During the second year of my doctoral program, I was a twenty-three-year-old in charge of seventy-five students in my role as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) for an undergraduate introductory psychology course. As a GSI, I led discussions based on the topics introduced to the students during the main lectures. I had little control over the course material and assignments, although the lead instructor allowed GSIs to develop one assignment of their choice. Other GSIs created discussion posts, papers, or presentation assignments. I wanted to create a fun, engaging assignment that would also be enjoyable and enable me, as an instructor, to gauge whether students were grasping the ideas presented to them. I developed “What Do You Meme?” This assignment was designed to channel students’ digital literacy into academic inquiry, allowing them to engage with developmental psychology concepts by creating original memes or other digital content forms. The feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive. When students were given the freedom to explore academic concepts in spaces they found relatable and enjoyable, they showcased their understanding in deeply insightful, personal, and creative ways. This validated the use of digital culture in academia, not as a trivial aspect but as a robust, culturally salient medium of expression and critique. This became the foundation for how I developed my own undergraduate course.
Introduction
In our current technologically driven society, educational pedagogy is not immune to the pervasive influence of digital culture. As digital spaces redefine how information and knowledge are created and shared, educators are faced with a paradigm shift in teaching methodologies. In this paper, I refer to “the digital” broadly to encompass technological systems that include the internet, smart phones, and surveillance systems. Traditional barriers between digital culture and formal education have faced a shift; they are being rebuilt into bridges that connect learning outcomes with students’ digital lives. This new paradigm is not about discarding the pedagogical practices of the past but rather about integrating the digital world into our educational strategies. This article explores the transformative potential of bell hooks’s (1952–2021) pedagogies in the digital realm and their ability to confront and move beyond oppressive systems, particularly in the classroom. Specifically, this article will focus on the practical implications of hooks’s ideas for digital education through a case study of an undergraduate psychology course developed using a Black feminist praxis and hooks’s concepts.
In her groundbreaking work, hooks has challenged traditional educational paradigms, advocating for an engaged pedagogy that transcends the transactional boundaries of the classroom, inviting students not only to think critically but also to connect education with their lived experiences. Her ideologies prompt an exploration of teaching practices that empower students, foregrounding dialogue, respect, and the whole person in the learning experience. I also explore the concept of glitch feminism to explore teaching about the digital, a concept coined by artist, writer, and curator Legacy Russell (2020) that embraces and celebrates and challenges the flaws and imperfections within digital systems and technologies from a feminist perspective. This concept doesn’t just recognize flaws and imperfections within these systems; it actively embraces and challenges them. Glitch feminism aligns seamlessly with hooks’s philosophy, serving as a crucial framework in my instruction on digital and technological subjects. It reinterprets the “glitches” or errors within societal and cultural systems, particularly those encountered in technology, not as negative malfunctions but as necessary disruptions that highlight inequalities and pave the way for transformative change. Incorporating glitch feminism into the classroom encourages students to critically question the status quo, fostering a more inclusive and equitable digital future. This approach motivates students to see “glitches” and system disruptions not as barriers, but as opportunities for dialogue, analysis, and transformation within digital spaces. It empowers them to challenge systemic biases and work towards reforming the structures of digital engagement, making technology more accessible and just for all.
bell hooks’s Philosophy
bell hooks, a prominent feminist thinker and educator, dedicated her expansive body of work to promoting liberation, healing, and disruption in various social contexts. Much of hooks’s work aims to center those who exist at the margins of society, referring to oppressed and dominated individuals silenced and limited by the power structure of the hegemony, which is typically represented by white, male, heterosexual norms. Marginalization entails displacement, denial, and existing in a space of powerlessness and restriction (Walker 1999). However, hooks carved out an alternative narrative regarding this “margin.” Rather than a space of defeat, she reconceptualized it as a site of radical openness and potential (hooks 1989). Here, in the margins, the colonized and the oppressed can defy the very forces that seek to limit their existence. These margins, as hooks compellingly argued, transform into positions and places of active resistance (hooks 2014a). They evolve into invaluable spaces fostering defiance, nurturing radical perspectives, and ultimately facilitating the imaginative leap required to envisage and create alternative realities (hooks 2014b). Drawing from this foundational understanding of resistance within the margins, hooks, in her seminal work Teaching to Transgress (1994), presents the concept of engaged pedagogy. This revolutionary educational framework encompasses elements of anticolonial, critical, and feminist pedagogies. It serves as an active platform for challenging biases within educational curricula that perpetuate or even accentuate existing systems of domination (hooks 1994, 10). Instead of passively accepting these traditional structures, engaged pedagogy emboldens educators and students alike to interrogate these systemic biases actively. This approach is not about mere critique; it advocates for innovative methods of teaching tailored to diverse groups of students, thereby promoting a more inclusive, aware, and liberated form of education. Through such transformative pedagogy, hooks extends her concept of the “margin” into educational practice, turning these spaces of exclusion into places of profound educational and societal transformation.
Glitch Feminism
Following hooks’s concept of the “margin” as a space of radical potential and resistance, we find a resonant echo in the principles of glitch feminism. This framework provides a useful approach to understanding the constraints within the societal and cultural machinery we navigate—systems that often enact violence on bodies historically relegated to the “other.” Glitch feminism innovatively appropriates the term “glitch,” traditionally associated with malfunction or error, suggesting that these perceived inconsistencies in societal, cultural, and digital systems are not aberrations but rather indicative of a need for systemic change (Russell 2020). These “glitches” signify profound underlying disparities rooted in economic, racial, social, sexual, and cultural biases, compounded further by the overarching influences of globalization. In the realm of digital interactions and identities, glitches manifest when technology attempts to force individuals into binary or simplified categories. These classifications are laden with entrenched expectations, norms, and values that, when unmet, render an individual a “glitch” within the system. This divergence from the “norm” calls into question their very humanity, leading to experiences of algorithmic bias, undue surveillance, and discrimination—a phenomenon Ruha Benjamin (2019) incisively terms “coded bias.” Such biases are not mere reflections but rather amplifications of prevailing societal prejudices and power imbalances within our digital frameworks. Glitch feminism, however, is not about condemning technology. Instead, it leverages these revelations of inherent bias and systemic constraints to challenge our conventional interpretation of “errors” as inherently detrimental. It posits that these glitches, these moments of disruption, can become opportunities for insightful dialogue, critical engagement, and ultimately, substantial positive change. By embracing the “glitch,” we question and push against the status quo, sparking conversations and movements poised to reshape societal structures.
In this way, glitch feminism and hooks’s radical openness in the margins converge, presenting “errors”—whether in societal norms or digital codes—as catalysts for transformation and gateways to a more inclusive and equitable future. In the realm of education, engaged pedagogy and glitch feminism can intersect and create opportunities for critical thinking and empowerment. By incorporating glitch feminism into educational practices, we can encourage students to challenge existing power dynamics and traditional modes of learning. Additionally, glitch feminism can help students develop a critical perspective towards the limitations of technology, encouraging them to question and reshape digital platforms to be more inclusive and equitable spaces for all users.
Digital Pedagogy
This semester, I am the Instructor on Record (IOR) for an undergraduate-level course I designed as a part of my preliminary examination for my PhD curriculum—Psychology of the Black Digital Experience. This course addresses the intersection of technology, culture, and identity through an examination of race and the US digital media and technological system from a social and psychological perspective. In this course, students gain a broad understanding of research and theoretical work at the intersections of technology and race, grow in their capabilities to think critically about race and ethnicity as they relate to the internet, digital, and new technologies, and recognize how digital media and technologies constantly impact and/or structure their everyday social interactions, identities, and seemingly mundane or rote behaviors. In the following sections, I will delineate the methods through which I integrate insights from hooks’s seminal contributions to shape the classroom environment and cultivate meaningful relationships among students. Subsequently, I will pivot to discuss the innovative application of Russell’s concept of glitch feminism as a fundamental framework for curriculum development.
I draw upon bell hooks’s pedagogies and ideologies, particularly the ways she challenged the traditional educational framework, advocating for an engaged and inclusive pedagogy that expands beyond the traditional boundaries of the classroom to structure and facilitate the classroom environment and relationship between myself and the students and among the students. In what follows, I reflect on my own teaching philosophies while presenting a framework for applying an engaged pedagogy. In addition, I provide brief overviews of the results from our anonymous midterm evaluation to provide context on the ways students have responded to the course thus far.
For this course, I emphasize the centrality of marginalized Black individuals in digital contexts, harnessing the power of radical disruption—a hallmark of hooks’s philosophy. This concept transcends mere opposition, advocating for the complete disruption of oppressive structures to prompt transformative change. By positioning the narratives of Black individuals not as peripheral but as foundational to understanding the broader digital landscape, the course echoes hooks’s call for an education that centers on the lived experiences of the marginalized. At a predominately white institution in the Midwest, outside of specific departments there are few courses centering marginalized communities, especially in the digital context, such as this one. Engaged pedagogy combines anticolonialist views with critical thinking skills while providing diverse groups with fresh ways to learn together (hooks 1994).
Classroom Environment
This course occurs twice a week for an hour and a half each time. Each week there is a main topic of discussion with a set of assigned reading and video material that is available to students via our course Canvas (learning management system) page. Tuesday classes are lectures led by myself or a guest lecturer, and Thursday classes are student-led discussions based on the assigned readings for the week. This approach gives students more autonomy and fosters a cocreated space instead of a centralized model where only I provide instruction. Students responded favorably to this approach, with one student sharing, “I’m having a lot of fun learning from my classmates and their experiences in class discussion,” and, “It’s nice to have a course that is actually discussion/student based. I also really like the student-led Thursdays and letting them take the lead.” These responses illustrate hooks’s idea that when students are empowered to take ownership of their learning and actively participate in the classroom, they are more engaged and motivated. Allowing students to cocreate the learning environment not only fosters a sense of autonomy but also encourages collaboration and the sharing of diverse perspectives. This approach ultimately cultivates a deeper understanding of the subject matter and enhances critical thinking skills as students learn from each other’s experiences and viewpoints.
In order to create a space where students feel valued, supported, and encouraged to express their thoughts and opinions, I draw largely from hooks’s emphasis on applying a “love ethic” that empowers teachers while caring for student wellness beyond classes. An ethics of love is a student-centered approach to teaching that utilizes “all the dimensions of love—‘care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge’—in our everyday lives” (hooks 2000, 94). I foregrounded this ethic this semester by having students think critically about their positionalities and what they come into this space with. By encouraging students to reflect on their own identities and experiences, they can better understand how their perspectives shape their interactions with others. This self-awareness allows for more empathetic and inclusive discussions, ultimately creating a more enriching learning environment for everyone involved. Applying an ethics of love also encompasses caring for students outside class parameters by checking in regularly, adapting assignments based on external factors (e.g., global events or political climates), prioritizing wellness, and encouraging mutual support among peers. In the midsemester evaluations, students noted feeling like our class is “a supported space,” and they “do not feel anxious” about coming to class and sharing their ideas given the support they feel from their peers. This course’s focus on technology means that students are required to engage with it, although they enter with varying levels of familiarity with it. The students are provided with resources and support to help them navigate and utilize these tools effectively no matter the level of familiarity they bring. Additionally, the emphasis on wellness and mutual support creates a positive learning environment where students feel comfortable exploring and expressing their ideas, regardless of their initial comfort level with technology.
Classroom Instruction
I draw upon glitch feminism to facilitate teaching about the digital and technology. In this course, glitch feminism emerges not just as a theoretical lens but as an experiential, hands-on exploration of digital spaces. In drawing from both hooks and Russell, we engage in informal ways of knowing, learning, and being. In weeks 3 and 4, we explore “(re)cultivating identities and Black spaces,” where we examine specific case studies of digital content reflecting Black experiences. These case studies exemplify how marginalized communities repurpose digital “glitches,” transforming spaces of exclusion into platforms for cultural expression and empowerment. In weeks 5 and 6, “Surveillance and Identity,” we draw from Simone Browne’s seminal work “Dark Matters,” which unpacks surveillance as a critical dimension of modern identity. We extend Browne’s insights into our investigation of digital “glitches,” emphasizing how surveillance practices in digital platforms often perpetuate racialized norms, infringing on privacy and autonomy. The conversation deepens as we engage with the dynamics of online dating apps in weeks 9 and 10 under the theme “Digital Intimacies.” These platforms, while seemingly neutral, often mask algorithmic biases, shaping user interactions based on race, thereby marginalizing Black identities. Here, students dissect these “glitches” in dating algorithms as not mere technical issues but as reflections of broader societal prejudices that necessitate rectification. From understanding the implications of surveillance to challenging the “norms” perpetuated by dating apps, students are inspired to recognize these digital “fault lines” and engage in critical conversations about race, technology, and social justice. By examining the ways in which dating algorithms reinforce racial biases, students can develop a deeper understanding of how systemic racism permeates various aspects of society, including online platforms.
Committed to fostering a multifaceted dialogue, our syllabus is a compilation of contemporary and fundamental readings and research paradigms, predominantly from leading Black scholars. Visionaries like Safiya Noble, Ruha Benjamin, and André Brock are foundational scholars who inquire into the complex interplay of race and technology in distinct ways. For example, Brock’s Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA), serves as this course’s analytical spine. Introduced early in our curriculum, CTDA is not just a lens but a navigation tool, uncovering nuanced power dynamics and ingrained inequalities that shape Black digital experiences. It invites us to scrutinize artifacts, practices, and beliefs, enabling a critical dissection of technology’s role in mediating racial narratives and social disparities.
In embracing CTDA, we commit to an educational ethos that seeks narratives of resistance and resilience within the digital realm, understanding that these spaces are both reflective of and influential in the broader cultural matrix. Bridging the critical insights of hooks’s engaged pedagogy with Audre Lorde’s advocacy and André Brock’s Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) reveals a unified call for transformative strategies in education and digital spaces. hooks’s educational philosophy, emphasizing reciprocal growth and holistic empowerment, resonates with Lorde’s critique of traditional hegemonic tools and Brock’s analysis of digital culture’s embedded biases. Audre Lorde’s concept of “the master’s tools” (2003) is a seminal idea in critical and feminist theory that challenges the ways in which oppressive systems are confronted and deconstructed. Lorde argues that using the same strategies that uphold discrimination (the master’s tools) to try to eliminate oppression (dismantle the master’s house) is a fruitless endeavor because these tools are designed to maintain certain power structures and suppress others. She argued for a recognition of the complexities of human identity, highlighting that categories like race, gender, and class are not single-issue causes, as they interact on multiple levels contributing to systemic injustice. Therefore, the very methods and ideologies used by those in power, or the “normative” standards set by them, cannot effectively deconstruct the inequalities embedded in society’s structures. Her philosophy calls for the creation and utilization of new, unconventional strategies (tools) that are not tainted by prejudice or designed to maintain privilege, a call I believe Brock’s CTDA responds to. In this way, CTDA advocates for a critical digital literacy, one that recognizes technology as neither neutral nor inevitable but as a cultural force reflecting wider societal inequalities. It champions a dynamic where marginalized voices are acknowledged, hierarchies are challenged, and spaces—whether physical, digital, or intellectual—are reconceived as realms of authentic expression and liberation. This integrated approach marks a strategic front, asserting that the pursuit of justice within digital and educational domains requires tools and mindsets that are inherently disruptive, diverse, and dedicated to dismantling systemic oppression.
Student evaluations reveal that, so far, they enjoy exploring topics they had not encountered before—particularly those related to Black digital experiences (important to note as 85% of enrolled students are not Black)—and understanding how these systems affect both our world at large and themselves individually. Importantly, they report feeling better equipped to challenge digital systems and perceive marginalized perspectives differently by applying tools such as CTDA to further integrate technologies, their uses, and potential limitations. These outcomes suggest success thus far in cultivating critical thinking skills that enable students to think reflexively beyond standard norms by applying reasoning and logic across diverse ideas, opinions, and situations.
Engaged Pedagogy
The exploration of technologies like social media platforms, facial recognition, and surveillance systems that impact the lives of Black people further underscores the course’s alignment with glitch feminism, emphasizing the potential for digital systems to misinterpret or marginalize nonnormative identities. When applied pedagogically, the aforementioned approaches critique and reconstruct traditional curricula, teaching methodologies, and institutional norms that maintain systemic biases. They foster student-centric dialogues and collaborative syllabus development—reflecting insights from the students—and promote deep, critical engagement throughout the course. Through these practices, the classroom becomes a secure, stimulating space where exploration—even into complex arenas like technology—occurs collaboratively, acknowledging students as intrinsic knowledge contributors. These facets are crucial in navigating the digital and technological landscapes integral to contemporary society.
In this innovative educational framework, I harness an engaged digital pedagogy, inviting students to refine a range of digital competencies through engaging lessons and assignments. While foundational theories form the course’s backbone, such as the ways critical theories intersect with digital spaces, students are also encouraged to “learn through play.” This approach allows students to explore their creativity and develop innovative solutions to complex problems. By integrating technology and hands-on activities, students can think outside the box and apply their knowledge in practical ways. Additionally, this framework promotes collaboration and teamwork, as students are encouraged to share their ideas and work together to find unique solutions. For instance, I develop assignments such as What Do You Meme? that allow students to utilize memes—a culturally relevant phenomenon in our society—to critically analyze online racial dynamics. Similarly, the final assignment provides students with multiple methods to showcase their knowledge through creative forms. It asks students to pick a topic that they discuss with me. They can choose to write a literature review on this topic, or they can work independently or with a classmate to create a public (digital) project related to our course content, discussions, or their personal but relevant interests. Formats for this project can include, but are not limited to, a traditional paper, a podcast, a digital artifact, blog posts, etc. While the course is still ongoing, some students have shared their plan to create a YouTube video and a blog for this assignment, noting that they find this flexibility both exciting and a challenge they look forward to.
Conclusion
In this paper, I illuminated the pathway through which engaged pedagogy and glitch feminism extend the foundational tenets of Black feminist praxis into the digital sphere, harnessing insights from both bell hooks and Legacy Russell to reimagine digital spaces through the experiences of marginalized individuals. The intersection of hooks and Russell’s ideologies creates a dynamic synergy, compelling us to confront and deconstruct the prevailing narratives that have traditionally dominated our digital interactions and platforms. This fusion of thought provides a profound counternarrative, advocating for a reconfiguration of the digital landscape that is not merely an echo of wider societal structures but a reconstructive space that champions inclusivity, equity, and justice. It is a call to actively dismantle the monolithic structures that dictate digital norms and to rebuild with the bricks of empathy, understanding, and a deep-seated respect for diversity and communal experience.
hooks and Russell’s work has indeed laid a solid foundation for critical thinking about the digital realm and its development, particularly in relation to challenging predetermined notions that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. Moving forward, it is crucial to recognize that achieving a truly equitable digital space necessitates radical approaches. It involves centering the experiences and perspectives of marginalized communities, actively challenging oppressive structures, and advocating for inclusive and representative design and decision-making processes. By embracing hooks’s critical lens and acknowledging the distance we have traveled while keeping our sights on the distance yet to be covered, we can continue the search for love, liberation, justice, and freedom in the digital and educational realm.
For me, teaching this class has been both exciting and motivating. It has been an act of resistance against traditional teaching methods and a way to empower students to take ownership of their learning while also accounting for my own learning and growth as an educator. In addition, hooks inspires me to also account for my own pleasure and joy, even in the act of teaching. This counters the lackluster sentiments that sometimes overshadow education, renewing the classroom experience with curiosity, engagement, and mutual discovery (hooks 1994, 10). It allows me to not just adhere to an academic curriculum but also nurture my growth and that of my students, transforming our collective experience into one of joy, challenge, and continuous learning.
