DePaul University - Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies
For the last eight years, I’ve designed and taught six unique courses in DePaul University’s Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies program. At the core of my theory of teaching is popular education and critical pedagogy; the power of analysis, reflection, and action. While the “PAX 220: Activism” course, rooted in the theory and praxis of social movements, is central to the major, I’m most proud of the two courses I had to independently assemble and submit to university committees: “PAX 228: Identity, Privilege and Social Change” and “PAX 225: Transnational Grassroots Social Movements: Resisting the War on Terror”. Interdisciplinary in its nature, PAX 228 begins with a two-week anti-oppression training. Starting from a place of one’s identity, we spend the quarter studying institutionalized racism, nonviolent direct action, and allyship. The Global War on Terror class is rooted in relationships I cultivated with the Afghan Peace Volunteers, a youth-led movement in Kabul, Afghanistan. My research was collected during two trips to Kabul. From its inception, the project – which included travel and logistics during the two-week delegation to Kabul, research, creating the syllabus, and course materials – was designed with the hope that those most impacted by war and militarism, the youth in Afghanistan, would drive the framing of the course.
Syllabi available upon request:
PAX 200 Communities Working for Sustainable Justice and Peace: Service in Chicago
PAX 220 Social Engagement for Peace and Justice
PAX 225 Transnational Grassroots Social Movements: Resisting the Global War on Terror
PAX 228 Identity, Privilege and Social Change
PAX 240 Voices of War and Peace: Art, Literature, and Film
College Connect Program
For two summers, I’ve been honored to put together an enrichment course for high school students on youth-led activism and prison abolition through DePaul’s College Connect program. We’ve studied the Movement for Black Lives, the police torture committed under commissioner Jon Burge, and Chicago’s Reparations Ordinance for Police Torture Survivors. We visited the Chicago Torture Justice Center, of which I sat for a year on the early board of directors.
