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The Radical Space of Possibility:

A Conversation with Angela Yarber

In Part One Angela outlines her approach to the concept and lived experience of “justice” at the intersections of feminism, queer theory, art, and activism. Through her Holy Women Icons, Angela imparts her vision for a just world—one that re-members the goddess/women who embody resistance and power.

In Part Two we talk more with Angela about her place-based pedagogy in Hawai’i. Angela describes her pedagogical approach for her intensive course: “This land-based intensive class is grounded in the engaged theory of bell hooks, and structured in Parker Palmer’s knowing, being, and doing framework. The classrooms’ radical space of possibility expands to encompass the orchard, garden, art studio, dinner table, and active volcano, tide pool, and those much-beloved seminar spaces of dialogue. Research, reading, painting, writing, discussion, cooking, planting, harvesting, and exploring Hawai’I are our various methods of learning, engaging the mind, body, and heart.” Angela is committed to “Decolonizing knowledge, the strict boundaries between disciplines, and the classroom, [where] students engage in knowing, being, and doing simultaneously.”

about our guest/s

Dr. Angela Yarber is a feminist scholar of religion and spirituality and pedagogy, a painter, a dancer, an activist, a parent, and sustainability lifestyle advocate.

Tina first met Angela in Spring 2005 when they worked together in an introductory biblical studies course at Agnes Scott College; Angela was completing a “pedagogical internship” as part of her Master of Divinity program at McAfee School of Theology (Mercer University). Angela completed her doctorate in Religion and the Arts (at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and has certificates in Women’s Studies in Religion and Sacred Dance Studies. She has taught at Wake Forest University (“Gender, Food, and the Body in Popular Culture;” “Embodying the World’s Religions;” “Women, History, and Myth;” “Embodying the Feminine Divine.”)

resources

The Holy Women’s Icon Project: https://www.holywomenicons.com/

Angela Yarber, “Shattering the Stained-Glass Ceiling,” Ms. Magazine, July 2019.

Angela Yarber, with Cody Sander, Microaggressions and Ministry: Confronting the Violence of Everyday Church, WestminsterJohnKnox, 2015.

Angela Yarber, Holy Women Icons, Parson’s Porch Books, 2014.

_____. Dance in Scripture: How Biblical Dancers Can Revolutionize Worship Today, Wipf and Stock, 2013.

_____. Embodying the “Feminine” in the Dances of the World’s Religions. Peter Lang, 2011.

Maxine Greene, Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change, Jossey-Bass, 2000.

bell hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, Routledge, 2003.

_____. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, Routledge, 1994.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Milkweed Editions, 2015.

Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, 20th Anniversary, Jossey-Bass, 2017.

On the concept of Aloha ‘Āina (the love of the land movement in Hawai’i):

Noelani Goodyear-Ka’ōpua, Ikanika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaka’ala Wright, Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements of Life, Land, and Sovereignty, Duke University Press, 2014.

Noenoe K. Silva, Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonization, Duke University Press, 2014.

On the Thirty Meter Telescope Protests on Mauna Kea (2014-15; 2019):

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/16/hawaii-telescope-protest-mauna-kea

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/16/hawaii-telescope-protest-mauna-kea