Joseph Tucker Edmonds: Silhouette Interview

Joseph Tucker Edmonds, PhD is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, I am Nancy Lynn Westfield, Director of the Wild Act Center. Welcome to Dialogue on Teaching, a Silhouette Interview. The Silhouette conversations are sparked from a list of standardized questions. We have the good fortune to hear firsthand from teaching exemplars about their teaching life. Today, our silhouette guest is Dr. Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds. Dr. Edmonds is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Africana Studies, as well as Associate Director with the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture with Indiana University in Indianapolis. Welcome, Joseph, to the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

So we want to know more about you, creating these profiles so people know that scholars of religion are not monolithic and are actually interesting people. So we kind of know that they we are interesting people, but um these series of interviews give us proof, right? For the archives. It's like, well, what does a scholar of religion look like? So that's that's why we do these interviews. So we're gonna we're gonna start. Here we go. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

I wanted to be the mayor of Baltimore City. You are so funny. That's my that's my real answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Sir. And then what happened?

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So I so I met the mayor of Baltimore at a fourth grade assembly at my elementary school in Baltimore City, and he was charismatic. He was young. Uh, he was really committed to transforming Baltimore. This was Kirk Schmok. He was thinking about decriminalizing drugs. I mean, I don't know if I knew that back then when I was eight years old, but I knew that he was charismatic and smart. And I was like, that's what I want to be when I grow up.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

That's the job for me.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

That's the job.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

That is hysterical. That actually makes sense, right? That makes sense. Um, next, who was proud of you when you became a teacher?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

I would have to say all of my mother's sisters.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

We want their names. We want names.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

We want names. So the names I would be Cynthia, Barbara, Joan, Mikey, and Gail, my mom, were the proudest of me when I became a teacher. They were all teachers. Uh, all of those four women, black women from the city of Baltimore, have PhDs. So my my mom and four of her sisters have PhDs. And so uh when I became a teacher, uh, they were like, This is this is what we do. You're in the family business. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, that's nice. So they just thought you were misguided when you wanted to be in the mayor, right? He'll grow out of that.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah, he'll he'll figure out something out.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

That's right. Giving time, giving time. Next, what's the best thing your mother taught you?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

The best thing that my mother taught me was to go back and edit your work. My mom was an English teacher. And so uh, you know, we spent a lot of time at home writing and practicing and reading. So, you know, that was part of our just like our family uh atmosphere. You know, you read, you write, you read poetry, you memorized scripture, you memorized text. But my mom was a big person who would say, the first try is good, the next try is gonna be better. And so practice and editing was a was a deep part of our family culture. You know, we was gonna, when we went to church, we were gonna have the Easter speech down. You know, when I turned in my paper, it was gonna have the correct subject and verb agreement on it. And I learned that um at a very young age to not be afraid of an editor, and that my mom was really my first editor in that way.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

So iteration matters, right? Yeah, iteration matters. She knew she's wise, she was wise. Who has influenced your teaching for the better?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

I would say the person that has influenced my teaching for the better would be Emily Towns. Uh, and so Emily Towns was my professor at Union Theological Seminary when I was doing my Master of Divinity. And, you know, I went in thinking we're gonna read some text, we're gonna write some papers. This is gonna be a standard um, you know, master's program. Uh, and I was shocked to meet a professor who was pedagogic, like really pedagogically interested in forcing us to think outside of our comfort zone, to uh write and to create assignments that were creative and critical, to ask us to evaluate um your colleagues as well as your professor, and to really invest time in helping us think about how we were going to take what we were producing in this classroom and use it somewhere else, whether it was in the church, whether it was in the community as activists, or just in our everyday homes and lives. And she was a professor that from the very start, I said, Oh, yeah, I can do this. You know, it's more than just being charismatic, even though she is. It was more than just being the smartest person in the classroom, even though she was. Uh, it was about creating the space and the capacity for the student to bring their whole selves and their creative selves to the classroom.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

And do you teach like that now?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

I do, I do. And each year, more so. Um, I am really invested in asking my students, requiring that my students bring their whole, full, complete selves to the classroom and that they think about their grandma or their eight-year-old brother or their, you know, their cousin who ain't ever been to college. I say, how are you gonna make this assignment not only accessible to them, but actually force them to want to read this or read more in this area on this topic? How are you gonna get it to them in a way that animates them and surprises them and moves them in a new direction?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Nice. Thank you, Dr. Town. Yes. What has surprised you about teaching or the teaching life?

SPEAKER_01 6:38

I didn't know that I took myself so seriously all the time. So the most surprising thing about the teaching life was to pull back from the work that it would require to pull back from some of the seriousness, to let myself be my authentic self in the classroom. And so that's why it took a long while in my teaching journey to actually make space for my students, because I first had to make space for myself. I first had to be okay, uh, to be quirky and silly and vulnerable uh in a way that I didn't really know that was what I was learning from Dr. Towns, right? That she was bringing her full self. And that's why it was so easy or it seemed so easy for her to open up that space for us to bring ourselves. And so when I began to work on that, and when I began to face that challenge head on, I just the light bulb switched on, you know, that uh students were able to be themselves, we were able to engage in areas that we weren't before, and the classroom turned into a living laboratory rather than this space about surveillance and control and grades and uh you know discipline. It became something else.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

That's beautiful, right? So articulate, thank you. What is a favorite nickname by which you were called by a loved one?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

My mom calls me J Bird. Um and so my name is Joseph, my my my my birth name, but my dad's name is also Joseph. So, you know, you got my dad's Joseph, I got an Uncle Joe, you know how you know in big black families. You got you got five people in the room with the same name.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

The same name, our family too. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

So you have to come up with another name. So my name became Jay, but then the my mom added on to that uh Jay Bird. And like that, that nickname means something to me because in some way it spoke to this kind of artist, um, this more expansive, uh, this more uh I don't know what you might call it, the uh a kind of a person who was committed to just like being free. And like that that notion of freedom, of being able to kind of move in and out of space really spoke to me. And so even now, like she still calls me that. When I like I talk to my mom, she'll be like, J Bird, like what she like, which what do you what are you thinking about? What are you doing? And that expansiveness, that freedom, uh, that ability to be speculative in a world that wants to hold me down, uh, is powerful. And I and I lean on that in moments when you know the world or the assignment or the institution is asking for something else from me.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Well, and there's a way that your interiority knows your name is J Bird, right? You know your mother's voice calling you to be to live into J Bird's wings, right? To become J Bird. That's lovely. What does your daughter call you?

SPEAKER_01 9:42

My daughter calls me dad. Um, and um and or daddy, you know, like when we're when we're going back and forth. Um, but I I think that her uh way of leaning into to that is that I've come up with all of these names to call her. And so when I'm calling her these other names, like Zora Dorable, like her name is Zora, or sweet, uh, or Zorita, like when I you know when I'm when I'm calling out of her these other possibilities and these other like then then she knows that she can lean in to daddy's fun side and to daddy's creative side, and that daddy's calling that out of her, and that she's free to kind of call some of that out of me.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Nice, nice. What profession other than teaching would you like to attempt?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

You know, I would love to be engaged in some form of you know, news reporting. I I love this idea. Like I love the idea of asking and talking to people in real time, you know. And I think that as professors, we we come close to that, you know, but we often don't ask a direct enough question. We don't make enough space for people to tell their story. And so that's oftentimes we're not as generous as we need to be to actually let someone else frame the story. And so part of what I would love about uh being a journalist or uh or or news reporter would be kind of opening up more space for folks to tell their story and to share who they are.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

I can see I can see that connection, and I can see you doing that. That's wonderful. Um, do you enjoy writing in long hand? And if so, what is your preference of ink pen or writing utensil?

SPEAKER_01 11:42

I love a lead pencil, like to write on an old school yellow pad. Um, and I really enjoy writing in long hand. And it is so funny that you ask that is because one of the ways that I returned to writing in long hand was watching my daughter write in long hand because she really loves journaling. And I, you know, I'm not a big journaler, but I enjoy writing in long hand when I'm working on a manuscript or a talk. But and so watching her journal in long hand and picking different kinds of pens returned me to the practice of writing in long hand. And I love doing that in a dimly lit space with a pad, with a lead pencil, and just being able to write um and to cross out um and to erase. I like to erase too. I like to cross out and erase, and that's why the pencil uh is meaningful to me.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Yeah, the erase thing is wonderful, right? There's a kind of magic about it was there, and I changed my mind, and now it's not there. What's your superpower?

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Uh I you know, I think that my superpower is that I can I I have a couple of them, but the one that I think that I return to over and over again is that I really feel like I can lean into another person's vibe and energy very easily. Like I can match a person's uh you know needs and energy. I don't know, I don't think I would call myself an empath, but I can I can really feel and lock in to what a person needs in a particular moment. And it doesn't require long uh time of like intimacy of getting to know a person. I can you know immediately meet someone in an airport and we can connect. And I and I ask deep questions and they will ask me deep questions, and we will feel like it is okay to have that kind of interaction.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

So that's like the dancing thing, right? When you partner dance.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So it's it doesn't take two people who know each other well to dance well together almost instantly. So that's yeah. So now our next question is infamous or notorious, depending on who you ask. So get ready, get ready, get ready. What's your favorite cuss word?

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Oh, I am not a big cursor, but I love like my favorite one would probably be like, like, damn, like, because I need like something that still retains my my basic respectability.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

I was gonna say, you know, you know, your mother was is not trying to hear you say that.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

But it would, it was all it's also was a good like curse word in like the for the women in my family, too. Like, you know, my so the women in my family would use that word. Like it would, it was an acceptable kind of curse. And so even now I I like It's in the Bible. It's in the Bible. It's in the Bible. So it would be damn or like damn it. Like I like a little damn it too, like you know, like kind of add a little bit of extra emphasis um you know on the end. And I and I like it because it's it it alerts people enough that there's something that's like off or that there is an issue, but it doesn't seem to foreclose that we can that we can fix something. I don't know. Like it feels like there's still space for us to work on it. Like I'm like, damn, but you can keep going. Like we can we can we can pick this up. Like I might have nailed the thing into the wrong thing, but now we can we can take it out or we can start over or someone can help fix me. It doesn't seem final or conclusive in the way that some other good the good times quote, the good times quote all the time. Damn, damn, damn.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Damn, damn. But no foreclosing. We still, like you said, we're still working on this. We're still working on it.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

It it it it has it doesn't have the finality that I feel some other words do.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Well, that's right. And you haven't gone, you haven't gone uncouth, you haven't gone into the gutter, right? We're not calling nobody out, nobody's, you know, knives and guns and dawn, none of that. We just go okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

And I but I will say this though, I very rarely curse in class. So I would I'm trying to think about when you ask that question, I was trying to think about not only my favorite one in life, but like what is there anyone that I will use in class? And I very rarely do. I mean, unless I'm being particularly provocative or evocative around a topic or quoting something, you know, like good times or you know, or the wire or something like that, you know, where there's a particular curse word that has cultural resonance.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

How have you survived certain violences in teaching?

SPEAKER_01 16:45

I usually ignore them. You know, and so I think that that is uh the the most honest answer to that, right? That I have survived them by ignoring them or and then by coming back to them and telling myself they are they they are not true, right? Um that there there was no warrant for them, that this was um the ignorance of someone else, that this had that this was not about me, but it was about their about them. And I usually construct my classroom in a way where I tend to ignore or to make space for a lot, right? And and recognize that part of that learning educational process is that in making space for so much, there are gonna be things that I am not going to agree with, that I am going to have to come back and think about, that my students might say things um in ways that that hurt or that wound, but that that was a part of the process in my mind. And so um I think I initially ignore, and then there's a way um that I try to reflect. Uh later in life, however, I think that I've done a better job of surrounding myself with other teachers and pedagogues that I can talk to about that violence or that hurt. I don't early in my career that was not the case, though.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to know, it's hard to know what to do, it's hard to do. Next question What healings have you witnessed or received in teaching or the teaching line?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yeah. You know, I think that the the biggest healing that I have received is the the notion of perseverance and trying again. I think that for many of us in the classroom as teachers, we are perfectionists, we are type A folks, you know, we want to get the the lecture right, the answers right, the content perfect, all of these kinds of things. The healing in my classrooms over and over again, and I think that this has just been a real gift from my students, is the way in which they ask me, can they try again? Can we begin again? When they when a student says to me, like, I don't understand what you just said, I can't explain to you how like how that is salvation for me, right? Because that student is is is modeling and mirroring for me a window into the world that I've often not felt free to live into, to be able to fully say, I don't understand. Can you teach me? Can you hold my hand when we walk as we walk through this? And that feeling has saved me not only in the classroom as a teacher and as a learner, but in all these other areas in my life, as a father, as a partner, uh, as a friend, like just to be able to say, to stop and say, I don't get what you were trying to tell me. Like when my students say that to me, like it arrests me for a moment because I think I'm so clear. But then the next moment, I like, yes, like that's you know, like, like the fact that you knew that, the fact that you were able to say that is not only saving you, but it's saving me and everybody else in this classroom right now.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

And and oftentimes it's not a put up to say, I disagree, or softened I disagree, or challenge. And it's in its authenticity, it is I don't understand, which is which is marvel, as you're saying, is marvelous, right? It is a kind of vulnerability that needs to be applauded.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

It is, it is. And I mean, I think that the moments that I've been most struck by too is oftentimes when it's been done by my young black male students in my classes, who are sometimes the most at risk for feeling like they're gonna be seen as a failure, for feeling like they might be seen as unprepared. And then I recognize in that same trajectory that I have some of those same insecurities as the black man in the front of the room. Even though I know the most, I'm the smartest, I got the most letters after my name. I also need that freedom to be able to say to this larger class and to the larger world that sometimes I don't know and I don't understand. And I need you to help me and to teach me and to hold me in this moment.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah, nice. What have you enjoyed most about the teaching line?

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I have enjoyed the opportunity to try again. Um so I tell people all the time that I love teaching the same class and trying new techniques. uh introducing a new book or a new passage, you know, using a different video clip. You know, the the the beauty of the teaching life is that you get these opportunities to go back, to run it back, as we as we sometimes say, like to to go over it again, to to think about it in a really powerful way. And that has been so instructive for me, going back to this notion of editing and of rethinking that I talked about with that this this the skill that I learned from my mom. But it's also been a really great gift because the ability to kind of do it again forces me every time to lean into the people that are sitting in front of me. Right. I think that um the the one of those gifts of the teaching life is that I learn over and over again that this content and these ideas fall differently depending on who the audience is, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Context matters.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Context matters and so I got so every time I go back in there I'm I you know I'm meeting uh 15 or 25 new people and we've got to do it again. And even throughout the semester, you know, some days you come in there and I can tell this it's been a hard week for these young men and women. It's been it's been tough in the world that we're living in. And so I've got to acclimate and rethink how I'm going to to meet them and and love them and and support them through this learning process. Last question at the conclusion of your teaching career so not now and not tomorrow but in 60 or 70 years because you're still a young man at the conclusion of your teaching career what miracles will you have performed at the conclusion of my teaching career I think there are a couple of miracles that I've performed and one of them is that I've I've let a cohort of people know that teaching is a vocation worth considering right um and I I know that doesn't seem that miraculous but in today's world where the humanities are shrinking uh uh that our uh outputs and goals around uh what we should be producing as university students the the the the pressures that I think that our parents that the parents of my students are placing on them um that this idea that this vocation of teaching is worth considering um that it is something that is transformative for your life that is a miracle um for uh for some folks and for many folks in my classroom but I think the other miracle is um is that for so many of my students is that they have a voice that's worth listening to um and it's it's it's a miracle to me to find a student to find a young man or woman who didn't know that they had something to offer to the world and I hope that as I look back 20 years from now or 30 years from now that I will be hearing about the miracles the miraculous ways that what they learned that they could share with the world not only changed them but changed the legacy and the life of the lives of all the people around them. And so that's that's the real miracle um that that I look forward to seeing and hearing and learning about Joseph Tucker Edmonds stop by anytime right we enjoy talking to you right it's amazing thank you thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

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