Teaching in the Time of “trumpism”: Reflections on Citizenship and Hospitality

The most recent special issue of Women, Gender, and Families of Color titled “Trump’s America? Disquiet Campus? Marginalized College Students, Faculty, and Staff Reflect on Learning, Working, Living, and Engaging,” contains 25 articles from contributors who address the very tangible changes and challenges in current times. Cécile Accilien, author of one of the articles in this issue, offers the following overview of her contribution.


“Teaching in the Time of ‘trumpism’: Reflections on Citizenship and Hospitality”

By: Cécile Accilien

In “Teaching in the Time of ‘trumpism’: Reflections on Citizenship and Hospitality,” I reflect upon some of the challenges of teaching in the age of intolerance, racism, sexism and other “isms” at the University of Kansas. I explore the notion of citizenship and hospitality from various perspectives including Immanuel Kant’s 1795 essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” and Algerian-born French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s ideas on hospitality.  Using the University of Kansas’ 2017-2018 Common Book Citizen: An American Lyric by author Claudia Rankine, I discuss some of the ways in which Rankine brings to light various narratives that the book presents. For Rankine, citizenship conveys narratives of privilege whether racial, class, gender, culture, etc. Citizen is a mixed media book that consists of situational videos, poetry, images and songs to analyze the complex question of what it means to be a citizen in the United States in the twenty-first century and the privilege that certain citizenships bring. Among the themes that Citizen delve into are human migration, movement, immigration, and tourism. I also reflect upon how some laws in the United States have been used to criminalize and delegalize immigrants while others facilitate access for certain types of immigrants who are considered assets for the United States.


The University of Illinois Press invites you to a free view of “Teaching in the Time of ‘trumpism’: Reflections on Citizenship and Hospitality” by: Cécile Accilien, available through October 15th. Click here to submit your email address and we’ll provide a link to the full online article.


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