C N Poulos
Biographic Data
| ID | 58635 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C N Poulos |
| GIVEN NAMES | C N |
| FAMILY NAME | Poulos |
| SIGNATURE | POULOS C N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Greensboro |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0231-6004 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 75 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 35 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Autoethnography, Crisis, and Risk
In his later works, and in his calls for the annual International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Norman K. Denzin repeatedly called on qualitative scholars to use their work to advance activism and social justice in the midst of almost constant global crises—war, famine, upheaval, revolution, climate change, political division, strife of all stripes. In this autoethnographic essay, I search for ways to respond to the current troubled, turbulent…
Writing a Future of Possibility
In this autoethnographic essay, I search my memory for clues about my life’s trajectory. I then position the rupture of the present moment as a way to move toward writing a future of possibility . I proceed in four takes, centering on the idea of altruism
Norman Lives on Among Us, In Us, With Us, For Us
In this essay, I pay tribute to Norman K. Denzin
Why I Write Autoethnography
This essay is an autoethnography about why anyone might write autoethnography. It proceeds in a series of “takes.” Each take offers a slightly different set of motivations for writing autoethnography, or at least for why I do it, and by extension, maybe, why you might choose to, or, if you are chosen to do it, what to do about that. In the final take, it offers a bit of insight into how to do it, and how not to do it
“Inter and Enter
This performative and collaborative autoethnography plays with the homophonic or maybe homiletics of “inter” and “enter” as the invitational aspect of collaborative autoethnography. The contribution of diverse collaborators from differing racial, ethnic, geo-spatial locations, and generational standpoints speak to/between experiences with the dialogic aspects of autoethnography; the speaking of self with and for others that is always a part of au…
The Eyes (Ayes?) Have It
In this brief autoethnographic essay, I explore the contours of communication during and after (?) the COVID-19 pandemic
One Love, This Time
Autoethography and Resistance
This essay is part of the ICQI 2019 Autoethnography SIG, the Materials of Resistance
“Collaborative Autoethnographic Writing as Communal Curative”
This collaborative autoethnography reflects on how each author experienced COVID-19 and associated precarity. We explore the ways in which this experience relates to our identities (both particular and plural), and our positionalities in terms of privilege and marginality. As a collective of diverse collaborators, we confront dialectical questions of self and society. Our contributions reveal our advantage/disadvantage, mobility/immobility, and t…
I Don’t Know Why . . . I Swallowed That Lie
Following the logic and structure of the children’s nursery rhyme “I don’t know why she swallowed a fly,” this autoethnographic performance essay explores the contours of woundedness, anxiety, self-respect, and recovery. I write my way through the wounds I have suffered from lies casually thrown my way by family, institutions, and culture—and land, somewhat surprised and surprisingly, in love
A Bad Moon A-Rising
The time for silence has long since passed. It is time to raise our voices in outrage at the racism, the brutality, the ignorance, the hatred, the oppression, and the cowardice of the political right in this country and around the world. As autoethnographers, we are uniquely positioned to raise our voices and to reach broader audiences inside and outside the academy. We can raise up a “discourse committed to a politics of resistance, a politics o…
Raising Our Voices
Walking with/through a Savage History
Our country has a savage, brutal history. This so-called experiment in democracy—this supposed beacon of freedom to the world—carries the weight of genocidal slaughter of indigenous peoples, along with slavery, oppression, and widespread public lynching of human beings. As I write this sentence, the news has just broken that an African American man died in police custody after a white police officer knelt on his neck, while he pleaded for mercy, …
From True Grit to 'Big Damn Heroes
When I was a kid, cowboys ruled. Every week, my heroes-Lucas McCain, the Cartwrights, Matt Dillon, Paladin, Big John Cannon-were taming the 'wild west.' These were good guys, in charge and on a mission. But in the world around us, everything was changing. 1969 was a turning point. Everything was suddenly in Technicolor, and as we gave up on the West and turned to outer space for our hero-adventures, our heroes morphed from Cowboys to Space-Pirate…
The Perils and the Promises of Autoethnography
At least since Bochner’s turning-point essay, Narrative’s Virtues, it has been clear that the critics are wrong about autoethnography.1 No, it is not merely self-absorbed navel-gazing, and we all know it. It is a powerful form of evocative writing-as-inquiry that has generated big substantive change in qualitative inquiry across many methods and disciplines. The re-centering of what Ellis calls the Ethnographic I in qualitative human social resea…
Trouble in Paradise
Over the last 25 years or so, the academic world has experienced an explosion of new qualitative approaches to social inquiry in many fields. As scholars began to push the boundaries of what counts as knowledge, the “old guard” began to attack, apparently attempting to maintain a hold on the territory that was shifting underneath their feet. These attacks on qualitative inquiry—particularly toward the new/alternative modalities such as autoethnog…
STAND UP! A Performance Autoethnography of Resistance
In this essay, I explore the possibility of speaking out for social justice, of speaking truth to power, of standing up for what you believe in, of answering the call of conscience to respond to intolerable conditions in our political landscape. This text is intended to be performed aloud, with an interactive audience present. The audience has a role to play, following a call-and-response performance methodology
Accidental Ethnography
Each family has its secrets, ones that shape family communication and relationships in a way generally unknown to the outsider and often the family itself. Autoethnographers, students of these relationships, confront many silences in their attempts to understand these social worlds. Now issued as a Routledge Education Classic Edition, Accidental Ethnography delves into this shadowy world of pain and loss in the hopes of finding productive, ethica…
Coming Home
In this autoethnography, I find a series of pathways homeward, skirting the minefields of a painful, violent, traumatic past. I write my way home, from the tragic to the comic, by means of story-crafting my past traumas and losses into present laughter
An Autoethnography of Memory and Connection
This is an autoethnography about the lyrical vagaries of memory. I trace the contours of early life memories, evoked by song lyrics, and show how pivotal events sometimes come into play in startling ways, through the in-breaking of unexpected memory fragments. In the end, I fall into a space in which I hope to open up dialogue about the intersections of memory, song, story, and relational co-being and co-authorship
A Narrative Jag
In this essay, I trace the work of H. L. Goodall, Jr. across the trajectory of his career, and attempt to show the impact Goodall has had on me, my work, the work of other ethnographers, and the writing and practices of the work of many ethnographers and other qualitative researchers
The Road to Sweetwater
In this brief review, I wander the dusty back roads of Sweetwater with Robin M. Boylorn. Although I do not know this world personally, the beautiful writing in this book carries me deep into a world where race and class and gender and poverty may well be trumped by love and resilience in the experiences of rural black women. This story has great power
Writing a Bridge to Possibility
In this autoethnography, I write my way through the many losses my family and friends have experienced in recent months. In this writing, I find myself hoping that a bridge can be written—a bridge to hope, a bridge to a new tomorrow, a bridge to possibility
My Father's Ghost
This autoethnography is about my personal search for my father, who was an early presence in my life, but who gradually became a palpable absence. In many ways, I have been searching for my father all my life, and somehow hoping to rekindle a relationship that I have experienced mostly as something I lost early. As my search progressed across a span of more than fifty years, I found my father in the one place I least expected. In this article, I …
Writing through the Memories
This autoethnography is about writing through the sometimes difficult or traumatic memories that show up in my life from time to time. It is about narrative healing and transformation through the practice of autoethnographic writing
Narrative Conscience and the Autoethnographic Adventure
This article explores the common practice in families of keeping secrets close, allowing them to develop a life of their own. The problem with this practice is that the secrets often won't stay put, emerging into everyday life as (sometimes unwelcome) interruptions in the flow of healthy living. Indeed, secrets and memories—if they remain untold stories—may, at times, be crippling. In this article, the author discusses the process of storying fam…
Spirited Accidents
Kierkegaard says, "A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation . . ." This understanding of spirit-as-self-in-relation, leads, inevitably, to concerns for personal fulfillment, dialogue, community, and social justice in our world. To engage spirit in our ethnographic practice is to engage the self in relation-with the world, with others, with the very frames and possibilities of ou…
Stumbling Into Relating
Father-son relationships can be tricky, often fraught with tension or bogged down in painful shared histories. Writing about these relationships is similarly tricky, and fraught with various tensions. As an accidental ethnographer who follows the organic flow of my own emergent writing-and who wholeheartedly embraces writing into and through communication problems-I have written my way into some messy little corners while writing about others. Bu…
Accidental Dialogue
This autoethnographic story highlights the eruption of dialogic moments in everyday encounters. It is a story of the spontaneous uprising of dialogic spirit in everyday life. It is a story of the transformation of ordinary time and space into extraordinary, ecstatic “turning points” that redefine relational connections. “Accidental dialogue” is invoked and defined as a special convergence—born of openness to possibility and happenstance—of dialog…
The Death of Ordinariness
On September 11, 2001, ordinariness died. In its place, a new anxiety was born. In this personal story of anxiety and response, the author reflects on events as they have unfolded in the days following September 11. Focusing on the possibilities invoked by anxiety, the author also questions the limits of anxiety. Can anxiety be both a springboard and a ceiling of possibility? In the Age of Anxiety, we may need to rethink our relationships with an…
Disruption, Silence, and Creation
This article searches the contours of anxiety, asking whether anxiety can serve as a springboard to creative engagement in dialogue. Specifically, the article explores the university classroom as a possible site where anxiety might be transformed into the spark of creation. Three opportune moments are examined-disruption, silence, and creation-for the possibilities they present for creating new spaces of energy and new engagement with the call of…
Life, Interrupted
In this autoethnography, the author explores his experiences with the hard disruptions that occur when confronted by others in ways that lead him to question, at times, the very ground of his being, his identity, and his place and purpose in the world. Finding a nexus for understanding these disruptions in interruptions, a story of his life struggles unfolds as a series of passages through gateways to transcendence. In the end, these interruption…
An Autoethnography of Memory and Connection
This is an autoethnography about the lyrical vagaries of memory. I trace the contours of early life memories, evoked by song lyrics, and show how pivotal events sometimes come into play in startling ways, through the in-breaking of unexpected memory fragments. In the end, I fall into a space in which I hope to open up dialogue about the intersections of memory, song, story, and relational co-being and co-authorship
My Father's Ghost
This autoethnography is about my personal search for my father, who was an early presence in my life, but who gradually became a palpable absence. In many ways, I have been searching for my father all my life, and somehow hoping to rekindle a relationship that I have experienced mostly as something I lost early. As my search progressed across a span of more than fifty years, I found my father in the one place I least expected. In this article, I …
The Perils and the Promises of Autoethnography
At least since Bochner’s turning-point essay, Narrative’s Virtues, it has been clear that the critics are wrong about autoethnography.1 No, it is not merely self-absorbed navel-gazing, and we all know it. It is a powerful form of evocative writing-as-inquiry that has generated big substantive change in qualitative inquiry across many methods and disciplines. The re-centering of what Ellis calls the Ethnographic I in qualitative human social resea…
The Death of Ordinariness
On September 11, 2001, ordinariness died. In its place, a new anxiety was born. In this personal story of anxiety and response, the author reflects on events as they have unfolded in the days following September 11. Focusing on the possibilities invoked by anxiety, the author also questions the limits of anxiety. Can anxiety be both a springboard and a ceiling of possibility? In the Age of Anxiety, we may need to rethink our relationships with an…
Disruption, Silence, and Creation
This article searches the contours of anxiety, asking whether anxiety can serve as a springboard to creative engagement in dialogue. Specifically, the article explores the university classroom as a possible site where anxiety might be transformed into the spark of creation. Three opportune moments are examined-disruption, silence, and creation-for the possibilities they present for creating new spaces of energy and new engagement with the call of…
Narrative Conscience and the Autoethnographic Adventure
This article explores the common practice in families of keeping secrets close, allowing them to develop a life of their own. The problem with this practice is that the secrets often won't stay put, emerging into everyday life as (sometimes unwelcome) interruptions in the flow of healthy living. Indeed, secrets and memories—if they remain untold stories—may, at times, be crippling. In this article, the author discusses the process of storying fam…
Accidental Dialogue
This autoethnographic story highlights the eruption of dialogic moments in everyday encounters. It is a story of the spontaneous uprising of dialogic spirit in everyday life. It is a story of the transformation of ordinary time and space into extraordinary, ecstatic “turning points” that redefine relational connections. “Accidental dialogue” is invoked and defined as a special convergence—born of openness to possibility and happenstance—of dialog…
We thank the following reviewers who rendered extraordinary services to the International Review of Qualitative Research, Volume 2
Transgressions
This performance (auto)ethnography confronts the continuing controversy surrounding qualitative inquiry via examination of the tenure process in a particular case. The perils and delights of the performative/autoethnographic voice take center stage as “transgressions” against the status quo. This is a story about the call of autoethnography, about the perils and delights of engaging the autoethnographic voice. It's also about the broader (and dee…
Performance is a Good Breakfast
Performance is a good, hearty breakfast. I'm tempted to say it's a breakfast burrito. I'm sorely tempted to say it's a breakfast burrito with hurricanado sauce, stuffed with eggs instead of pork, wolfed down after a dissolute night of steamy, promiscuous sex — but ... it's already been done. I'm tempted to say it's something I swallowed quickly, like a pill, maybe like that funny little pill the doctor gave me last week, I suspect just to keep me…
Spirited Accidents
Kierkegaard says, "A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation . . ." This understanding of spirit-as-self-in-relation, leads, inevitably, to concerns for personal fulfillment, dialogue, community, and social justice in our world. To engage spirit in our ethnographic practice is to engage the self in relation-with the world, with others, with the very frames and possibilities of ou…
Writing through the Memories
This autoethnography is about writing through the sometimes difficult or traumatic memories that show up in my life from time to time. It is about narrative healing and transformation through the practice of autoethnographic writing
Life, Interrupted
In this autoethnography, the author explores his experiences with the hard disruptions that occur when confronted by others in ways that lead him to question, at times, the very ground of his being, his identity, and his place and purpose in the world. Finding a nexus for understanding these disruptions in interruptions, a story of his life struggles unfolds as a series of passages through gateways to transcendence. In the end, these interruption…
Stumbling Into Relating
Father-son relationships can be tricky, often fraught with tension or bogged down in painful shared histories. Writing about these relationships is similarly tricky, and fraught with various tensions. As an accidental ethnographer who follows the organic flow of my own emergent writing-and who wholeheartedly embraces writing into and through communication problems-I have written my way into some messy little corners while writing about others. Bu…
Writing a Bridge to Possibility
In this autoethnography, I write my way through the many losses my family and friends have experienced in recent months. In this writing, I find myself hoping that a bridge can be written—a bridge to hope, a bridge to a new tomorrow, a bridge to possibility
My Father's Ghost
This autoethnography is about my personal search for my father, who was an early presence in my life, but who gradually became a palpable absence. In many ways, I have been searching for my father all my life, and somehow hoping to rekindle a relationship that I have experienced mostly as something I lost early. As my search progressed across a span of more than fifty years, I found my father in the one place I least expected. In this article, I …
The Road to Sweetwater
In this brief review, I wander the dusty back roads of Sweetwater with Robin M. Boylorn. Although I do not know this world personally, the beautiful writing in this book carries me deep into a world where race and class and gender and poverty may well be trumped by love and resilience in the experiences of rural black women. This story has great power
Coming Home
In this autoethnography, I find a series of pathways homeward, skirting the minefields of a painful, violent, traumatic past. I write my way home, from the tragic to the comic, by means of story-crafting my past traumas and losses into present laughter
An Autoethnography of Memory and Connection
This is an autoethnography about the lyrical vagaries of memory. I trace the contours of early life memories, evoked by song lyrics, and show how pivotal events sometimes come into play in startling ways, through the in-breaking of unexpected memory fragments. In the end, I fall into a space in which I hope to open up dialogue about the intersections of memory, song, story, and relational co-being and co-authorship
A Narrative Jag
In this essay, I trace the work of H. L. Goodall, Jr. across the trajectory of his career, and attempt to show the impact Goodall has had on me, my work, the work of other ethnographers, and the writing and practices of the work of many ethnographers and other qualitative researchers
Accidental Ethnography
Each family has its secrets, ones that shape family communication and relationships in a way generally unknown to the outsider and often the family itself. Autoethnographers, students of these relationships, confront many silences in their attempts to understand these social worlds. Now issued as a Routledge Education Classic Edition, Accidental Ethnography delves into this shadowy world of pain and loss in the hopes of finding productive, ethica…
Trouble in Paradise
Over the last 25 years or so, the academic world has experienced an explosion of new qualitative approaches to social inquiry in many fields. As scholars began to push the boundaries of what counts as knowledge, the “old guard” began to attack, apparently attempting to maintain a hold on the territory that was shifting underneath their feet. These attacks on qualitative inquiry—particularly toward the new/alternative modalities such as autoethnog…
STAND UP! A Performance Autoethnography of Resistance
In this essay, I explore the possibility of speaking out for social justice, of speaking truth to power, of standing up for what you believe in, of answering the call of conscience to respond to intolerable conditions in our political landscape. This text is intended to be performed aloud, with an interactive audience present. The audience has a role to play, following a call-and-response performance methodology
The Perils and the Promises of Autoethnography
At least since Bochner’s turning-point essay, Narrative’s Virtues, it has been clear that the critics are wrong about autoethnography.1 No, it is not merely self-absorbed navel-gazing, and we all know it. It is a powerful form of evocative writing-as-inquiry that has generated big substantive change in qualitative inquiry across many methods and disciplines. The re-centering of what Ellis calls the Ethnographic I in qualitative human social resea…
A Bad Moon A-Rising
The time for silence has long since passed. It is time to raise our voices in outrage at the racism, the brutality, the ignorance, the hatred, the oppression, and the cowardice of the political right in this country and around the world. As autoethnographers, we are uniquely positioned to raise our voices and to reach broader audiences inside and outside the academy. We can raise up a “discourse committed to a politics of resistance, a politics o…
Raising Our Voices
Walking with/through a Savage History
Our country has a savage, brutal history. This so-called experiment in democracy—this supposed beacon of freedom to the world—carries the weight of genocidal slaughter of indigenous peoples, along with slavery, oppression, and widespread public lynching of human beings. As I write this sentence, the news has just broken that an African American man died in police custody after a white police officer knelt on his neck, while he pleaded for mercy, …
From True Grit to 'Big Damn Heroes
When I was a kid, cowboys ruled. Every week, my heroes-Lucas McCain, the Cartwrights, Matt Dillon, Paladin, Big John Cannon-were taming the 'wild west.' These were good guys, in charge and on a mission. But in the world around us, everything was changing. 1969 was a turning point. Everything was suddenly in Technicolor, and as we gave up on the West and turned to outer space for our hero-adventures, our heroes morphed from Cowboys to Space-Pirate…
Sociology (28 works) · Art (23 works) · Autoethnography (21 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Aesthetics (18 works) · Gender Studies (18 works) · Political science (12 works) · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics (11 works) · Literature (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works)