Dr. Ruth Nicole Brown, Assistant Professor
Contact Information
911 S. Sixth Street
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217-244-5638
Email: rnbrown@illinois.edu
About
Dr. Ruth Nicole Brown is a dynamic writer, researcher, performer, mentor and instructor. She is an assistant professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies and Educational Policy Studies Departments at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. Her research documents, analyzes, and interrogates Black girls’ lived experiences as it intersects with cultural constructions of Black girlhood. More specifically, Dr. Brown’s scholarship interests include cultural politics, girls’ studies, educational practice, theatre and drama, and qualitative methodology. She is developing her second book project, The Black Girl Community Handbook: Creating Accountable Truths, an ethnographic account of the creative processes Black girls rely on to make intelligible the ways power, spirituality, memory, and performativity structure meanings of belonging. As an agent of change, she values the leadership development of her students and as a professor, she is committed to making the “classroom” a transformative public space that relates to and resonates with students' experiences by incorporating their intellect, interests and talents into the course content.
In addition to her commitments as an academic scholar, Dr. Brown also works with university students and community residents to co-organize, Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths (Solhot). Solhot is a “space” dedicated to the celebration of Black girlhood in all of its complexity. As a critical method of civic engagement, Solhot is a creative cutting-edge application of Dr. Brown’s studied and research interventions in Black Girls’ Studies and Hip Hop Feminism.
Through her extensive training in art-based methodologies, Dr. Brown’s research is interdisciplinary. As a writer, she produces plays, performance texts, photo-performance exhibits, books, and journal articles to document the lived experiences of Black girls in the United States and abroad, to resist the wave of conservative trends inherent in current educational policies and to humanize the experiences of disenfranchised people.
Education
- 2005: Ph.D., University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Political Science
- 2000: M.A. University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Political Science & Women’s Studies Certificate
- 1998: B.A., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Political Science, with honors, May 1998
Academic Employment
- 2007- present: University of Illinois, Assistant Professor of Gender and Women's Studies and Educational Policy Studies
- 2006 - 2007: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at Urbana-Champaign, Gender and Women’s Studies Program, Postdoctoral Fellow
- 2005 - 2006: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, African American Studies and Research Program, Postdoctoral Fellow
Selected Publications
- “Persephone’s Triumph: Reflections of A Young Black Woman Becoming A Real Political Scientist.” Qualitative Inquiry. Forthcoming.
- “Remembering Maleesa: Theorizing Black Girl Politics and the Politicizing of Socialization.” National Political Science Review. Forthcoming.
- "Mentoring on the Borderlands: Creating Empowering Connections Between Adolescent Girls and Young Women Volunteers.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge. Forthcoming.
- Feldman, Martha S., Kaj Skoldberg, Ruth Nicole Brown, and Debra Horner. “Making Sense of Stories: A Rhetorical Approach to Narrative Analysis.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol. 14, no. 2, pp.147- 170, 2004.
- “On Community Activism: Talking With Cuban Popular Educator Esther Perez.” The Journal of the International Institute, Vol. 9, no. 3, p.4, 2002.
Works in Progress
- Endangered Girlhood: The Drama and Politics of Growing Up Black, Young, and Female. (Book manuscript).
- “Endangered Black Girls” (play/ethnodrama).
- “Speaking Free and Fully: The Political Significance of Black Girls’ Way With Words” (essay).
- Brown, Ruth Nicole & C.Vanover. “Teaching Love: An Introduction to Teaching the Power of the Word: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in a Chicago Public High School” (performance ethnography).
Courses Taught
- The Poetics and Politics of African American Girlhood
- Women in Politics
- Back Politics
- Introduction to Women's Studies
Links
- Curriculum Vitae
- EPS Web Page