Teaching in focus: Cameron Crookston

Name:

Cameron Crookston

My pronouns:

He/him

Title:

Lecturer

Faculty/Department/Unit:

Creative and Critical Studies, English and Cultural Studies, Cultural Studies

Location:

Okanagan

Year I started working at UBC:

2021

What first motivated you to become an educator?

I think I’ve always been fascinated by the history of media and culture. From an early age I was drawn to old Hollywood films and plays set in earlier periods. When I came out I became fascinated with queer history and I turned to theatre and film to really help me explore that history. When I got to university, I realized that that kind of curiosity could really thrive in an educational setting.

Tell us more about your work.

I research drag and its history as a queer cultural practice. I’ve looked at the history of drag in mainstream media, theatre history and politics. I’m particularly interested in drag’s relationship to nostalgia and queer kinship. Right now, I’m working on a book that examines drag as a form of queer cultural memory.

What inspired your particular approach to teaching?

When I was in theatre school, I studied stage management and dramaturgy but ever year we were required to take a theatre history class. I saw how what we learned in this history classes started to make its way into the creative work and practice of my classmates, and it made me realize how transformative history and academics can be in training and inspiring new generations of artists.

What have you learned while teaching that has surprised you the most?

I think a lot of new teachers live in fear that our students will catch us off guard but when a student surprises you those are the best moments. Some of the most productive changes I’ve made to a course come after I receive an assignment or feedback from a student I wasn’t expecting. Because if a student is questioning the material or finding a new application they’re really thinking critically about the work.

What impact do you hope to have on your students?

I hope I can teach students to think critically about the cultural products they consume. We all have a favourite movie, but do we know why that favourite speaks to us? By reflecting on what we’re drawn to we can learn a lot about ourselves and the world around us. From here we can think intentionally about the work we create and what we want to contribute to the world.

Are there any colleagues or mentors you’d like to acknowledge and why?

So much of the way I work with students comes from my training in dramaturgy from Judith Rudakoff at York University. As a dramaturg, Dr. Rudakoff taught me to walk this incredibly subtle line as a trusted outside eye without imposing your own voice on to someone else’s writing. I try to mirror this approach in my work with my students, encouraging them to develop their own voice as writers and researchers.