamed to white, middle-class viewers who have never been inside the neighborhoods being covered. “[Viewers] presume the neighborhoods are violent,” says Jack Jen Gieseking, a postdoctoral fellow in New Media and Data Visualization at Bowdoin College. “And blame the people within them rather than thinking about how those neighborhoods got that way.” …

Racist practices like redlining, used from the 1930s through the ’60s to deny loans, insurance, supermarkets, and health coverage …

Full List of Readings for CLAGS Queer(ing) New York Course

In the spring of 2013, I taught Queer(ing) New York as a Seminar in the City course with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The focus of the course was as follows: While lgbtq studies has begun to extend itself to look at rural and other non-urban environments, much of the urban still remains to be accounted for, particularly difference within the city. To truly account for our difference, we must queer the city in the way it normalizes groups and spaces, and New York City is the exciting urban environment to begin within. In this Seminar in the City, we will read work that challenges and queers the normalized histories and spaces of lgbtq life. How can we queer the neighborhood, bar, streets, and bodies within it to tell stories of difference?

I often …

Sharing AERA Panel Video: “Toward What Justice?”

This session brings together compelling scholars within diverse intellectual traditions in educational research to discuss corresponding and sometimes competing definitions of justice. Each panelist will respond to a set of questions designed to reveal the salient points of convergence and difference between Indigenous studies, critical disabilities studies, critical race studies, immigration and border studies, and queer studies in education. A noted critical discussant will synthesize perspectives, offer ideas for future inquiry, and prompt further discussion between the panelists.

People, Place, and Space Reader is Top Selling Routledge Planning & Urban Design Book of 2014!

We are pleased to announce that The People, Place, and Space Reader is the bestselling Planning & Urban Design title of 2014! While we are second on this list, our editor at Routledge shared that we just moved to the #1 spot!

The People, Place, and Space Reader brings together the writings of scholars from a variety of fields to make sense of the ways we shape and inhabit our world. The included texts help us to understand the relationships between people and place at all scales, and to consider the active roles individuals, groups, and social structures play in a range of environments. These readings highlight the ways in which space and place are produced through social, political, and economic practices, and take into account differences in perception, experience, and practice. The People, Place, and Space Reader includes both classic writings and contemporary research, connecting scholarship across disciplines, periods, …