From 2015, for a few years, I had the opportunity to team teach the introductory Philosophy of Communication, the fabled course at Purdue University that formed the basis of doctoral pedagogy in the program. The conversation on Whiteness that we witness today is a reminder of the many experiences of teaching the course and disrupting the doctoral program.
On one hand, in my many years at Purdue, teaching this course was one of the most joyful experiences, an opportunity to witness the brilliance of colleagues, many of whom formed the canon of Communication. On the other hand, teaching the course embodied the emotional and cognitive labour of struggles against Whiteness while immersed in it. When reflecting on this experience and the painful work of labour, let me note in the beginning my gratitude to the White allies that stood in solidarity.
As a team taught course, Com 600, embodied a pedagogy of debate. It was therefore set up like that, beginning with Philosophy of Science, shifting to Philosophical questions of the Social Sciences, working through interpretivism and social constructionism, and attending to critical theory and feminism. It then wrapped up with a social constructionist meta-reading of Communication.
It was assumed that I would teach to the structures of the debates constructed within the syllabus. Yet, the very terrains of debate were sites of erasure, marked by the absence of the voices of colour from the syllabus. The readings on interpretive theory, critical theory, cultural studies, sections devoted to Enlightenment, were also readings paradoxically embedded in Whiteness, with almost all White scholars as authors of the texts to be read.
I was not going to teach to this canon. It did not reflect my lived experiences as a Communication scholar. It did not reflect my lived experiences as a human being.
For me to co-teach 600 would mean that the basic readings would have to be re-visited, as well as the structuring of the readings would have to be interrogated. When I therefore began the initial conversations on what is to be included in the syllabus, I started by sharing some initial postcolonial texts with my co-teacher. In one such interaction, I remember being told I was racist for wanting to include Said, Spivak, Guha, Fanon. The argument was that I was politicizing the reading list by attending to skin colour. To attend to skin colour of the authors was marked as racist.
Working through, as I recall now, some very heated interactions, my co-teacher and I were able to arrive at some agreements about what is to be included. A section on postcolonial, race, and decolonization theory was to be incorporated into the Critical theory unit of the course. Moreover, the introductory philosophy of science section would include texts by Shiva, Alvares, and Nandy, largely drawing on decolonizing movements within the scientific canon in the global South.
These inclusions were important entry points to the pedagogy of Com 600. The labour of teaching these texts however was ongoing. The first time that I taught Shiva, I am reminded of the interaction in the classroom, where my co-teacher arrived with copious notes on the pseudoscience that was being espoused by the text. I recall putting my emotion and physical work into figuring out material strategies for intervening in the classroom, including developing my own copious notes, physically interrupting by moving in the front, raising my voice, and not giving away my turn until I completed my thoughts. Having pre-planning meetings and dividing up class time were some other strategies.
The interactions in the classroom were not the only interactions to be dealt with.
I recall often being told by students of colour that were enrolled in the class that White students in the class felt I hated White people. This notion, that I hated White people, was often circulated through the largely White gossip networks of students enrolled in the PhD program at Purdue. These White gossip networks saw any critique of Whiteness as hatred for Whites. They went on full steam with their constructions of me as the "racist," "uncivil," "angry" brown man.
Resisting these White gossip networks meant carrying on with the interventions into Com 600, and adding other courses on "Postcolonial Theory," and "Subaltern Studies and Resistance" into the curriculum. These change processes were supported by White allies that attended to the conversations on erasure and committed to transforming the curriculum. Particularly salient was the role of an ally that chaired the graduate program and committed to making available infrastructures for dialogue and difference.
This work of transforming the curriculum is activist in its impulse and performance. Although this is distinct from the various activist performances that our community partners and activists-in-residence engage in with the ongoing intervention work at CARE, they share the commitment to resisting structures. The activism into the classroom in creating alternative pedagogies calls for placing our bodies on the line in ways that are similar to the ongoing activist work of transforming communities.