As an instructor, I have learned it is not a lack of desire for equality that students struggle with, but rather a lack of practice engaging and growing their imaginations beyond what they know and see to creatively approach grand challenges. I also observe a lack of opportunities to engage problem solving across disciplines.

To address these pedagogical challenges, I created the Radical Imagination Lab in the Spring 2021, shaped in the radical Black feminist tradition of communal exploration, self love and acceptance (in the tradition of Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and Sylvia Wynter, to name but a few).

The outcomes for the lab include but are not limited to: being an incubator for interdisciplinary research that includes developing avenues for student-involved research; promoting radical learning practices such as genuine curiosity and unreasonable kindness, communal brainstorming and collaboration, questioning as ritual and creative problem solving and productive play.

Theoretical Framework

The Radical

The “Radical”, inspired by Davis’ conceptualization of “materialized imaginations,” involves envisioning the future we want to create.

The Wonderful

The “Wonderful” reflects Wynter’s provocation, “What does wonder do?” encouraging a deep curiosity and engagement with multiple disciplinary perspectives.

The Marvelous

The “Marvelous” is drawn from Lorde’s “The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance,” focusing on practical details and specific solutions.

RIL Core Tenets

• Fostering genuine curiosity and unreasonable kindness
• Engaging questioning as ritual
• Treating writing as a process for thinking
• Making connections before corrections
• Understanding that failing is not failure