R Toliver
Biographic Data
| ID | 4946 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Toliver |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Toliver |
| SIGNATURE | TOLIVER R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3397-252X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Kindred Rites of Sankofa: On Octavia Butler’s Histofuturist Approach to Artful Inquiry
Using the lens of Sankofa, an Akan folktale symbolizing the value of cultural return, this article explores the potential of Octavia Butler’s methodological approach as a transformative framework for qualitative research. Butler’s “histofuturist” methodology, which intertwines historical insight with speculative imagination to forge new narratives, invites researchers to reorient their perspectives by integrating diverse temporal and cultural dim…
Tales From the Motherboard: Black Mothering Across the Black Networked Consciousness
A motherboard is the main circuit board in a computer, the connectivity point that ensures communication between important circuits and provides space for peripheral components to connect. As the central hub, the motherboard is the backbone, the point where power and data are distributed to the technological mechanisms that need it. Without the motherboard, connection is severed and functionality ceases. And is this not a description of Black mot…
“Just, at least, try to understand”: Culturally situated reader response and curriculum curation for Black girls
Studies centralizing youth responses to literature have changed the landscape of literacy classrooms and continue to shape literature instruction. Still, there is limited scholarship that explores the intricate ways in which Black girls respond to literature which inhibits curricular possibilities for Black girls in literacy spaces. Considering the dearth of research on Black girls’ reading responses, this article builds on the theoretical founda…
Confronting Colonial Control: Afrofuturist Literacy Stances Versus Book Bans in the Battle for Spacetime
While much of the research on censorship and book banning rightly emphasizes efforts to silence and erase people who do not identify as white cis‐heteronormative men, the role of colonialism in the construction and contextualization of censorship is underexplored. However, censorship's primary goal is to obtain power over stories–the control over the narration of the national narrative, the dominion over social memory's plot sequence, and the aut…
Pandemic Portals and Radical Imaginations: Employing Critical Arts-Based Pedagogies Toward Racial Justice with Secondary Preservice English Teachers
Background: In the wake of COVID-19 and protests against racial violence, scholars of education, alongside educational organizations, called for innovative responses to address racial injustice, but one solution was consistently mentioned across educational spaces: the need for educators to reimagine education in a postpandemic/endemic world. And yet, even though the importance of (re)imagination in deterring educational issues was greatly emphas…
The Internet Doesn't Exist in the Sky: Literacy, AI , and the Digital Middle Passage
This article utilizes speculative and visual storytelling alongside interdisciplinary research on artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic oppression to engage in a thought experiment on how literacy studies might refuse the oppressionist logics currently undermining the possibilities of AI in literacy education. As technological advancements in education will only continue to increase and as society is yet to ascertain the parameters of an e…
Where We Live and Be: (Re)Turning to Black Girlhood for Project-Praxes of Otherworld-Making in Educational Research
In this article, we argue that the humanity and mattering of Black people have always lived in Black girlhood, but the potentiality of Black girlhood as a creative space for designing Black approaches in educational research has yet to be fully realized. Therefore, we (re)turn to Black girlhood frameworks and theories in our contribution to Black approaches in educational research. Looking to where Black girls live and be (re)defines notions of h…
The Monstrous Hospitality of Canonical Text Selections: The Need for a Hospitable Literacy Framework
Recent political excursions into classroom text selections by local and national politicians and pundits have made teaching canonical texts more appealing to many school districts and teachers. In this study, we used conceptions of Derridean hospitality alongside monster theory to examine what common canonical texts teach students about who is welcome and worthy of hospitality in American society and who is viewed as wholly monstrous and outside …
“Weird Is Normal”: A Womanist Discourse Analysis of Black Girl Nerds’ Community Building
Constructing school spaces where Black girls feel comfortable enough to be their full selves is essential in a system that consistently shows them that they do not matter. Cultivating these spaces, however, requires educators to understand that Black girls’ identities are multiple and varied, that Black girls can be anything. Still, some identity positions, such as nerdiness, are often only attributed to white youth, forcing nerdy Black girls to …
It will take nations of billions to obstruct our dreams: Extending BlackCrit through Afrofuturism
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to further theorize BlackCrit to include a deeper focus on the framing idea of Black liberatory fantasy via Afrofuturism. Design/methodology/approach To develop the theoretical connections, the author revisits their previous scholarship on Black girls’ Afrofuturist storytelling practices to elucidate how the girls used their speculative narratives to critique the antiblackness present in their schools and the …
Monstrous Others: Black Girl Refusal in Afrofuturist Young Adult Literature
Correction StatementThis article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article
Dreamland”: Black Girls Saying and Creating Space through Fantasy Worlds
The rampant murder of Black women and girls in the United States proves that this place is not safe for them. In fact, it is questionable whether any space currently known can be safe when antiblackness and misogynoir are interwoven into the fabric of our world. For this reason, researchers must explore the unbound landscapes Black girls create for themselves in fantastic narratives. In this article, I examine the fantasy short stories of two Bla…
Recovering Black Storytelling in Qualitative Research: Endarkened Storywork
This research-based book foregrounds Black narrative traditions and honors alternative methods of data collection, analysis, and representation. Toliver presents a semi-fictionalized narrative in an alternative science fiction setting, refusing white-centric qualitative methods and honoring the ways of the griots who were the scholars of their African nations. By utilizing Black storytelling, Afrofuturism, and womanism as an onto-epistemological …
Afrocarnival: Celebrating Black Bodies and Critiquing Oppressive Bodies in Afrofuturist Literature
Freedom Dreaming in a Broken World: The Black Radical Imagination in Black Girls’ Science Fiction Stories
Can I Get a Witness? Speculative Fiction as Testimony and Counterstory
Drawing on Black feminist/womanist storytelling and the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space, this article showcases how one Black girl uses speculative fiction as testimony and counterstory, calling for readers to bear witness to her experiences and inviting witnesses to respond to the negative experiences she faces as a Black girl in the United States. I argue that situating speculative fiction as counterstory creates space for Black girls…
I Desperately Need Visions of Black People Thriving”: Emancipating the Fantastic With Black Women’s Words
The genre of science fiction has often been hostile to readers who are not white, middle class, heterosexual men. Though the genre has historically ignored Dark Others; however, they are never completely omitted from the story, as they are often characterized as the creature, the alien, or the monster. In this way, the futuristic windows and mirrors available to Black women and girls are often cracked, tiny, or shattered. The primary objective of…
Unlocking the Cage: Empowering Literacy Representations in Netflix's Luke Cage Series
Popular culture aids in the conditioning of U.S. society, assisting in the determination of who is esteemed as literate and who is disgraced with illiteracy. Unfortunately, pop culture depictions of black male literacy often reify the stereotype that black males are less literate than their peers. Although a real issue presents itself in the opportunity gap that exists between black males and other racial groups, however, focusing on the negative…
Dreamland”: Black Girls Saying and Creating Space through Fantasy Worlds
The rampant murder of Black women and girls in the United States proves that this place is not safe for them. In fact, it is questionable whether any space currently known can be safe when antiblackness and misogynoir are interwoven into the fabric of our world. For this reason, researchers must explore the unbound landscapes Black girls create for themselves in fantastic narratives. In this article, I examine the fantasy short stories of two Bla…
It will take nations of billions to obstruct our dreams: Extending BlackCrit through Afrofuturism
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to further theorize BlackCrit to include a deeper focus on the framing idea of Black liberatory fantasy via Afrofuturism. Design/methodology/approach To develop the theoretical connections, the author revisits their previous scholarship on Black girls’ Afrofuturist storytelling practices to elucidate how the girls used their speculative narratives to critique the antiblackness present in their schools and the …
Where We Live and Be: (Re)Turning to Black Girlhood for Project-Praxes of Otherworld-Making in Educational Research
In this article, we argue that the humanity and mattering of Black people have always lived in Black girlhood, but the potentiality of Black girlhood as a creative space for designing Black approaches in educational research has yet to be fully realized. Therefore, we (re)turn to Black girlhood frameworks and theories in our contribution to Black approaches in educational research. Looking to where Black girls live and be (re)defines notions of h…
The Internet Doesn't Exist in the Sky: Literacy, AI , and the Digital Middle Passage
This article utilizes speculative and visual storytelling alongside interdisciplinary research on artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic oppression to engage in a thought experiment on how literacy studies might refuse the oppressionist logics currently undermining the possibilities of AI in literacy education. As technological advancements in education will only continue to increase and as society is yet to ascertain the parameters of an e…
Monstrous Others: Black Girl Refusal in Afrofuturist Young Adult Literature
Correction StatementThis article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article
Unlocking the Cage: Empowering Literacy Representations in Netflix's Luke Cage Series
Popular culture aids in the conditioning of U.S. society, assisting in the determination of who is esteemed as literate and who is disgraced with illiteracy. Unfortunately, pop culture depictions of black male literacy often reify the stereotype that black males are less literate than their peers. Although a real issue presents itself in the opportunity gap that exists between black males and other racial groups, however, focusing on the negative…
Can I Get a Witness? Speculative Fiction as Testimony and Counterstory
Drawing on Black feminist/womanist storytelling and the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space, this article showcases how one Black girl uses speculative fiction as testimony and counterstory, calling for readers to bear witness to her experiences and inviting witnesses to respond to the negative experiences she faces as a Black girl in the United States. I argue that situating speculative fiction as counterstory creates space for Black girls…
I Desperately Need Visions of Black People Thriving”: Emancipating the Fantastic With Black Women’s Words
The genre of science fiction has often been hostile to readers who are not white, middle class, heterosexual men. Though the genre has historically ignored Dark Others; however, they are never completely omitted from the story, as they are often characterized as the creature, the alien, or the monster. In this way, the futuristic windows and mirrors available to Black women and girls are often cracked, tiny, or shattered. The primary objective of…
Recovering Black Storytelling in Qualitative Research: Endarkened Storywork
This research-based book foregrounds Black narrative traditions and honors alternative methods of data collection, analysis, and representation. Toliver presents a semi-fictionalized narrative in an alternative science fiction setting, refusing white-centric qualitative methods and honoring the ways of the griots who were the scholars of their African nations. By utilizing Black storytelling, Afrofuturism, and womanism as an onto-epistemological …
Afrocarnival: Celebrating Black Bodies and Critiquing Oppressive Bodies in Afrofuturist Literature
Freedom Dreaming in a Broken World: The Black Radical Imagination in Black Girls’ Science Fiction Stories
Dreamland”: Black Girls Saying and Creating Space through Fantasy Worlds
The rampant murder of Black women and girls in the United States proves that this place is not safe for them. In fact, it is questionable whether any space currently known can be safe when antiblackness and misogynoir are interwoven into the fabric of our world. For this reason, researchers must explore the unbound landscapes Black girls create for themselves in fantastic narratives. In this article, I examine the fantasy short stories of two Bla…
The Monstrous Hospitality of Canonical Text Selections: The Need for a Hospitable Literacy Framework
Recent political excursions into classroom text selections by local and national politicians and pundits have made teaching canonical texts more appealing to many school districts and teachers. In this study, we used conceptions of Derridean hospitality alongside monster theory to examine what common canonical texts teach students about who is welcome and worthy of hospitality in American society and who is viewed as wholly monstrous and outside …
“Weird Is Normal”: A Womanist Discourse Analysis of Black Girl Nerds’ Community Building
Constructing school spaces where Black girls feel comfortable enough to be their full selves is essential in a system that consistently shows them that they do not matter. Cultivating these spaces, however, requires educators to understand that Black girls’ identities are multiple and varied, that Black girls can be anything. Still, some identity positions, such as nerdiness, are often only attributed to white youth, forcing nerdy Black girls to …
It will take nations of billions to obstruct our dreams: Extending BlackCrit through Afrofuturism
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to further theorize BlackCrit to include a deeper focus on the framing idea of Black liberatory fantasy via Afrofuturism. Design/methodology/approach To develop the theoretical connections, the author revisits their previous scholarship on Black girls’ Afrofuturist storytelling practices to elucidate how the girls used their speculative narratives to critique the antiblackness present in their schools and the …
Monstrous Others: Black Girl Refusal in Afrofuturist Young Adult Literature
Correction StatementThis article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article
Pandemic Portals and Radical Imaginations: Employing Critical Arts-Based Pedagogies Toward Racial Justice with Secondary Preservice English Teachers
Background: In the wake of COVID-19 and protests against racial violence, scholars of education, alongside educational organizations, called for innovative responses to address racial injustice, but one solution was consistently mentioned across educational spaces: the need for educators to reimagine education in a postpandemic/endemic world. And yet, even though the importance of (re)imagination in deterring educational issues was greatly emphas…
The Internet Doesn't Exist in the Sky: Literacy, AI , and the Digital Middle Passage
This article utilizes speculative and visual storytelling alongside interdisciplinary research on artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic oppression to engage in a thought experiment on how literacy studies might refuse the oppressionist logics currently undermining the possibilities of AI in literacy education. As technological advancements in education will only continue to increase and as society is yet to ascertain the parameters of an e…
Where We Live and Be: (Re)Turning to Black Girlhood for Project-Praxes of Otherworld-Making in Educational Research
In this article, we argue that the humanity and mattering of Black people have always lived in Black girlhood, but the potentiality of Black girlhood as a creative space for designing Black approaches in educational research has yet to be fully realized. Therefore, we (re)turn to Black girlhood frameworks and theories in our contribution to Black approaches in educational research. Looking to where Black girls live and be (re)defines notions of h…
“Just, at least, try to understand”: Culturally situated reader response and curriculum curation for Black girls
Studies centralizing youth responses to literature have changed the landscape of literacy classrooms and continue to shape literature instruction. Still, there is limited scholarship that explores the intricate ways in which Black girls respond to literature which inhibits curricular possibilities for Black girls in literacy spaces. Considering the dearth of research on Black girls’ reading responses, this article builds on the theoretical founda…
Confronting Colonial Control: Afrofuturist Literacy Stances Versus Book Bans in the Battle for Spacetime
While much of the research on censorship and book banning rightly emphasizes efforts to silence and erase people who do not identify as white cis‐heteronormative men, the role of colonialism in the construction and contextualization of censorship is underexplored. However, censorship's primary goal is to obtain power over stories–the control over the narration of the national narrative, the dominion over social memory's plot sequence, and the aut…
Kindred Rites of Sankofa: On Octavia Butler’s Histofuturist Approach to Artful Inquiry
Using the lens of Sankofa, an Akan folktale symbolizing the value of cultural return, this article explores the potential of Octavia Butler’s methodological approach as a transformative framework for qualitative research. Butler’s “histofuturist” methodology, which intertwines historical insight with speculative imagination to forge new narratives, invites researchers to reorient their perspectives by integrating diverse temporal and cultural dim…
Tales From the Motherboard: Black Mothering Across the Black Networked Consciousness
A motherboard is the main circuit board in a computer, the connectivity point that ensures communication between important circuits and provides space for peripheral components to connect. As the central hub, the motherboard is the backbone, the point where power and data are distributed to the technological mechanisms that need it. Without the motherboard, connection is severed and functionality ceases. And is this not a description of Black mot…
Sociology (16 works) · Art (14 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Literature (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Critical Race Theory in Education (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Narrative (6 works) · Pedagogy (6 works)