Professor Uses Own Paintings and Text to Expose Anti-Immigrant Discourse
February 2013
Christian Faltis, the Dolly and David Fiddyment Chair in Teacher Education and director of the UC Davis School of Education’s Teacher Education program, who is also an accomplished painter, wrote “Art and Text as Living Inquiry into Anti-Immigrant Discourse” for a special September 2012 edition of the International Journal of Multicultural Education.
In it, he examines the connections between art and text regarding the (mis) treatment of Mexican immigrants, particularly in schools. The paper discusses the harsh realities of anti-immigrant discourse through a series of his oil paintings created to depict selected issues of Mexican immigrant experiences that are also written about in text. He argues that art expands the imagination of written text to provoke meanings that are interconnected to textual representation and, at the same time, creates openings for the unfolding of visceral sensations and critical meaning. Download the paper here.
