Jed Murr

Teaching

I believe classrooms should be critical laboratories of collective and creative engagement with the texts, life experiences, and world-making projects that surround us. I ask my students to read cultural texts—from critical theory to novels to hip hop videos to art installations to university diversity statements—as forms of knowledge production that help to produce and potentially transform our lives and the systems in which we move. My courses utilize interactive and immersive methods to invite students not just to understand but to inhabit and perform particular perspectives and to articulate together the stakes of interdisciplinary inquiry. I've found that this can foster both critical self-reflection and the ability to “read” and communicate effectively about the multiple global forces, histories, and power relations that shape our world.

Core Faculty Member: M.A. in Cultural Studies, American & Ethnic Studies
Affiliate Faculty Member: Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies

Recent Courses

BCULST 593 Black Arts North/West
BIS 490 Black Radicalism in Seattle
BIS 490 Cultural Movements and Social Change
BIS 379 American Ethnic Literatures
BIS 216 Introduction to Cultural Studies
BIS 255 Critical Diversity Studies
BIS 470 Art and Social Change
BISGST 497 International Study Abroad: Americans in Europe (Exile & Belonging)

Research and Public Engagement

My research on US racial formation in a global context, Black political and aesthetic movements, critical and international pedagogy, and the politics of literary,  popular, and visual cultures is situated in the tensions and connections between American Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, Black Studies, cultural studies, and related political and intellectual traditions. As a US Fulbright Scholar award recipient, I will be teaching American Ethnic Literatures in the Department of English at the University of Ljubljana, and at the World of Art, School for Curatorial Practices and Critical Writing, a program of the Center for Contemporary Arts in Ljubljana, where I will lead a seminar on contemporary Black expressive cultures in the US. My other current project, Black Arts Northwest, is a multi-year Digital Humanities and public scholarship collaboration focused on Black aesthetic and political practice in the Pacific Northwest.

Much of my work includes direct collaborations with visual artists, writers, and other cultural workers to create sites of critical translation, study, and performance. In recent years, my writing and collaborations have been exhibited and presented in a range of venues, including the Jack Straw Gallery, The Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University, Seattle's SOIL Gallery, the Seattle Public Library, and KUOW Radio. My work has been supported by a UW Bothell Scholarship, Research, and Creative Practice Seed Grant, two Community-Based Learning and Research Faculty Fellowships, a Collaborative Online International Learning Faculty Fellowship, and by an Early Career Faculty Scholarship for Black Publics in the Humanities at the Humanities Intensive Learning and Teaching (HILT) Institute.