Weinberg College welcomes Eli Kean, Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program and Academic Adviser!
Kean recently shared what inspired them and what they feel is most fulfilling about teaching. Kean’s primary goal as an academic is to help shape gendered educational practices in expansive and affirming directions.
Where are you from? Where did you study?
I am originally from Kansas City, Missouri and I completed my undergraduate degree in Anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. I went on to study Higher Education Administration at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and then earned my Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in gender studies and social justice education at Michigan State University.
What inspired you to pursue your area of study?
I am deeply interested in how we teach and learn about issues of identity, power and oppression. I was initially drawn to this topic during my master’s program where I first learned about critical race theory through reading Derrick Bell and Gloria Ladson-Billings, and black feminist thought through reading Patricia Hill Collins and bell hooks. These scholars really sparked my interest in structural oppression and the ways that social institutions like education, criminal justice, media, and religion are embedded with all kinds of norms, expectations, policies and practices that work to privilege some and marginalize others. Around the same time, my best friend came out as trans and began his social & medical transition (and soon after I came out as non-binary), and I began to notice that the educational discourse around trans identities was severely lacking, and even sometimes harmful, even in the most progressive and justice-oriented conversations around diversity and other aspects of identity.
It became a professional goal of mine to improve the way that educators taught about gender identity and trans experiences, and that’s what I went into my Ph.D. program intending to do. Since then, I have been so grateful to have my perspective expanded even further through the work of folks like Dean Spade, Audre Lorde, Charlene Carruthers, Susan Stryker, Leslie Feinberg, Che Gossett, Namrata Verghese, Angela Y. Davis, CeCe McDonald, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and adrienne maree brown. I feel such gratitude that I have the chance to share the wisdom and valuable perspective of these folks (and so many others) with students, while also uplifting students as creators of knowledge in their own right.
What are you working on right now that excites you the most?
Right now, I am developing a seminar course that I’ll be teaching in spring quarter called Critical Trans Studies (GNDR_ST 390). This course builds on my recent publication advancing a Critical Trans Framework for education, a theoretical project I had been developing and redeveloping over the past decade. Trans studies has evolved and expanded exponentially in the past ten years and in that time has distinguished itself as distinct from queer and feminist studies in ways that really speak to the unique experiences of trans and non-binary people. I’m super excited to develop this interdisciplinary course that will look at topics like biomedical discourse, knowledge production, abolition and reform, in/visibility, transformative justice, and multi-issue activism while centering diverse gender experiences.
How do you enjoy spending your free time?
I love being outside and I consider myself to be a (very) amateur nature photographer. Someday I hope to purchase a really nice digital camera but for now I have my smartphone camera and it does alright. I love to sing although I’m not very good at it! I have been a member of community choirs in the past and hope to get more involved with that here in Chicago. I also love to travel and look forward to exploring more of this wonderful world, learning from other cultures, and capturing the beauty of the earth.
What is most fulfilling to you about teaching?
There are so many reasons why teaching is a fulfilling experience for me. It’s the opportunity to grapple with complicated topics and help students make sense of the society in which we live. It’s uplifting students and showing them that their own perspectives and experiences are just as valuable as the ones written in the textbooks and scholarly articles. One of the biggest rewards of teaching is learning from the students, honestly – every time I teach, I know more than when I started and that’s largely because the students are teaching me.
Teaching also helps to push me outside my own limited perspective because I am committed to making my curriculum as up-to-date and diverse as possible, with texts (broadly conceived) that speak to experiences that I will likely never have. Simply put, I think teaching makes me a better person and in turn it is my hope that students leave my classes with a bit more knowledge and the tools to be better people, better neighbors, better community members, and better professionals.