Greyzone Pedagogies —
Doing the Work: Selected Syllabi
Introduction by Yaniya Lee
“Wynter is offering a way to read radically…. to read differently (from a third perspective, from the perspective of struggle, from demonic ground) and observe how our present system of knowledge, a biocentric system of knowledge upheld by capitalist financing, is a self-referential system that profits from recursive normalization; and, second, to read and notice the conditions through which self-replicating knowledge systems are breached and liberation is made possible. ”
Katherine McKittrick
The discipline of art history is a form knowledge production. In order to change the colonial hierarchy embedded in its structure, we have to breach how art history is taught and how it is practiced. Luckily, the methods for such changes already exist. For instance during the pandemic, reading lists, resources and other shared collaborative and collective knowledge, like hashtags and recorded talks, circulated online in abundance. The informal knowledge sharing challenged the institutions that hold exclusive domain over pedagogies, and certain self-replicating knowledge systems. The velocity of the sharing was accentuated because of our isolation and the new technologies at our disposal.
This type of knowledge sharing is not new. In marginalized communities informal knowledge sharing, what some now call mutual aid, has been a matter of survival. One significant text in this diffraction is the black feminist book, But Some of Us Are Brave Black Womens Studies, edited by Gloria T. Hull and published in 1982. In this book is a section called “BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAYS,” which mirrors the online circulating reading lists in an analog, ink and paper kind of way. Also in this book is a section called “DOING THE WORK: SELECTED COURSE SYLLABI,” which I used as a model to organize this component of my portfolio.
Greyzone Pedagogies (greyzonepedagogies.ca) is a website that shares a selection of the workshops and courses I organized and taught while I was working towards the completion of this degree. (I have included some of my other activities on the right column of this page) Many of the workshops used different online applications and platforms. In some instances this was because of the constraints of the pandemic, but also there were an increasing number of new, interesting and innovative ways to gather, present and share information. Sites like, Are.na, Zoom, and Milanote helped me and my collaborators foster environments were we could talk and learn and share at our own respective paces.
I call this website ‘greyzone’ after the concept used by critic Thomas Waugh in his analysis of the film work of queer, anticolonial filmmaker John Greyson in the chapter “Notes on Greyzone,” featured in the 2013 book The perils of pedagogy : the works of John Greyson. In it, Waugh talks about pedagogical strategies for teaching queer cinema. He outlines the ethical responsability of facilitators, and emphasizes critical reading and critical engagement, an embrace of ambiguity, and intersectionality. All these things, I felt, fit into a black sense of aesthetics as applied to pedagogy. (In my Phd introduction “Black Sense of Aesthetics as Method-Making,” I describe this concept as an analytical frame, an interdisciplinary, anti-colonial approach that, when applied to art history, can affirm black life and relational thinking.)
Though all the courses and workshops I organized and facilitated from 2020-2025 have been aligned with my research interests—black studies, contemporary art, critical analysis, abolition, art criticism, art writing and art history— I choose on greyzonepedagogies.com only to highlight a few of my favourites, in which a black sense of aesthetics is visible in the syllabi and pedagogy. On the website, the syllabi for these courses and workshops are presented with their prerecorded videos, assigned readings, prompts, and key themes and questions.
Applied to pedagogy, a black sense of aesthetics requires methods to be reshaped. Pedagogy from a black sense of aesthetics enacts Wynter’s decipherment and McKittrick’s black livingness. It is a relational process by which teachers learn from participants, and participants learn from each other, and together we develop the ability to recognized truth outside the boundaries of a traditional canon.
These workshops and courses show how the concept of a black sense of aesthetics can move through different pedagogical strategies. Their syllabi offer new methods that can be applied to how (black) Canadian art history is taught. They value what Avery Gordon calls “subjugated knowledge” and approach black creative practices as theoretical texts. They demonstrates ways to challenge classroom dynamics and offer new ways of recognizing and making knowledge, in this way making space for relational (not hierarchical) knowledge production.
Doing the Work: Selected Syllabi
Introduction by Yaniya Lee
“Wynter is offering a way to read radically…. to read differently (from a third perspective, from the perspective of struggle, from demonic ground) and observe how our present system of knowledge, a biocentric system of knowledge upheld by capitalist financing, is a self-referential system that profits from recursive normalization; and, second, to read and notice the conditions through which self-replicating knowledge systems are breached and liberation is made possible. ”
Katherine McKittrick
The discipline of art history is a form knowledge production. In order to change the colonial hierarchy embedded in its structure, we have to breach how art history is taught and how it is practiced. Luckily, the methods for such changes already exist. For instance during the pandemic, reading lists, resources and other shared collaborative and collective knowledge, like hashtags and recorded talks, circulated online in abundance. The informal knowledge sharing challenged the institutions that hold exclusive domain over pedagogies, and certain self-replicating knowledge systems. The velocity of the sharing was accentuated because of our isolation and the new technologies at our disposal.
This type of knowledge sharing is not new. In marginalized communities informal knowledge sharing, what some now call mutual aid, has been a matter of survival. One significant text in this diffraction is the black feminist book, But Some of Us Are Brave Black Womens Studies, edited by Gloria T. Hull and published in 1982. In this book is a section called “BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAYS,” which mirrors the online circulating reading lists in an analog, ink and paper kind of way. Also in this book is a section called “DOING THE WORK: SELECTED COURSE SYLLABI,” which I used as a model to organize this component of my portfolio.
Greyzone Pedagogies (greyzonepedagogies.ca) is a website that shares a selection of the workshops and courses I organized and taught while I was working towards the completion of this degree. (I have included some of my other activities on the right column of this page) Many of the workshops used different online applications and platforms. In some instances this was because of the constraints of the pandemic, but also there were an increasing number of new, interesting and innovative ways to gather, present and share information. Sites like, Are.na, Zoom, and Milanote helped me and my collaborators foster environments were we could talk and learn and share at our own respective paces.
I call this website ‘greyzone’ after the concept used by critic Thomas Waugh in his analysis of the film work of queer, anticolonial filmmaker John Greyson in the chapter “Notes on Greyzone,” featured in the 2013 book The perils of pedagogy : the works of John Greyson. In it, Waugh talks about pedagogical strategies for teaching queer cinema. He outlines the ethical responsability of facilitators, and emphasizes critical reading and critical engagement, an embrace of ambiguity, and intersectionality. All these things, I felt, fit into a black sense of aesthetics as applied to pedagogy. (In my Phd introduction “Black Sense of Aesthetics as Method-Making,” I describe this concept as an analytical frame, an interdisciplinary, anti-colonial approach that, when applied to art history, can affirm black life and relational thinking.)
Though all the courses and workshops I organized and facilitated from 2020-2025 have been aligned with my research interests—black studies, contemporary art, critical analysis, abolition, art criticism, art writing and art history— I choose on greyzonepedagogies.com only to highlight a few of my favourites, in which a black sense of aesthetics is visible in the syllabi and pedagogy. On the website, the syllabi for these courses and workshops are presented with their prerecorded videos, assigned readings, prompts, and key themes and questions.
Applied to pedagogy, a black sense of aesthetics requires methods to be reshaped. Pedagogy from a black sense of aesthetics enacts Wynter’s decipherment and McKittrick’s black livingness. It is a relational process by which teachers learn from participants, and participants learn from each other, and together we develop the ability to recognized truth outside the boundaries of a traditional canon.
These workshops and courses show how the concept of a black sense of aesthetics can move through different pedagogical strategies. Their syllabi offer new methods that can be applied to how (black) Canadian art history is taught. They value what Avery Gordon calls “subjugated knowledge” and approach black creative practices as theoretical texts. They demonstrates ways to challenge classroom dynamics and offer new ways of recognizing and making knowledge, in this way making space for relational (not hierarchical) knowledge production.
Chroma
Canadian Art magazine special issue
Guest Editors Yaniya Lee and Denise Ryner
a survey of the aesthetic practices and legacies of black art production in Canada and beyond
2020
Link
Canadian Art magazine special issue
Guest Editors Yaniya Lee and Denise Ryner
a survey of the aesthetic practices and legacies of black art production in Canada and beyond
2020
Link
Black History Navigational Toolkit
Yaniya Lee and Camille Turner
a deck of cards about Toronto’s black history, made for the Toronto Biennial of Art
2022
Link
Link to cards
From her world
Yaniya Lee featuring Grace Channer and Dzian
an audio essay on black girlhood, made in response to the Blackwood gallery exhibition “There are no parts,” curated by Letticia Cosbert Miller
2022
Link
This is not a small love: a writer’s roundtable
writing workshop by Yaniya Lee as a part of
The Momus Emerging Critics Residency led by Jessica Lynne
2022
Link
The Scream and the Whisper
Yaniya Lee featuring Aisha Sasha John and Fan Wu
an audio essay about language and power
made for Like A Feaver‘s “The Stakes of Naming” issue at Asia Art Archive
2023
Link
Yaniya Lee featuring Aisha Sasha John and Fan Wu
an audio essay about language and power
made for Like A Feaver‘s “The Stakes of Naming” issue at Asia Art Archive
2023
Link
WhAt She SAid:
Promiscuous References & Disobedient Care
Yaniya Lee with Cason Sharpe and Zoe Sharpe
workshop organized for the Contingencies of Care Residency at OCAD University
2021
Link to Milanote
Song. Prayer. Scream. A praxis of looking
Yaniya Lee and Jessica Lynne
six-week seminar designed for Cassandra Press & Women's Center for Creative Work
2021
Link to Are.na
Ideas From Moving Water
Yaniya Lee featuring Lillian O'Brien Davis, Letticia Cosbert Miller, and Tiana Reid
The Wattis Institute
Lorraine O'Grady research season
2022
Art Criticism After Black Studies
designed and taught by Yaniya Lee
BLCK 480 Seminar: Special Topics in Black Studies
Gender Studies Department, Queens Universityundergraduate seminar
Fall, 2023
designed and taught by Yaniya Lee
BLCK 480 Seminar: Special Topics in Black Studies
Gender Studies Department, Queens Universityundergraduate seminar
Fall, 2023