Teaching in focus: J. Logan Smilges

Name:

J. Logan Smilges

My pronouns:

they/them

Title:

Assistant Professor

Faculty/Department/Unit:

Faculty of Arts, English Language and Literatures

Location:

Vancouver

Year I started working at UBC:

2022

What first motivated you to become an educator?

Gratitude has always been the first and primary motivator for me as an educator. I remain in debt to the teachers, mentors, and role models who have held space for me to grow as a student and human. I could not have become the person I am today without the generosity of others, and I hope to extend that same generosity toward my own students as they work toward the best versions of themselves.

Tell us more about your work.

My work triangulates queer/trans disability studies, rhetorical studies, and the history of medicine. I study how sexuality, gender, and disability exist not only as imbricated identities but also as contingent vectors of power and marginalization. Across my writing, I seek to understand and celebrate the ways that queer, trans, and disabled people carve out spaces in their lives to experience joy and pleasure, even as they collectively resist the forces that cause them harm.

What inspired your particular approach to teaching?

As a trans and disabled person, I am deeply committed to trans feminism and disability justice. These core commitments act, in part, as calls to accountability: reminding me that what I do in the classroom must reflect my broader allegiances to the survival and thriving of gender minorities and disability communities. These allegiances inspire course curricula tailored to analyses of power and a dynamic pedagogy rooted in expansive accessibility.

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

I have learned that no two students are going to come away from a course or even a single lesson having learned the exact same information. Each of us processes new information alongside what we already know or believe, so it is guaranteed that my teaching will resonate differently with each student I come across. I used to be intimidated by this fact, but I've come to see it as an opportunity to celebrate difference.

What impact do you hope to have on your students?

I hope that students come away from my courses with a more complex understanding of power and a more robust perspective on their own relationship to that power. In order for any of us to form and maintain meaningful relationships with others, we must first be able to grasp our responsibilities to others, and my courses are intended to help students reflect critically on these collective responsibilities and how each of us might fulfill them.

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

I would like to acknowledge a range of people who have helped me to become the educator I am today. Some of them are far away, like Ruth Osorio, Ada Hubrig, Gavin Johnson, and Hil Malatino, all of whom have modeled for me what an inclusive pedagogy might entail. Others are closer to home, including Kimberly Bain and Danielle Wong, who both helped me to better understand the unique needs of UBC students.

Learn more:

Website: jlsmilges.weebly.com 
Twitter: @jlsmilges