City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 6-2021 Beyond Authorization: Toward Abolitionist Transliteracies Ecologies and an Anti-Racist Translingual Pedagogy Lindsey Albracht The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4285 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] BEYOND AUTHORIZATION: TOWARD ABOLITIONIST TRANSLITERACIES ECOLOGIES AND AN ANTI-RACIST TRANSLINGUAL PEDAGOGY by LINDSEY ALBRACHT A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2021 ©2021 LINDSEY ALBRACHT All Rights Reserved ii Beyond Authorization: Toward Abolitionist Transliteracies Ecologies and an Anti-Racist Translingual Pedagogy by Lindsey Albracht This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. __________________ ______________________________________ Date Amy J. Wan Chair of Examining Committee _________________ _____________________________________ Date: Kandice Chuh Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Mark McBeth Jessica Yood THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Beyond Authorization: Toward Abolitionist Transliteracies Ecologies and an Anti-Racist Translingual Pedagogy by Lindsey Albracht Advisor: Amy J. Wan This project explores the recent paradigm shift within Writing Studies toward a translingual approach, situating many of the critiques of this approach as limitations produced by dominant liberal models of Writing Studies pedagogy. Taking up Vershawn Ashanti Young and Frankie Condon’s call to move toward a more anti-racist translingual approach, I argue for why dominant anti-racist Writing Studies pedagogies, which commonly revolve around reforming individual behaviors, attitudes, dispositions, or practices, will inadequately address institutionally-produced structures of racialized linguistic marginalization. Drawing inspiration from a variety of Lefist abolitionist movements—particularly the movement toward Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) abolition, the movement toward the abolition of involvement with the carceral state within the field of K-12 education, and student-led activism leading to the passage of the City University of New York’s Open Admissions policy—I argue for how an anti-racist translingual approach may attend to the wider language ecologies that shape language reception practices and that challenge the dominant order of racial capitalism beyond the first-year writing classroom and program. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Beginning a dissertation process at the start of the uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri and finishing the process in the middle of an ongoing global pandemic has made me especially grateful to learn from visionary abolitionists who have modeled resistance, resiliency, community, mutuality, joy, and world making. I am particularly inspired by the community organizers and mutual aid volunteers who have imagined and enacted the world that we want to live in during what has been a time of staggering and incomprehensible loss within the CUNY system alone, within our city, and across the world. Thank you for showing the way. To “essential” workers, healthcare workers, and the many contingent university staff and instructors upon which the existence of this city and this system is entirely dependent, there are no words of appreciation that are sufficient. To my advisor, Amy Wan, whose generous mentorship and friendship have made this entire process rich and fulfilling, a huge thank you for everything that you’ve done for me and that you do for so many of us at the Grad Center. Your edits and questions have taught me more about giving generative feedback than you could know. You also regularly model how humility and empathy are inseparable from critique and meaningful action. And your snack game is untouchable. To Mark McBeth, whose feedback has also been invaluable to shaping this project, I am so grateful for your insight, and for many chats over coffee in your wonderful, rabbit-filled office. How lucky I am to have started my process in this program as your research assistant! Looking forward to many more chats in the rabbit office in the coming years. To Jessica Yood, whose support and flexibility I so appreciate: thank you for joining this project, and for being a generous reader. I am grateful for your expertise and your time. To Bryan Milo, who moved cities to support me, and then spent the last several years encouraging me, feeding me, reading (so many) of my drafts, making me laugh, and forcing me to go outside sometimes: I love you, and I am so lucky to be your partner. Thank you for everything that you did to make this happen. To Virginia Schwarz, my long-distance dissertation pal: thank you for feeding me tacos and telling me I’m a winner, but also for telling me when my sentences were just really too dang long! Our “Mobile Writing Center” and an unlimited data plan was not a small part of the reason that this actually happened. To my housemates, Mary Catherine and Virginia Kinniburgh, and Conley Lowrance, and of course, Louie, Masha, Shoopa, Stinky, and Sturgis. So grateful to share a life with y’all! Lots of gratitude to Josh Belknap, María Richardson González-Arechiga, Benji Jones, Modi Li, Victoria McGrath, Andrés Orejula, Chase Purdy, Xiangni Wang, and Anna Zeemont who were all early thought partners in this work. This project would not have been possible without your generative thinking and contributions. I am also thankful to the Graduate Center’s Teaching and Learning Center for the generous Teaching and Learning grant money that supported an early v faculty inquiry group that eventually evolved into this project. Thank you to Luke Waltzer and Elizabeth Alsop for proposal feedback and support. I am incredibly grateful for the Inquiry-to-Action groups on the Radical Imagination facilitated by Malcolm Sacks and LaToya Strong, the group on Anti-Racist Schools facilitated by Rosie Frascella and Ashia Troiano, and the group on Ethnic Studies facilitated by Wendy Barrales and Maya Alexander. The generative conversations in these groups and the connections that I was able to make to inspiring educators working within the New York City public school system were absolutely central to the development of this project. Thank you to the New York Collective of Radical Educators, especially Natalia Ortiz, whose presentation at the Graduate Center initially connected me to this vibrant intellectual community. Thank you so much to many other influential Grad Center teachers and mentors: especially Carmen Kynard and Matt Gold. Thank you also to Kenneth Tobin, Kandice Chu, Sondra Perl and the Comp Rhet community she actively cultivated at the Grad Center. Also, a special thanks to both Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton of Southwestern University and Jim Purdy of Duquesne University for introducing me to the field of Comp Rhet, to Laura Callanan, John Fried, and Emad Mirmoutahari for being inspiring teacher role models, and to my undergraduate mentor, David Gaines, who made me want to keep doing this whole school thing in the first place. The Comp Rhet community at the Graduate Center was a wonderful place for me to learn and expand my thinking. I am especially grateful to Comp Comm and to my “Summer Camp” pals: Erin Anderson, Josh Belknap (again!), Seth Graves, Robert Greco, Maxine Krenzel, Alexis Larson, Andrew Lucchesi, Sean Molloy, Jesse Rice-Evans, Chy Sprauve, Andréa Stella and Anna Zeemont (again!). Thank you, also, influential Comp Comm speakers Todd Craig, Baz Dreisinger, Patricia Dunn, Ofelia García, Shereen Inayatullah and Asao Inoue, for volunteering your time and sharing your work with us, and thanks to former and future co-chairs for the labor you do. To my Teaching and Learning Collaboratory Fellow colleagues, especially Lisa Brundage, Logan McBride, Chrissy Nadler, and Hamad Sindhi, and teacher-collaborators like Greg O’Mullan and Arianna Martinez, who taught me so much about teaching: thank you. To the Bridge cohort of 2018-2019: your presence in the Macaulay classroom was a gift to Macaulay, and to me. To Baruch Center for Teaching and Learning crew: both colleagues and faculty friends who gave me encouragement, cookies, feedback, real talk, and so many ideas for the classroom and beyond, I am so grateful for you, Kamal Belmihoub, Tamara Gubernat, Laurie Hurson, Allison Lehr-Samuels, Brooke Schrieber, Hamad Sindhi (again!), Cheryl Smith, Jessica Wagner- Webster and Alfred Waller. To the International House crew, where I first started thinking about teachers and teacher educators, especially to my teacher-mentor-friend Lizzy Adams: thank you for being an incredible role model. vi I have had too many influential students to name here. But I did tell Sharrieff Turner that I would give him a specific shout out when this whole thing was done. Here it is, Sharrieff! To friends in New York, Pittsburgh, and Texas, for reminding me that grad school is just one part of my life, thanks. The way that you live your life and take care of your communities sets an example for me every day, Casey McAuliffe and Alex McPhail. Alison Kuo, our discussions about TESOL and students were the early seeds from which this dissertation eventually grew. To my mom Sharon Parr, dad Roderick Albracht, and my sister BrookeAnne Smith; my nieces Caroline and Ella and my nephew Zane; Linda and Doug Milo for being super encouraging and also for letting me move their son to New York City: I am forever grateful for your support! Finally, I am grateful for the feedback that I was given on the fifth chapter of this project by Tom Do and Karen Rowan. A version of this chapter will appear in the forthcoming edited collection, Racing Translingualism in Composition: Toward a Race-Conscious Translingualism.