2025 Featured Speaker: Haeny S. Yoon, Ph.D
Lecture: The Politics of Play: Reimagining Equity and Justice in Early Literacy
April 3, 2025 in Forum, Shults Center
Play is more than frivolous and purposeless - it can be a powerful tool for transformation and social change. As educators, the question to ask ourselves is how vital such play is to our pedagogy and curricular design.
Artists, activists, and educators are amplifying the creative potential of play and inquiry to reimagine the future, expand possibilities, and even spark social and political movements. Young people are very much a part of that process, using literacy in all its multimodal, multimedia, and playful forms to engage in that critical, imaginative work.
This talk highlights play as a serious, intellectual, and cultural practice - yet one that is inequitably distributed across racialized, gendered, classed, and disabled identities.
Use this link to Register for this Free Event: 2025 Annual Lecture
Haeny S. Yoon is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education and the Director of Early Childhood Programs at Teachers College. Her scholarly interests include: children's play and identity; popular cultural and contemporary childhood; young children's writing; critical perspectives on curriculum; teacher as public intellectual.