Ithaca College

Dr. Ellie Fitts Fulmer (Ithaca College, Education Department) and Dr. Alesha Gayle (University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education) presented a paper at the Ethnography in Education Research Forum at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia last month. Their paper, titled, “LOL? Humor and Racial Literacy in University Classrooms” explores using racial comedy media in college coursework, drawing on a literacy lens for understanding more about this practice. Specifically, Fulmer and Gayle seek to move towards a theory of racial comedy in teacher education, given that this is currently widely practiced in college classrooms absent of a critical framework undergirding it.

Drawing upon Howard Stevenson’s (2014) work on racial literacy, and building on Fulmer’s work with Dr. Nia Michelle Nunn (Ithaca College, Education Department) (Fulmer & Makepeace, 2015), Drs. Fulmer and Gayle articulate a new theory of racial comedy as a tool for working towards teachers' knowledges about discussing race. Stephanie Graziano (’17 Speech Pathology & Audiology and Education Studies Minor) contributed the literature review for an early version of this manuscript.