Popular Culture as an Educative Site Regarding the January 6,2021 Insurrection: Grappling With Complexity Through Intersectional Analyses a Special Issue of Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies

Abstract

The insurrection that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 is distinct because of its deep ties to White supremacist rhetoric and mobilization. What is also significant is the undeniable role of popular media in establishing the discourse, leadership, and plans that made the event possible. This special issue uses intersectional analysis to interrogate why/how the uprising occurred, and to imagine education as a critical intervention toward countering the bigotry at the day’s root. Together, the articles advance the argument that what the world witnessed that day was White privilege, real or imagined, fighting to preserve itself.

Keywords

intersectional theory popular culture media critical media literacy White supremacy

On January 6, 2021, much of the world watched in horror as Trump supporters, fueled by false and divisive rhetoric, stormed the U.S. Capitol. Using guns, tear gas, pepper spray, flag poles, and even crutches, the protestors overpowered Capitol police through violent and nonviolent means—complicating onlookers’ abilities to understand how the event could happen. In some instances, authorities seemed to welcome the riotous group into the building by removing barricades and expressing support. In others, they used quick-think in ways that protected lawmakers and important symbols of U.S. democracy without support from the National Guard. Chaos and confusion ensued for hours in the space between these poles. The mob grew increasingly violent and desecrated the building while yelling that they would kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi—going so far as erecting a gallows on the West Lawn. After lawmakers and other influential leaders used Twitter to plead with then President Trump to call down his followers (Associated Press, 2021), he released a video on the platform re-stating the false claim that the election was stolen from “us” and urged the violent mob to go home in peace.¹ As members of the mob beat a Capitol police officer almost to death (Brian Sicknick died on January 7th) and lawmakers hid in terror, Trump added, “We love you. You’re very special.”

Eventually, the National Guard and police officers from the DC metropolitan region dispersed the crowd. Muriel Bowser, mayor of DC, instituted a 6pm curfew. Chillingly, though, the mob was released that day with almost no arrests. Instead, much dignity and concern was expressed for them. In one image, members of the National Guard guided a female rioter down the stairs by hand—even though they played a role in an event that had not happened at the U.S. Capitol since 1814. At the time of this writing, horrific images and videos of the violence (as well as what took place afterward) are still being released as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Capitol police, and Select Committee investigate. Emboldened by a President who refused to accept defeat in a fair and accurate election, the insurrectionists attempted a coup against the U.S. government; yet they were regarded as if they were entitled to do so. As intersectional popular culture scholars, we are left with much to ponder. Trump’s unprecedented use of popular media outlets is at the epicenter of these actions and demonstrates why it is critically imperative to understand the political ramifications inherent to popular culture.

This special issue of Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies argues that January 6, 2021 is not emblematic of a deepening racial divide in America, nor is it a symptom of a supposed cult-like allegiance to Donald Trump, as is commonly narrativized in today’s liberal media. It was, instead, a contemporary expression of intersectional political struggle that is emblematic of the racial formation that is the United States. The centrality of White supremacy to the American project (and coloniality writ large) is the engine by which the country’s power is secured and maintained (Sullivan & Tuana, 2007; Wynter, 2003). Our additional sites of difference (i.e., class, gender, sexuality, ability, religion, etc.) are continually negotiated in relationship to it. In other words, Whiteness mitigates the degree to which we experience oppression, no matter the other privileges we may enjoy (Bhopal, 2020; Gillborn, 2015; C. L. Harris, 1993). This reality is at the heart of the capitol’s invasion.

For example, just days after the capitol’s defenses were breached, Julian Borger (2021) of The Guardian wrote, “This was America’s ‘shining city upon a hill’ but only the thinnest blue line was there to guard it at the crucial hour.” We who are dark consider this statement a moot point—perhaps even a non-sequitur—given the ways in which demands to honor and sustain BIPOC lives have played out across the arc of American history. We know that the FBI was aware that armed protests led by known White supremacists and other political extremists were planned to occur at all 50 state capitol buildings and the nation’s seat of government. Still, security was deployed with noticeable gentleness. Instead of the riot gear and militarized tactics used against BIPOC folk at their political demonstrations, we witnessed police officers in general uniform, manning stations designed for mere crowd control—evidencing the pervasive nature of White folk’s assumed goodness in our society (Goff et al., 2014; Kendi, 2016). The cost of this privilege has amounted to five dead bodies, $1.5 million in damages (Hsu, 2021), more than 725 arrests (Popli & Zorthian, 2021), and political drama materializing the threat of civil war. The hypocrisy evident in the days’ unfolding is clear.

The global embarrassment the United States increasingly faces, however, has not quelled the fervor of the day. Instead, we find a renewed zeal for White supremacy to dominate American institutions. Donald Trump was acquitted after being impeached for a second time—a symbol of the relative impunity and loyal following he continues to enjoy today. Shortly thereafter, conservative activism took center stage in local governments as boards of education advanced well-funded campaigns to institutionalize Whiteness in schools. Through scapegoating and villainizing Critical Race Theory (CRT; López et al., 2021), BIPOC literature and thought are increasingly being banned from schools and libraries (E. A. Harris & Alter, 2022), and the threat of academic censure around issues pertaining to race and racism looms in higher education (Flaherty, 2021). Twenty-eight states have proposed or passed legislation to restrict teachers’ ability to discuss historical and contemporary forms of marginalization (Ray & Gibbons, 2021), and voter rights affecting BIPOC communities are eroded while former insurrectionists seek political office (Chotiner, 2022; Gibson, 2022). And while middle American Moms worry their precious heads that their darling children will feel bad if they learn balanced views of history, civics, and literature, BIPOC children continue to live with the devastating effects institutionalized whiteness materializes.

As academics, mothers, and intersectional feminists, we know deep in our bodies how we have arrived at this historical moment. It is the same experience our direct ancestors lived, worked, fought, survived, and thrived through. It is the experience you have in your soul when a prosecutor has to instruct a jury to believe video evidence of George Floyd’s murder. People with any shred of human decency and empathy could see that George Floyd begged for his life as Derek Chauvin callously knelt on his neck, yet the prosecutor had to teach the jury how to see a Black man as a human being. This incident, which co-occurred with countless others and the attempted coup, is emblematic of the historical degradation of truth as it plays out in the contemporary cultural moment.

Before the insurrection and after, Donald Trump portrayed the insurrectionists as excited kids on a field trip whose behaviors got a little out of control. He even went so far as to say that a lot of “love” was going through the halls of the Capitol on that day. But, make no mistake, the event and its fallout are in line with a long history of White supremacists battling to control narratives that secure their dominance. It is a dance of smoke and mirrors where those who are harmed are placated into believing that what they witnessed was somehow explainable or worse, harmless. So, we counter this violent step with affirmation: you may have watched events transpire on live television or you may have watched clips online after the fact. We would like to remind you that you did, indeed, see violent mobs of predominately White people dressed in Trump gear and other White supremacist symbols. You did see those people descend violently upon the Capitol. You saw them pounding on doors and windows, using battering rams to crash into the building. You saw them attack police officers with fists, pepper spray, and flag poles. You heard an officer, later identified as Daniel Hodges, being crushed by a door as he tried to stand guard against the mob. You saw them attempt to steal U.S. historical artifacts. You, like us, watched as insurrectionists scaled the walls of the Capitol and hung a Trump flag at the top. The truth you witnessed with your eyes was not emblematic of the love-fest Trump and his followers portrayed it to be. It was not a discursive expression as currently serving conservative lawmakers suggest (Dawsey & Sonmez, 2022). Like Steve Schleicher, the prosecutor who taught Derek Chauvin’s jury how to see George Floyd’s humanity, we instruct you to believe what you saw that day. The question remains, however, as to why we have to be reminded to trust what we see and hear.

In 1994, Baudrillard argued that “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning” (p. 79). He then discussed why this might have occurred. He theorized that meaning cannot keep pace with the rate at which mass information is communicated. He also noted that meaning is an entirely separate system from information and that information destroys meaning. Baudrillard’s (1994) theories were on the cutting edge in the 1990s because the publication of Simulacra and Simulation, which gives detail to these ideas, predates social media, reality television as a popular genre, artificial intelligence, and deep fake technology. Baudrillard’s conceptions of the simulacra, however, hold much promise in trying to determine how we have ended up here. As a case in point, depending on what news channel you watch, the events of January 6, 2021 were either an insurrection against the government or in Trump’s words “a lot of love and a lot of friendship and people that love our country” (Lungariello, 2022).

Even now, over a year after these events took place, the Republican National Committee, in a resolution formally censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, described the events as “legitimate political discourse” (Orr, 2022). Baudrillard would declare these competing ideas as a “vertigo of interpretation” (Baudrillard, 1994, p. 16) to describe the dizzying ways that information is skewed to bolster, reinforce, and reify power. We return to Baudrillard because his work was part of the problematic post-modern attempt to redefine notions of truth in ways that align with the history and practices of oppression in this country. We have long been uncomfortable with the rise of “Post-” ideologies (e.g., post-materialism, post-truth, post-feminism, post-race) because they do not map onto the material world, no matter the degree to which they inspire political intrigue. The materiality of the body does not allow one to walk through the world as if oppression are figments of the past (Edwards & Esposito, 2018; Esposito, 2011a, 2011b). We are very much still entwined within power structures. Pretending that a matrix of domination does not exist will not create a way out or a path forward for any of us (dominant or subjugated alike).

We need to look no further than Amir Locke, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Layleen Polanco, Tony McDade, and countless other dead Black and Brown people murdered at the hands of the police and emboldened White supremacists to evidence this reality. Death is not theoretical. It is material. Their bodies were prepared for eternal rest by draining their blood and replacing it with embalming fluid or facilitating the cremation process. A family member may go into the room of the deceased at night to smell their pillow, trying to remember the scent of a life lost. A friend may try to call or text and gets no answer because the person is gone. They no longer exist in the material world, and there is no redress for such a loss for those murdered by the state.

We have never understood how theoretical spaces (such as those in the post-world) could be privileged over material spaces (where oppression still very much exists and exerts material consequences). Yet, conservatives have utilized these very theoretical notions to blow apart understandings of truth and fact in the United States. Trump regularly declared as “fake news” any coverage he did not like and encouraged his followers to avoid mainstream media. He began to create a version of reality where he was the ultimate arbiter of what is real. With cunning manipulation and a total disregard for facts, Trump helped part of the nation believe in a post-truth reality. An example of post-truth, according to Lee McIntyre (2018), is when “politicians can challenge the facts and pay no political price whatsoever” (p. 15). It also “signifies a state in which language lacks any reference to facts, truths, or realities” (McComiskey, 2017, p. 6). The rise to prominence of post-truth rhetoric aligned with Trump’s campaign for the 2016 presidency—as his entire campaign was premised upon the idea that social progress made through intersectional struggle was based on so-called “alternative facts” that threatened the safety and prosperity of White people. The “post-truth” idea was so pervasive that in 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary named it the international word of the year given its increased usage by journalists and the general public. They defined the term as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2016). The irony in this definition is clear those of us who are positioned at multiple axes of social domination. For centuries, our demands for justice have been decried as overly emotional, irrational, illogical, and not based in truth. However, when White supremacist institutions are threatened by our growing political will, those who benefit from them attempt to gaslight the facts by claiming a “post-truth” standpoint.

Sharp (2020) uses Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality and simulacra to trace Trump’s use of post-truth as a political device. He states,

It is clear that the proponents of post-truth are doing more than just denying inconvenient truths such as climate change or biological evolution. Rhetoric is utilized as a means of constructing a reality that better aligns with their goals, egos, and proclivities. (Sharp, 2020, p. 8)

This is most clear in the current political landscape regarding notions of truth telling, accurate renditions of history, and the well-funded and coordinated conservative attack against CRT.

Part of the backlash around CRT and other experiential forms of analysis that rely on people’s experiences is the desire to control the narrative. When post-modernists first questioned the idea of the master narrative, it is what Black and Brown theorists and academics knew all along. White people always get to be the arbiters of truth. It is why so much time and energy has been put into ensuring that the master narrative of White supremacy stays centered in every institution but most particularly in education. If we can raise children to believe that slavery was a benevolent institution, then it limits the degree to which we need to engage in discussions about cultural trauma or reparations. If we can teach children that Indigenous peoples welcomed “pilgrims” and that there was no land grab or slaughter of Native people, then we might also silence land back movements or discussions of reparations. We can, at the very least, pretend that the genocidal foundations of this country do not lie on the backs of its current citizens. We can pretend that every one of us can be proud to be an “American” while being absolved of its racist past. Yet, intersectional feminists, especially, have always privileged experiential knowledge to talk back to the master narrative and instead, offer counter-narratives of what life is actually like in this country if you do not hold all the power.

The Insurrection’s Connection to Popular Culture

The events on January 6 are intimately tied to the workings of popular culture as an educative site. From the widespread proliferation of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation to easily accessible communication platforms to plan these kinds of events, popular culture is central to conservative political education. To be clear, protestors who stormed the U.S. capitol that day represented a range of conservative political views. However, it is undeniable that internet algorithms intensified the accessibility of conspiracy theories and White supremacist rhetoric motivating the mob’s actions (Huszár et al., 2022). Celebrities in music and sports have also raised talking points that are sympathetic to White supremacist political views before and after January 6th. Any backlash they endured was summarily drowned out by a new wave of popularity and support, effectively sustaining alt-right morale (Bort, 2022; Fieldstadt, 2021). These pop culture workings allow media outlets across the political spectrum to advance sensational narratives, framed as controversies, that intensify the polarization that exists among their audiences for profit.

If intersectional theory has taught us anything, it is the hopeful premise that there is room for all of us in society. Emerging in simultaneity through the prophetic political demands of women of the global majority, the frame articulates how socially constructed categories of difference relate to systems of domination. Individuals and groups are able to name their experience in sociopolitical context and articulate modes of consciousness and power to advance justice through this heuristic analytical device (Collins, 2019). The work is as rooted in the personal as the political and as so has ushered a beautiful consciousness mobilizing the will to demand greater freedoms for peoples once dispossessed (Combahee River Collective, 1983). If DuBois (1903), through the full scope of his genius, articulated “double consciousness” through his centering of race analysis, intersectional theory expands this notion of sight to articulate multiplicitous consciousness through our experiences as raced, classed, gendered, sexualized, abled, etc. beings (Collins, 2019).

Theory in the FleshWe acknowledge that we have written this introduction through a disembodied academic voice—giving primacy to the facts surrounding the attempted coup. We have been trained, as academics, to write this way and it is difficult to break old habits. Our passion for the subject, however, comes from the materiality of our Black, Brown, cis-het, inter-racial loving, sexuality-, and spiritually expansive identities. So, we follow our foremothers by writing through our bodies to humanize our experience of the day’s unfolding.
Jennifer Speaks:
As insurrectionists scaled the walls of the Capitol, I remember looking at my husband in horror stating, “They can’t do that!” But, we were watching these events, this attempted coup against the U.S. government, unfold in real time. Instantly, I knew it was an attack against the government. This wasn’t a protest gone violent or even a riot. Instead, this was a coordinated attack against a symbol of democracy and stability. My fears were confirmed when one of the insurrectionists posted a Trump flag toward the top of the capitol building, seemingly to replace the U.S. flag. This was a coup and these violent, immoral terrorists wanted to turn democracy into a dictatorship.

My youngest daughter and I watched in horror as a White man carried a large confederate flag through the U.S. Capitol. We now know that man was Kevin Seefried and he was indicted by a grand jury on five counts related to obstruction, entering restricted property, and disorderly conduct. My daughter wanted to know whether a confederate flag had ever been allowed to fly at the U.S. Capitol. I had to quickly search my memory of U.S. history lessons from 35 years ago to tell her that I don’t believe the confederate flag had ever flown at the U.S. Capitol. This man completely degraded notions of justice and equity in his zeal to carry a losing flag and an everlasting symbol of racism and slavery through such sacred halls. I felt powerless watching her process this terror as her mind wondered whether, should these terrorists and insurrectionists be successful at overtaking the U.S. Capitol, she would be killed or enslaved. Even at age 14, she gravely understood that any man proud enough to carry this symbol of racism, did not value her life or the lives of other Black and Brown people. This was traumatic and disgusting. I am angry reliving this memory now and believe that no amount of jail time will be enough to undo the stain this action represents.
Erica Speaks:
I knew what the insurrectionists were going to do as soon as the news reported that mass protests were expected that day. I live in Michigan, where Trump supporters and White supremacist groups have repeatedly made good on their promises to stamp out intersectional progress. The long, racist saga of Trump’s rise to the presidency—beginning with the election of Barack Obama—served for me as a type of foreshadowing. It seemed that every night since the start of the pandemic, some disturbing news of white rage against BIPOC folk would stream across my timeline or make the local or national news. At first, I was indifferent to what was going on. After all, mad white folk do what they do. But it was my son, who had recently turned 5, whose questions about what was happening made me realize what I often forget. I found myself explaining to him, that the people storming the Capitol were mis-guided, and in a way, that we should feel bad for them; but as I did, I was filled with rage and guilt that in my attempt to protect my child from the truth of the insurrectionist’s hatefulness, I was encouraging him to hold regard for their humanity. The reality is that the people who stormed the Capitol that day do not care about my family’s Black lives. Whether intentional or not, their fight (in word, deed, and symbol) raised a banner of exclusion to remind me and anyone who might represent my needs that we do not belong here. The days since have only served to reinforce the founding fervor of our fungibility. We are still living through the white supremacist colonial project and I am learning to see myself more clearly as a reflection of my ancestors. I am/we are still riding the wake and walking the long path from Africa.
We Speak
On January 6, 2021, we were supposed to meet virtually at 4pm to discuss the topic we wanted to propose for this special issue of CS/CM. At 3:48pm, Jennifer texted Erica: “Hey. I’m not sure how well I can focus with the coup going on. Have you seen the news???” Erica replied,
“Yeah. I’m in the same mood. This is ridiculous.” Our text exchange ended with Jennifer asking, “Can you imagine if they were Black and doing this? So different.”
A few days later we decided that there really was no other topic to consider. We have long written about the importance of popular culture in popular education movements. The days’ happenings were a clear outgrowth of that. Inspired by the internet, we shared a few memes and started to discuss what they communicated to us about what happened.

What we found disturbing about the insurrection was the shear lack of police presence and their unpreparedness to confront violent insurrectionists. During Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 (as well as long before), many cities called in the National Guard and all available officers, often dressed in riot gear, as if they were expecting violence to occur. In fact, under the Trump administration, BLM, despite majority peaceful protests, was labeled a terrorist organization. Yet, White supremacist groups have been continually lauded by Trump, not as terrorists, but as “good people.” Although there is credible evidence that the insurrection was a coordinated and funded attack against democracy and that the Capitol police knew there might be violence (Balsamo & Merchant, 2021), the presumed goodness of White Trump supporters ensured there was no need for any real police protection. The memes allowed us to vent our frustration with this double standard through humor. In the first meme, a Cheeto is holding a lock in place. Many people, partially in response to Trump’s mocking and dehumanizing of others, nicknamed him Cheeto in reference to his fake tan which often turned his skin an unnatural orange color. The second meme shows an actual picture from a BLM protest at the Capitol with rows of soldiers standing guard and not a protestor in site. Next to the real picture is a screenshot from the comedy film, Mall Cop, about a bumbling officer who must save his mall from a group of criminals. The temporary humor we found from these memes in no way quells the rage we feel in our spirits at the double standard that exists for those who still must fight for racial justice versus those who believe in conspiracy theories and attempted to use violence to stop a valid transfer of power.
Another note that is important to mention is that we created and used a Gmail account specifically set up to collect manuscripts and correspond with authors regarding this special issue. After we put out the call for papers, we would periodically check the account in order to answer questions from prospective authors. Once, after about a 3-week hiatus when we had already engaged in the first round of reviews, we logged into the account to find that it had been clogged with daily blasts from various conservative news organizations. We only used the account to communicate with prospective contributors to this special issue. We did not use it to register to any websites or applications that might expose us to conservative content, yet we received thousands of SPAM emails. Immediately, we communicated with potential authors and told them we would no longer use the account—switching instead to our institutional accounts (which we hoped were more secure).
Another notable experience in the process of preparing this special issue was the number of submissions we received that attempted to use intersectional theory to bolster White supremacist claims. We engaged those papers with the same level of intellectual engagement that we did the others—offering substantial feedback to demonstrate the inaccuracy of the authors’ use of the theory. We hope that the scholars who made these attempts simply misunderstood the frame and needed additional time engaging intersectional thought and research. However, this occurrence, combined with the email hacking experience, makes us wonder whether academicians (or those who monitor us) made an attack against this issue. We do not raise these experiences to suggest that our work has risen to a level of prominence that would warrant acts of intimidation against us. Still, these events may be telling about the types of techniques being used to try to disrupt intersectional justice work.

Overview of the Special Issue

For as long as White supremacy and its related forms of social domination have existed, women of the global majority have articulated their experiences and political demands—literally using their bodies, spirits, desires, and material needs as the basis for ardent activism. The project is incomplete and the beautiful struggle wanes on (Davis et al., 2022). So, through the spirit of the many BIPOC women who clarified how social domination functioned in, on, and through our bodies in response to the political imperatives of our time, this volume talks back to dominant narratives regarding January 6th—daring, even, to be strident in our critique. In so doing, we place January 6th in historical context and move away from overly simplistic narratives that seem surprised by its occurrence. We open this special issue with Jordan and Dykes’s (2022) intersectional analysis of Donald Trump’s “Save America” speech as it was the day’s rallying cry—mobilizing the insurrectionists to attack the Capitol. Jordan and Dykes (2022) demonstrate how the speech and other messages meant to mock and exclude those with non-dominant bodies are part and parcel of America’s settler colonial project. The volume then moves to Soto-Vásquez & Santos’s (2022) work, which examines the ways disinformation has been propagated on Spanish-language websites. In so doing, the article shows how the White supremacist rhetoric at the heart of the conservative movement functions hegemonically. The article shows why a broad embrace of right-wing conspiracy theories and the overall narrative around “deep story” may be adaptable for some non-White groups.

We then turn to studies that focus on popular community responses to the insurrection, first through Martin and Fournillier’s (2022) critique of social media discourse surrounding the days’ events. Their work shows how social media analysis absent an intersectional focus is incomplete—even when attempts purport to advance critically conscious positions. Johnson and Justice’s (2022) research on higher education institutional statements follows. Using the public-facing correspondence regarding the many “unprecedented” events leading up to and including the January 6th attack, the authors compare how higher education leaders frame institutional responsibilities pertaining to race, class, and other categories of social difference.

Popular culture is a powerful teacher, political site of struggle, and hopeful site of promise and possibility. We, therefore, move from community responses to the insurrection to two pieces that consider the pedagogical implications inherent to the event. Hawkman and Dieem (2022) provide a media analysis of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—working to show how media responses to the amalgamation of lies told by the Trump administration led to the insurrection and rise in visibility of White supremacist activism leading up to the day. Their work ends with a call for educators to take up critical media literacy as an imperative for intersectional justice, with clear implications for how they might do so. In heeding this call, we close this volume with an article written by a practicing high school literature teacher. Ms. Walker (2022) shares her experience helping her students engage with and process the events of January 6th. Through critical readings of Trump’s insurrection speech as well as reflections on reactions to the days’ events, Ms. Walker demonstrates how to provide students with opportunities to hear a variety of perspectives while simultaneously processing the traumatic event. We end the volume this way to demonstrate the materiality of the insurrection, and to share the hope-filled reality that education for liberation remains (as it always has and always will).

Conclusion

Despite the rage, sadness, and perhaps even fear that we feel, we have no choice but to continue the project of articulating intersectional injustice as it plays out in popular culture. We, therefore, offer this volume as a critical pedagogical artifact given the centrality of media in the human experience. The scholars’ contributions make clear how White supremacy functions to the detriment of our differences before, during, and after January 6th, 2021 and what we can do about it. We are hopeful that the works contained herein make a contribution toward rupturing the relations threatening us all.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jennifer Esposito

Notes

Author Biographies

Erica B. Edwards (eedwards@wayne.edu) is an Assistant Professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State University. Her research focuses on the educational experiences of Black women and girls. Considering the central ideological role of popular culture in Black women’s experiences, Erica also writes about the educative value of television, film, and music from an intersectional perspective. She is co-author of the book Intersectional analysis of popular culture texts: Clarity in the matrix with Dr. Jennifer Esposito, and has published in journals such as The Journal of Negro Education, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Equity and Excellence in Education.Jennifer Esposito is a Professor and Department Chair of educational policy studies at Georgia State University. Her research takes an intersectional approach to qualitaitve research, centering race and gender, and uses critical theories to interrogate social life and popular culture. Her latest book (co-authored with Venus Evans Winters), Introduction to Intersectional Research, teaches novice researchers how to design and carry out research from an intersectional perspective. She has published in journals such as Qualitative Inquiry, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Urban Education.

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