Dr. jessie beier

Biography

jessie beier (MEd, PhD) is a teacher, artist, researcher, philosopher and conjurer of weird pedagogies for unthought futures. Working at the intersection of art, philosophy and pedagogy, jessie’s research-creation practice aims to mutate and upend dominant visions of educational futurity so as to speculate otherwise on pedagogical possibility in an era of ecocatastrophe.

Bringing educational theory and practice in contact with contemporary conversations within fields such as Anthropocene studies, environmental feminisms, critical disability studies, queer ecological theory, energy humanities and extinction studies, jessie’s research aims to develop what she calls a weird pedagogy, or an experimental (albeit always insufficient) pedagogical anti-model, a speculative programme for the unprogrammable that seeks to actualize, in collective ways, desired pedagogical otherworlds.

As an educator, jessie has taught in a wide range of formal and informal learning contexts—from secondary school classrooms and university courses to art museums and prison libraries—and her scholarly work has been published in journals including Animal Studies Journal, Visual Arts Research, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, and Oraxiom: A Journal of Non-Philosophy. She is the author of Pedagogy at the End of the World: Weird Pedagogies for Unthought Educational Futures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023); co-editor of Sound Research for Troubling Times: Hope in Crisis (with Owen Chapman, Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2024) and Ahuman Pedagogy: Multidisciplinary Perspectives for Education in the Anthropocene (with jan jagodzinski, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022); and an author, designer and illustrator of Energy Emergency Repair Kit (with the E.E.R.K. Collective, Fordham University Press, forthcoming 2024).

As an artist-researcher, jessie has presented her work — through exhibitions, public workshops and conferences/symposia —  both locally and inter/nationally and has been involved in numerous interdisciplinary research-creation projects including Landscape of Hate/Hope (Concordia University), Speculative Energy Futures (University of Alberta), After Oil School (University of Alberta, McGill University), Just Powers (University of Alberta) and the Research-­Creation and Social Justice CoLABoratory (University of Alberta).

jessie’s teaching and research interests include pedagogy, curriculum and educational philosophy; media and communication studies (with a focus on sound and intermedia); environmental feminisms, queer futurity and (xeno)feminist theory; energy (in)humanities; extinction studies and ecological praxis in light of the (so-called) Anthropocene; and the interface of DeleuzoGuattarian philosophy with pedagogy.

ARTE 660/850 (Wi2024): Post-Human Pedagogies in Art Education

What does it mean to think with and through art in an era of global weirding? This graduate seminar explores this question by turning to recent developments in critical post-human theory and practice in order to question the often taken-for-granted definition and status of consciousness, intelligence, and embodied cognition in art education today. Bringing together recent conversations in critical disability studies, black studies, and material feminisms with experimental and artistic developments in speculative realism, affect theory and post-psychoanalytic theory, this graduate seminar course offers a site to explore how art education—and the human thinking it assumes at its centre—might be reoriented given current planetary realities. Inflected by a speculative charge, the course will unfold through a series of conceptual and material experiments where students will grapple with what it might be like to think with and through, for instance: objects; plastic; machines; algorithms; artificial intelligences; the ocean; plants, animals and fungi; alien life; and, not to be forgotten, human beings.

ARTE680/880: Foundations for Inquiry

A seminar course in which students are introduced to the basic concepts, terminology, and contexts of inquiry in art education. Students learn about the practice of systematic inquiry, including: identifying and articulating a topic or question; situating the inquiry within a theoretical framework; relating the inquiry to art education practices; and selecting appropriate inquiry procedures. Each student develops a proposal for a small-scale project related to his/her particular art education interests.

Post-qualitative and post-human methods in art education, pedagogy, research-creation, speculative philosophy, curriculum development, teacher training, arts-based learning, community art education, future studies, cinema, popular culture, media and communication studies, sound studies and sonic practices, video and immersive installation, design and illustration, youth culture, environmental and social justice education, Anthropocene studies, feminist science and technology studies, critical disability studies, queer theory, critical animal studies, post/psychoanalytic theory, extinction studies.

Books

EERK Collective. (Forthcoming; 2024). Energy Emergency Repair Manual (Rebound). Fordham University Press. 

Beier, J. & Chapman, O. (Eds.). (Forthcoming 2024). Sound research in troubling times: Hope in crisis. London/New 

        York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Beier, J. (2023). Pedagogy at the end of the world: Weird pedagogies for unthought educational  futures. London/New 

        York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Beier, J. & jagodzinski, j. (Eds.). (2022). Ahuman pedagogy: Multidisciplinary perspectives for education in the 

        Anthropocene. London/New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Articles & Book Chapters

Beier, J. (Forthcoming 2024). Introduction. In Beier, J. & Chapman, O. (Eds.), ­Weird horizons: Sound research at the 

        sonic brink. In Beier, J. & Chapman, O. (Eds.), Sound research in  troubling times: Hope in crisis. London/New 

        York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Beier, J. & Chapman, O. (Forthcoming 2024). Introduction. In Beier, J. & Chapman, O. (Eds.), Sound research in

        troubling times: Hope in crisis. London/New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Beier, J. (2023). Countering de-extinction, un-fixing the future [Special Issue]. Animal Studies Journal, 12(2).

Beier, J. (2023). De-Extinction. In C. Taylor (Ed.), The Routledge companion to gender and animals. London/New York: 

        Routledge. 

Beier, J. & Wallin, J. (2022). Walking on sunshine. In B. Herzogenrath (Ed.), New perspectives on academic writing: 

        The thing that wouldn’t die. New York: Bloomsbury. 

Culp, A., Beier, J., Osterweil, V., Rosales, J. (2022). “Against” education: A roundtable on anarchy and abolition. In J. 

        Beier & j. jagodzinski (Eds.), Ahuman pedagogy: Multidisciplinary perspectives for education in the 

        Anthropocene. London/New York: Palgrave MacMillan.  

Beier, J. (2022). Ahuman manifestations: When there is no outside (or, a long, good sigh). In J. Beier & j. jagodzinski 

        (Eds.), Ahuman pedagogy: Multidisciplinary perspectives for education in the Anthropocene. London/New York: 

        Palgrave MacMillan. 

Beier, J. (as part of After Oil Collective). (2022). Solarities: Seeking Energy Justice (A. Vemuri & D. Barney, Eds.). 

        Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. 

Beier, J. (2021). Tracing a black hole: Probing cosmic darkness in Anthropocenic times. In J. Bazzul, M.F.G. Wallace, 

        M. Higgins & S. Tolbert (Eds.)., Reimagining science education in the Anthropocene. London/New York: Palgrave 

        MacMillan. 

Loveless, N., Yang, A.S., Bolender, K., Donner, C., Smallwood, S., Olson, L., Beier, J. (2021). Art, ecology, and the 

        politics of form: A panel revisited. In C. Miya, O. Rossier & G. Rockwell (Eds.), Right research: Modelling 

        sustainable research practices in the Anthropocene. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers.

Beier, J. & Wallin, J. (2020). Pedagogy of the negative: Pedagogical heresy for “the end times”. Oraxiom: A Journal of 

        Non-Philosophy, 1. 

Beier, J. (2019). Close Encounters of the pedagogical kind: Science-fictioning a curriculum-to-come. In T. Strong-

        Wilson, C. Ehret, D. Lewkowich & S. Chang-Kredl (Eds.), Provoking curriculum encounters: New engagements 

        with curriculum theory. London: Routledge. 

Beier, J. (2018). Dispatch from the future: Science fictioning (in) the Anthropocene. In j. jagodzinski (Ed), Interrogating 

        the Anthropocene: The future in question. London/New York: Palgrave McMillan.

Beier, J. & Wallin, J.J. (2017). Beyond belief: Visionary cinema, becoming imperceptible and pedagogical resistance. In 

        C. Naughton, G. Biesta, & D.R. Cole (Eds.), Art, artists and pedagogy: Philosophy and the arts in 

        education. London: Routledge. 

Beier, J. & Wallin, J.J. (2017). The disappeared future of arts-based research, Pts. I-VI: Towards a reality-without-

        givenness. In j. jagodzinksi (Ed.), What is art education? Essays after Deleuze and Guattari. London/New York: 

        Palgrave McMillan. 

Beier, J. (2017). The future is cancelled: From Melancholia to belief. In j. jagodzinksi (Ed.), The precarious future of 

        education: Risk and uncertainty in ecology, curriculum, learning, and technology. London/New York: Palgrave

        McMillan.

Beier, J. & Wallin, J.J. (2017). Sound without organs: Inhuman refrains & the speculative potential of a cosmos-without-

        us. In B. Herzogenrath (Ed.), Sonic thinking: A media philosophical approach. New York: Bloomsbury. 

Beier, J. (2014). [Review of the book ‘Surviving economic crises through education’, by D. Cole (Ed.)]. Alberta Journal 

        of Educational Research, 59(4), 693-697.  

Beier, J. (2013). Dis-organ-izing the subject: Thinking with sound. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 9(2), 23-25. 

Beier, J. (2013). Visual literacy and the untimely transmogrification of the problem [Special issue]. Visual Arts Research, 

        39(1), 35-51.