HEADER IMAGE CREDIT: Soirart.tumblr
We are two professors at Carleton College, a small liberal arts college in Northfield, MN. Adriana Estill teaches American Studies and Latinx Studies and Anita Chikkatur teaches Educational Studies. We study a lot. As a pair, we have lots of vigorous discussions about social identity, power, privilege, representation, pop culture, and college politics. This blog traces and records some of our musings. We are grateful for the many women of color who came before us and work alongside us; our immediate inspirations for this blog are bell hooks and Amalia Mesa Bains’ jointly-written book Homegrown and the Buzzfeed podcast Another Round with Heben and Tracy.
FAQ
How did you meet each other?
We definitely remember meeting through work and instantly knowing we were soulmates, though neither of us can recall the exact moment.
Why blog as a pair?
Partly because we realized that we had such great conversations with each other that we wanted to share them with the world. 😉
On a more serious note, we both believe deeply in the importance of collaboration as a radical practice that interrupts neoliberal notions of individuality and the premium that that places on a particular kind of measurable productivity.
Also, we think this will be super fun because we find each other hilarious. Occasionally there might be drinking and writing.
So, like, who are y’all?
Adriana and Anita both identify as women of color from immigrant families. We are lower middle class and middle middle class, queer and straight, can perform femme, and can appreciate pedicures. We think of ourselves as able bodied and having an invisible disability. We appreciate and honor the work our bodies can do. We are committed to social justice and dancing.
And though we don’t want to reify who we “are,” because the we that we are is always growing and changing, Anita has a better memory than Adriana and Adriana is more big picture than Anita.
Where are all the citations, if y’all are academics?
As we both tell our students, it’s important to acknowledge the origins of ideas and how previous writings inform our own. However, in an effort to make the blog posts legible to multiple discourse communities, we’re choosing not to cite within the blog posts, for the most part. We will include a list of suggestions at the end of posts of readings and other media that helped us think through particular ideas discussed in that post.
Down With Brown 