Kate   Willink

• Associate Professor
• 303 871-4970
• kwillink@du.edu

Background:

BA, Cornell University
MA, University of New Mexico
PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Interests:

Dr. Willink’s work centers on critical intercultural communication with a focus on cultural memory.  In particular, she examines how performances of cultural memory shape contemporary debates over public education.  In Bringing Desegregation Home (Palgrave Macmillan 2009), she address the extent to which the everyday experiences of desegregation are entangled with broad scholarly concerns such as pedagogy, social and cultural capital, the economy, cultural memory, and racism. The book argues for a deeper understanding of how everyday memory performance works as a form of public pedagogy, shaping contemporary understandings of racial inequality and interracial communities, and inspiring or subverting ongoing attempts to bring about social change. Dr. Willink’s publications include articles in Text and Performance Studies, Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, Qualitative Inquiry, and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. The topics of classes she teaches include: The Long Civil Rights Movement; Critical Pedagogy and Culture; Culture and Affect; Education and Social Change; Gender, Culture, and Communication; Between Memory and Imagination; and Food Culture: Foodies, Foragers, and Food Politics.