Jennifer Lee O’donnell
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 906473 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Jennifer Lee O’donnell |
| PRENOMES | Jennifer Lee |
| SOBRENOME | O’donnell |
| ASSINATURA | O’DONNELL J L |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Texas State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6416-0279 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 24 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 26 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 24 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2010 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Poems from a life away
Living monstrously
This essay develops the concept of monstrous pedagogy to name the double bind facing women teachers: young teachers are surveilled as potentially monstrous, while veteran teachers who set boundaries are cast as actually monstrous. Drawing on feminist theory and critical film analysis of Cregger, Z., dir. 2025. Weapons [Film]. New Line Cinema. horror film Weapons, combined with autoethnographic reflection on nearly two decades of teaching, I argue…
Means of Transmission
In line with the aims of the special issue, this conversation explores how plattenbaustudio mobilize architectural drawing as a form of witnessing, one that registers spectral traces embedded in the built environment. The architects first explain what constitutes their drawing practice, then show how drawing can help make manifest multiple temporalities at once: moments of conception, use, neglect, abandonment, presence and erasure. The dialogue …
Critical civics and democratic education through Us and them divides on HBO’s The Leftovers
In this article, I utilize a critical media literacy framework to analyze the acclaimed HBO television series, The Leftovers. This analysis can guide teacher educators and future teachers enrolled in teacher preparation university courses to incorporate pop culture texts in their classrooms, while at the same time exploring critical civics and democratic education theories, themes, and practices
TV as Curriculum Studies
Walter Benjamin in the bathhouse
This essay explores the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on creativity and art. Through a blend of autoethnography and critical perspectives on technology, ethics, and creativity, the essay utilizes the camera obscura as a metaphor to explore how the digital era transforms artistic practices, commodifies artistic products, and reshapes the relationship between human and creation. Obscura 1 examines the shift from traditional artistic practi…
Adolescent healing through shamanism and the carnivalesque in the trauma-sensitive classroom
Trauma-informed practices in school settings aim to help students understand how past traumas may trigger memories of hurt and neglect, how they can distinguish these earlier memories from the present, so that they can form themselves into healthy, functioning adults. Although approaches adopted thus far may remedy students’ cognitive, emotional, and social well-being, little is done to address the spiritual needs that many students may also need…
Dirty care in the transfronterizo experience
Many educators living near the United States and Mexico border were transfronterizo students-young people with familial and institutional ties to both countries, who crossed the border each day to attend United States schools. This study is concerned with how these teachers' identities formed within distinct sociocultural contexts like the Borderlands and how this can serve education institutions invested in teacher identity work
Hitting at the heart of a massive problem’
This ethnographic paper navigates the intersections of feminism, urban farm movements, and democratic education at La Granja Puerta del Sol, a small farm near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Under the stewardship of Dani Ramirez, the farm resonates with the ethos of urban agriculture, while actively contesting gender norms and patriarchal structures. In parallel, it functions as a dynamic educational hub and platform for activist causes in their communi…
A critical-place ethnography of transfronterizo teachers at the intersections of self-defense, self-creation, and borderlands identity formation
Teacher identity work throughout one’s academic studies and career has been shown to have a positive impact on teachers’ resilience and longevity in the field, in contrast to those who do not engage in these kinds of reflexive practices. This research expands our understanding of teacher identities and how they develop within and outside school settings, acknowledging the complex paths teachers navigate to enter the classroom. To promote reflexiv…
Becoming with Education-Based Social Movements through Diffractive Analysis
In this article, we provide an overview of diffraction theory, followed by an explanation of diffraction as an analytical methodology. We highlight how tools like the agential cut can be used to redraw the boundaries of ethnographic research so that data can be a continuous becoming with the researcher. We offer vignettes from our work on education-based social movements that demonstrate how the agential cut opens a viewpoint for understanding ou…
Forging an Identity as a Transfronterizo Student in the Context of Neoliberalism and English Language Learning at the U.S.-Mexico Border
Transnational flows in people and economy have shaped the need and desire for Mexicans to learn English and so many families enroll their children in cross-border schooling. These children, known as transfronterizos, live in Mexico and cross the border each day to attend U.S. schools. Through ethnography, this article explores the experiential complications of teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ who were transfronterizos in their youth, particula…
Uncovering the complexity of teaching and learning about/from pedagogies of discomforting, difficult knowledge through a “more-than-human” framework for grief on HBO’s The Leftovers
Grief resists easy explanation. Nevertheless, there is a consensus that it is unpleasant and isolating. Yet to understand grief as such misses its intersubjective magnitudes, and neglects to interrogate the ways in which our distressing experiences affect and are affected by our involvement with Others. This paper will offer pedagogical insights on teaching and learning about/from social and historical traumas, through a psychosocial, narrative a…
Groomed for capitalism
Self-care, self-improvement and biopower, as they relate to the commodification of adolescence and the grooming of young people as neoliberal citizens, are the central concerns of this article. Foregrounding new perspectives on the effects such trends have on the body [Cusset, F. (2018). How the world swung to the right: Fifty years of counterrevolutions. MIT Press], it analyzes two texts, the film Eighth Grade and the Atlanta episode entitled ‘F…
University as Secret Society
Becoming a professor is complicated by a lack of clear guidelines for promotion to permanent status and, paradoxically, a surplus of mechanisms for institutional transparency. Drawing on Lilith Mahmud's anthropologies of discretion applied to secret societies like the Italian Freemasons, this paper compares becoming a professor to an initiate's journey toward becoming a member of a secret society. Membership in both requires a balance between kno…
Anger and disillusionment in Argentinian feminism, 2011–2015
This essay draws from four years of ethnographic fieldwork with women activists in self-defined Paulo Freirean-based popular education schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rather than leaning on the traditions of education activism, modeled on Freire’s class-based emancipatory vision, the women in this study sought to turn popular education’s focus toward intersectional oppressions that impacted girls and women in their communities. Through their …
"I Let Not Just Their Knowledge But Their Worlds Inform What I Teach." Difficult Knowledge in the Popular Education Classroom in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Popular educators are encountering students' past trauma and dealing with how to engage ethically with social issues through "difficult knowledge" (Britzman 1998). The force of their curriculum provides the education community the ability to learn from their social conditions and share in the difficult knowledge experienced among them. This paper focuses on work at one popular education high school, The October 14thSchool of Villa 50, in Buenos A…
The promise of recognition and the repercussions of government intervention
This investigation draws from Mouffe’s [2005, On the Political. London: Routledge] theoretical work on the politics of public togetherness, together with Biesta [2011, “The Ignorant Citizen: Mouffe, Rancière, and the Subject of Democratic Education.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 30 (2): 141–153] and Kamat’s [2014, “The new Development Architecture and the Post-political in the Global South.” In The Post-Political and its Discontents: Space…
Language policy processes and consequences
Language Policy Processes and Consequences: Arizona Case Studies weaves historical archives, Supreme Court rulings, special legislation, language movements, and education reform – with qualitative
Feminist theory and pop culture
It has been said that unevenness is inevitably built into the form of the edited volume – that some chapters fit better than others, perhaps because there are often several disciplines, media, and
Reflexivity in language and intercultural education
The politics of the body
Two things are a buzz on social media as I read and review Alison Phipps’ new work The Politics of the Body. The first has to do with Matt Taylor of ShirtStorm fame – the scientist who wore a shirt
Gender & pop culture
The indigenous, national, and international language in higher education
Studies regarding multilingualism have shown that literacy in two languages facilitates the acquisition of a third. This paper compares the progress of Mexican bilingual indigenous language/Spanish‐proficient students to Mexican monolingual Spanish‐proficient students in their university level English classes. Two major research strategies are presented: (1) qualitative analysis based on a student questionnaire, and (2) inferential quantitative a…
The politics of the body
Two things are a buzz on social media as I read and review Alison Phipps’ new work The Politics of the Body. The first has to do with Matt Taylor of ShirtStorm fame – the scientist who wore a shirt
Forging an Identity as a Transfronterizo Student in the Context of Neoliberalism and English Language Learning at the U.S.-Mexico Border
Transnational flows in people and economy have shaped the need and desire for Mexicans to learn English and so many families enroll their children in cross-border schooling. These children, known as transfronterizos, live in Mexico and cross the border each day to attend U.S. schools. Through ethnography, this article explores the experiential complications of teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ who were transfronterizos in their youth, particula…
Groomed for capitalism
Self-care, self-improvement and biopower, as they relate to the commodification of adolescence and the grooming of young people as neoliberal citizens, are the central concerns of this article. Foregrounding new perspectives on the effects such trends have on the body [Cusset, F. (2018). How the world swung to the right: Fifty years of counterrevolutions. MIT Press], it analyzes two texts, the film Eighth Grade and the Atlanta episode entitled ‘F…
Anger and disillusionment in Argentinian feminism, 2011–2015
This essay draws from four years of ethnographic fieldwork with women activists in self-defined Paulo Freirean-based popular education schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rather than leaning on the traditions of education activism, modeled on Freire’s class-based emancipatory vision, the women in this study sought to turn popular education’s focus toward intersectional oppressions that impacted girls and women in their communities. Through their …
The indigenous, national, and international language in higher education
Studies regarding multilingualism have shown that literacy in two languages facilitates the acquisition of a third. This paper compares the progress of Mexican bilingual indigenous language/Spanish‐proficient students to Mexican monolingual Spanish‐proficient students in their university level English classes. Two major research strategies are presented: (1) qualitative analysis based on a student questionnaire, and (2) inferential quantitative a…
University as Secret Society
Becoming a professor is complicated by a lack of clear guidelines for promotion to permanent status and, paradoxically, a surplus of mechanisms for institutional transparency. Drawing on Lilith Mahmud's anthropologies of discretion applied to secret societies like the Italian Freemasons, this paper compares becoming a professor to an initiate's journey toward becoming a member of a secret society. Membership in both requires a balance between kno…
Becoming with Education-Based Social Movements through Diffractive Analysis
In this article, we provide an overview of diffraction theory, followed by an explanation of diffraction as an analytical methodology. We highlight how tools like the agential cut can be used to redraw the boundaries of ethnographic research so that data can be a continuous becoming with the researcher. We offer vignettes from our work on education-based social movements that demonstrate how the agential cut opens a viewpoint for understanding ou…
"I Let Not Just Their Knowledge But Their Worlds Inform What I Teach." Difficult Knowledge in the Popular Education Classroom in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Popular educators are encountering students' past trauma and dealing with how to engage ethically with social issues through "difficult knowledge" (Britzman 1998). The force of their curriculum provides the education community the ability to learn from their social conditions and share in the difficult knowledge experienced among them. This paper focuses on work at one popular education high school, The October 14thSchool of Villa 50, in Buenos A…
The promise of recognition and the repercussions of government intervention
This investigation draws from Mouffe’s [2005, On the Political. London: Routledge] theoretical work on the politics of public togetherness, together with Biesta [2011, “The Ignorant Citizen: Mouffe, Rancière, and the Subject of Democratic Education.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 30 (2): 141–153] and Kamat’s [2014, “The new Development Architecture and the Post-political in the Global South.” In The Post-Political and its Discontents: Space…
The indigenous, national, and international language in higher education
Studies regarding multilingualism have shown that literacy in two languages facilitates the acquisition of a third. This paper compares the progress of Mexican bilingual indigenous language/Spanish‐proficient students to Mexican monolingual Spanish‐proficient students in their university level English classes. Two major research strategies are presented: (1) qualitative analysis based on a student questionnaire, and (2) inferential quantitative a…
Reflexivity in language and intercultural education
The politics of the body
Two things are a buzz on social media as I read and review Alison Phipps’ new work The Politics of the Body. The first has to do with Matt Taylor of ShirtStorm fame – the scientist who wore a shirt
Gender & pop culture
Language policy processes and consequences
Language Policy Processes and Consequences: Arizona Case Studies weaves historical archives, Supreme Court rulings, special legislation, language movements, and education reform – with qualitative
Feminist theory and pop culture
It has been said that unevenness is inevitably built into the form of the edited volume – that some chapters fit better than others, perhaps because there are often several disciplines, media, and
The promise of recognition and the repercussions of government intervention
This investigation draws from Mouffe’s [2005, On the Political. London: Routledge] theoretical work on the politics of public togetherness, together with Biesta [2011, “The Ignorant Citizen: Mouffe, Rancière, and the Subject of Democratic Education.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 30 (2): 141–153] and Kamat’s [2014, “The new Development Architecture and the Post-political in the Global South.” In The Post-Political and its Discontents: Space…
Anger and disillusionment in Argentinian feminism, 2011–2015
This essay draws from four years of ethnographic fieldwork with women activists in self-defined Paulo Freirean-based popular education schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rather than leaning on the traditions of education activism, modeled on Freire’s class-based emancipatory vision, the women in this study sought to turn popular education’s focus toward intersectional oppressions that impacted girls and women in their communities. Through their …
"I Let Not Just Their Knowledge But Their Worlds Inform What I Teach." Difficult Knowledge in the Popular Education Classroom in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Popular educators are encountering students' past trauma and dealing with how to engage ethically with social issues through "difficult knowledge" (Britzman 1998). The force of their curriculum provides the education community the ability to learn from their social conditions and share in the difficult knowledge experienced among them. This paper focuses on work at one popular education high school, The October 14thSchool of Villa 50, in Buenos A…
Uncovering the complexity of teaching and learning about/from pedagogies of discomforting, difficult knowledge through a “more-than-human” framework for grief on HBO’s The Leftovers
Grief resists easy explanation. Nevertheless, there is a consensus that it is unpleasant and isolating. Yet to understand grief as such misses its intersubjective magnitudes, and neglects to interrogate the ways in which our distressing experiences affect and are affected by our involvement with Others. This paper will offer pedagogical insights on teaching and learning about/from social and historical traumas, through a psychosocial, narrative a…
Groomed for capitalism
Self-care, self-improvement and biopower, as they relate to the commodification of adolescence and the grooming of young people as neoliberal citizens, are the central concerns of this article. Foregrounding new perspectives on the effects such trends have on the body [Cusset, F. (2018). How the world swung to the right: Fifty years of counterrevolutions. MIT Press], it analyzes two texts, the film Eighth Grade and the Atlanta episode entitled ‘F…
University as Secret Society
Becoming a professor is complicated by a lack of clear guidelines for promotion to permanent status and, paradoxically, a surplus of mechanisms for institutional transparency. Drawing on Lilith Mahmud's anthropologies of discretion applied to secret societies like the Italian Freemasons, this paper compares becoming a professor to an initiate's journey toward becoming a member of a secret society. Membership in both requires a balance between kno…
Forging an Identity as a Transfronterizo Student in the Context of Neoliberalism and English Language Learning at the U.S.-Mexico Border
Transnational flows in people and economy have shaped the need and desire for Mexicans to learn English and so many families enroll their children in cross-border schooling. These children, known as transfronterizos, live in Mexico and cross the border each day to attend U.S. schools. Through ethnography, this article explores the experiential complications of teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ who were transfronterizos in their youth, particula…
Hitting at the heart of a massive problem’
This ethnographic paper navigates the intersections of feminism, urban farm movements, and democratic education at La Granja Puerta del Sol, a small farm near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Under the stewardship of Dani Ramirez, the farm resonates with the ethos of urban agriculture, while actively contesting gender norms and patriarchal structures. In parallel, it functions as a dynamic educational hub and platform for activist causes in their communi…
A critical-place ethnography of transfronterizo teachers at the intersections of self-defense, self-creation, and borderlands identity formation
Teacher identity work throughout one’s academic studies and career has been shown to have a positive impact on teachers’ resilience and longevity in the field, in contrast to those who do not engage in these kinds of reflexive practices. This research expands our understanding of teacher identities and how they develop within and outside school settings, acknowledging the complex paths teachers navigate to enter the classroom. To promote reflexiv…
Becoming with Education-Based Social Movements through Diffractive Analysis
In this article, we provide an overview of diffraction theory, followed by an explanation of diffraction as an analytical methodology. We highlight how tools like the agential cut can be used to redraw the boundaries of ethnographic research so that data can be a continuous becoming with the researcher. We offer vignettes from our work on education-based social movements that demonstrate how the agential cut opens a viewpoint for understanding ou…
Adolescent healing through shamanism and the carnivalesque in the trauma-sensitive classroom
Trauma-informed practices in school settings aim to help students understand how past traumas may trigger memories of hurt and neglect, how they can distinguish these earlier memories from the present, so that they can form themselves into healthy, functioning adults. Although approaches adopted thus far may remedy students’ cognitive, emotional, and social well-being, little is done to address the spiritual needs that many students may also need…
Dirty care in the transfronterizo experience
Many educators living near the United States and Mexico border were transfronterizo students-young people with familial and institutional ties to both countries, who crossed the border each day to attend United States schools. This study is concerned with how these teachers' identities formed within distinct sociocultural contexts like the Borderlands and how this can serve education institutions invested in teacher identity work
Means of Transmission
In line with the aims of the special issue, this conversation explores how plattenbaustudio mobilize architectural drawing as a form of witnessing, one that registers spectral traces embedded in the built environment. The architects first explain what constitutes their drawing practice, then show how drawing can help make manifest multiple temporalities at once: moments of conception, use, neglect, abandonment, presence and erasure. The dialogue …
Critical civics and democratic education through Us and them divides on HBO’s The Leftovers
In this article, I utilize a critical media literacy framework to analyze the acclaimed HBO television series, The Leftovers. This analysis can guide teacher educators and future teachers enrolled in teacher preparation university courses to incorporate pop culture texts in their classrooms, while at the same time exploring critical civics and democratic education theories, themes, and practices
TV as Curriculum Studies
Walter Benjamin in the bathhouse
This essay explores the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on creativity and art. Through a blend of autoethnography and critical perspectives on technology, ethics, and creativity, the essay utilizes the camera obscura as a metaphor to explore how the digital era transforms artistic practices, commodifies artistic products, and reshapes the relationship between human and creation. Obscura 1 examines the shift from traditional artistic practi…
Poems from a life away
Living monstrously
This essay develops the concept of monstrous pedagogy to name the double bind facing women teachers: young teachers are surveilled as potentially monstrous, while veteran teachers who set boundaries are cast as actually monstrous. Drawing on feminist theory and critical film analysis of Cregger, Z., dir. 2025. Weapons [Film]. New Line Cinema. horror film Weapons, combined with autoethnographic reflection on nearly two decades of teaching, I argue…
Sociology (18 obras) · Pedagogy (11 obras) · Gender Studies (9 obras) · Political science (9 obras) · Psychology (9 obras) · Gender Studies (7 obras) · Law (7 obras) · Anthropology (6 obras) · Critical Race Theory in Education (6 obras) · Politics (6 obras)