Radhika Mongia –Teaching Statement 2004-05
Assistant Professor in Women's Studies

I have now been teaching for almost twenty years, in a variety of settings. A medley of experiences thus shape my pedagogical approach, though some of my earliest and, coincidentally, also most challenging, teaching situations, have been formative to my teaching philosophy and practice. My first experience as a teacher came when, as an undergraduate student (majoring in Mathematics) at the University of Delhi, India, I volunteered to teach English to Afghan refugees through the UNHCR in Delhi. This was a most perplexing pedagogical situation: For, not only was I untrained in any aspect of how to teach languages, or, indeed, in how to teach at all, my classes had students who ranged in age from twelve to fifty and many of my students were infinitely more educated than I, having been doctors, engineers and -- most intimidating of all -- teachers in Afghanistan. It is, of course, a cliché to say that a teacher also learns through teaching; but for me, this cliché embodies more than a grain of truth: The lesson here for me was the shocking revelation that despite my students’ fluencies, indeed erudition, in certain domains, they were in the class to learn; and that I had something to teach them.

Another key event that informs my pedagogy relates to my experiences, as a graduate student in Mathematics in the US, when I worked as a TA for various introductory-level courses. Despite their introductory level, I was struck by the high percentage of students who failed the classes. Teaching introductory college math can be a relatively easy task: you solve problems on the board and quickly grade student assignments, simply marking answers right or wrong. However, one can also teach mathematics otherwise: by explaining how one moves through what one can call the phases of an “argument,” that constitute a solution; by spending time on unpacking the abstractions; and by trying to work against the pervasive “math anxiety” by helping students appreciate the beauty and elegance of “clean” solutions. Faced with the prospect of innumerable students failing the courses, it was the latter route I chose to adopt; one that required far more preparation on my part and taught me the truth of another cliché: that one really grasps and masters material through the process of teaching it.

After many an intellectual detour, I now teach in Women’s Studies. Oddly enough, teaching feminist theory is a lot like teaching math and those early experiences are an indispensable part of my pedagogical vision and practice. My pedagogical vision seeks to make education and learning not (only) about the material on the syllabus, but about a love of learning and inquiry that would motivate students to do “unnecessary” work and by making pleasurable those aspects of learning that are for students often the most intimidating and the most dreaded: rigor, difficulty, hard work. I wish to cultivate in students an eagerness to learn, to enjoy struggling with new and difficult ideas, to prefer the doubt and constant questioning that attends grappling with paradoxes, over and above the certitude that attends resolutions. Thus, I want students to leave my classes both having mastered key elements of the course and haunted by unresolved, nagging questions. I wish to cultivate such an approach to learning not simply for the sake of it; but because I believe the complexities of our world mandate it; and also because I believe such an approach best serves any attempts to transform our world.

Quite surprisingly, I have found that a fairly “traditional” pedagogical practice is the most amenable to achieving this pedagogical vision. Thus, in the classroom, I “teach.” For many, “to teach” implies an undemocratic formation with the teacher positioned as the font of knowledge, “imparting wisdom” to students, who, simultaneously, are positioned as passive observers, “blank slates,” discouraged from voicing their opinions on a matter. Students here are thus conceived as disempowered, where their voices are unimportant. Within feminist pedagogy, this is, in fact, an entrenched view. I am not entirely averse to this view; however, it can sometimes lead to an abdication of responsibility on the part of the teacher in explaining, clarifying, and enabling students to grasp the complex materials they confront. As with my Afghan students to whom I could teach English, though many were, as I noted, far more educated and erudite than me, I recognize that I have something to teach my current students; this, however, does not gainsay their knowledge and fluencies in other areas. Teaching, for me, then, means taking ones responsibilities seriously and recognizing that one does, in fact, have something very valuable to “impart” to students. Such recognitions, however, had evaded me in my first year of teaching at Santa Cruz; by reflecting on my past experiences, I have now been able to complicate the standard practice of feminist pedagogy and thereby make my teaching far more effective. Hence, in my classes, I try not only to challenge my students, but also to give them the intellectual resources with which to meet such challenges. 

Such an approach has proved particularly useful for the kinds of courses I teach at Santa Cruz, courses that derive from my research interests. The broad question that animates my research is the historical production, sedimentation, and naturalization of forms of domination and subordination, or of forms of inequality. My classes pursue this abstract question by giving it concrete shape: Thus, on the one hand, some courses I have designed, such as “Feminist Critical Race Studies” and my version of the core course “Feminist Theories,” focus on the US and have the aim of familiarizing students with the kinds of inequalities that saturate their more localized context: inequalities that operate through complicated networks of race, class, gender, sexuality, and, increasingly, religion. In my classes, we consider the historical lineages of these inequalities, their mutations, and present resonances. And, we seek not only to understand them, but also how we might transform them.

On the other hand, courses I teach on “Gender and Postcoloniality” and on “Feminism and Cultural Production: Non-Metropolitan Film and Feminism” aim, instead, to thoroughly de-familiarize the US context in order, precisely, to localize or particularize it. These courses seek to discourage students from transposing their world onto other worlds, by drawing attention to different histories, different operations of power, and different human concerns. Alternatively put, these classes stress that inequality appears in varying forms, and I wish to have students gain an appreciation for such variety. Indeed, this variety teaches us that domination and subordination are not given, but both produced and sustained through historical processes. And, it is an appreciation of such variety that most vividly illustrates the possibility of transformation.

This is a sketchy and abstract outline of the kind of issues I encourage students to consider; however, I have learned that some of the best teaching we can do is to teach rigorous reading and writing practices, skills that my constituency of students at Santa Cruz often lack. Teaching these skills is therefore a crucial element of all my courses, though I am better able to give it the attention it deserves most systematically in independent studies, advising senior theses, and in my course on “Advanced Feminist Theory.” This course has minimal, if dense, readings and is structured to require students to read and re-read the material, carefully and closely. Though an unconventional syllabus, it is perhaps the most successful course I teach, precisely because it clarifies for students what it means to fully engage in nuanced reading and writing and, thus, in nuanced learning. I am delighted by student responses to this course that, despite having the reputation of being notoriously difficult, is increasingly popular with them. The course best encapsulates my pedagogical vision as cultivating in students a love of difficulty, of rigor, and of the enjoyment -- rather than the dread -- of, as one student put it, “having their heads hurt.”

I cannot thank them enough for wishing to engage in such learning, for keeping me intellectually honest by asking those “simple” questions that demand that I am thoroughly prepared, and for doing me the honor of nominating me for a teaching award.