This authors write that, "In one way or another, we were all struck by disjunctions between the radical propositions of feminist theory and how these texts were read, discussed, and taught in our experiences as graduate students and university instructors," something that leads them toward the development of a pedagogical-performance methodology and a "pedagogy that understands itself through performance." It really struck me in reading this how FTT not only shifts toward embodied, collaborative, and open-ended engagement with the text as a form of learning together, but that by contrast a traditional method of assigning a text to students assumes a kind of linear transmission model of pedagogy. That is: The author put together these ideas into this text, I the professor am the curator in having selected this text for you, presumably because I want you to learn something from it, and then you come to class and there are maybe three options: we don't discuss it at all (after all, you read it, right?), I test you on it (reading quiz, anyone?) because if you read it then you must have learned the thing I thought was important, or class discussion. Depending on how good I am at facilitating such a discussion, in this latter part, we may have an opportunity to engage the text together, interpret it differently from each other, etc. Everything short of this last discussion scenario assumes simple transmission. While this kind of class discussion is not easy in graduate seminars it is particularly difficult in undergraduate spaces, because it can be especially difficult to get undergraduates to closely engage text. I'm curious whether some texts lend themselves better to this method than others? Are there criteria that I might look for in deciding what text or portion of text would make for a good candidate?
You might find this article useful as well, in thinking about STS pedagogies: Tomblin, David, and Nicole Mogul. “STS Postures: Responsible Innovation and Research in Undergraduate STEM Education.” Journal of Responsible Innovation 7, no. sup1 (December 4, 2020): 117–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2020.1839230.
