Jeanine Staples

OFFICIAL BIO

Jeanine Staples is a Professor of Literacy and Language, African American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Her debut book, The Revelations of Asher: Towards Supreme Love in Self, explores Black women’s terror in love. As a precedent to the book, she introduced the concept of “figurative deaths” in her acclaimed 2014 TEDx talk. It is entitled, “How to Die Peacefully.” Dr. Staples has dozens of publications and has spoken globally about how new literacies education can support personal and public justice work. She has trained over 3500 teachers of underrepresented minority students in cutting edge, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-ableist methods of instruction and assessment. She is an expert in research on marginalized women and girls, particularly with regard to understanding lover identity, developing emotional literacy, and promoting emotional justice for social justice.

WHERE SHE SPEAKS...

WHERE SHE SPEAKS

APPROVED PHOTOS

PROFESSIONAL BIO

Jeanine Staples is Associate Professor of Literacy and Language, African American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. She focuses on dismantling supremacist patriarchies through research, teaching, and coaching. As a sociocultural literacist, Dr. Staples works to understand personal and public voices and stories to solve personal and public problems.She does this by researching the evolutionary nature and function of literacies and texts through the discourses of narrative research. Her work exposes impetuses for various personal and social ills such as racism, sexism, and ableism. Dr.Staples earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature and Urban Education from Howard University, a Master’s degree in Teaching and Curriculum from Harvard University and her Doctorate in Literacy and Language, with distinction, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her research has been peer-reviewed and published internationally. In addition, her teaching has been nationally acclaimed. She is a sought after scholar, educator and coach and has received numerous awards and honors for her talents and professional contributions to the field of literacy studies. These include, but are not limited to, The Ralph C. Preston Award for Scholarship in Teaching and Literacy Research in the Service of Social Justice – The University of Pennsylvania (2005), The National Council of Teachers of English Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award (2008), The Global Awareness in Teacher Education Award – University of Maryland College Park (2008), and Research Fellow for the Stanford Center on Adolescence (2008). Most recently, Dr.Staples was named a board member for the Africana Research Center at Penn State (2013) and a Fellow for the Social Science Research Institute/Children, Youth and Family Consortium (SSRI/CYFC) (2014). She was also named a Senior Fellow at Columbia University School of Law’s Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies and Senior Visiting Scholar at the University of Rhode Island’s Harrington School of Communications.

BOOKS

THE REVELATIONS OF ASHER

The Revelations of Asher: Toward Supreme Love in Self is an endarkened, feminist, new literacies event. It critically and creatively explores Black women’s t/Terror in love. With poetry, prose and analytic memos, Dr. Staples shows how a group of ten [10] Black women’s talk and writings about relationships revealed revelations, after 9/11. These revelations are voiced and storied dynamically by the women’s seven [7] fragmented selves. Through the selves, we learn the five [5] ways the women lived as lovers: Main Chick, Side Chick, Bonnie, Bitch, and Victim. As an alternative-response to these toxic identities in love, Dr. Staples presents a new way. She introduces the Supreme Lover Identity and illuminates its integral connection to social and emotional justice for and through Black women’s wisdom.