Department of English

I was hired as graduate administrator and outreach coordinator for the Brandeis Justice Initiative in June, and the past three months that I have been working in this program have been transformative. My research focuses on anti-racist and queer Twitter activists and fiction writers' textual strategies to advocate for social change and intervene in the structures of oppression, and I had been looking for ways to do more practical social justice work on these and similar questions. Like for many PhD students, it was a bit of a puzzle how to find such employment and professional development opportunities.... 

Coinciding with the national backlash against the injustices perpetrated by law enforcement and the penal system, my position with the Brandeis Justice Initiative has allowed me to read and learn about the system of incarceration and punishment not as a theoretical system, but as a legal, economic, and political system whose workings contribute in large measure to the continued oppression and derailing of Black lives. Not only have I gained valuable insight into how this system operates, but also into the movements and professions that organize in opposition to it: the myriad of higher ed in prison programs, diversionary education initiatives for at-risk youth, reentry programs for returning citizens, and the vast sphere of advocacy and organizing by formerly incarcerated individuals. Even more importantly to me, I have also been able to contribute to building a program that furthers restorative justice to the incarcerated through the means that I really care about: education. Building Brandeis's concerted effort to advance educational access for all people impacted by the carceral system, I have gained valuable skills and experience in instructional design, program design and program administration, as well as in researching and writing grants, and in general public-facing communication and marketing required by the maintenance of a social enterprise such as BJI. I am grateful to have been able to do my part in building this urgently necessary initiative at Brandeis; and I fully intend to continue contributing to it, whether as an instructor, program administrator, or program designer, in the upcoming years.