Book Club
Read a teaching-focused book with the CTL. Book clubs typically meet weekly and discuss the text as well as ways we can apply this understanding in our own classrooms and lives. Book clubs are open to anyone interested, including faculty, teaching professors, lecturers, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and staff.
Spring 2025
Join our Professional Development Lead Preston Cumming for the Spring 2025 Book Club to read and discuss ’ influential book, . This transformative work challenges educators to create classrooms that foster liberation, inclusion, and empowerment. Together, we’ll explore hooks’ vision of engaged pedagogy and discuss how to bring these principles into our own teaching practices and university experiences.
The group will meet weekly on Wednesdays from January 29 to March 5, 10:00–11:00 p.m. Mountain Time. The Book Club will be hosted remotely via Zoom.
Purchase/borrow the book from the , your local bookstore, search your institution’s library, or . If you would like to attend and cannot afford the text, please reach out to Preston.Cumming@colorado.EDU for assistance.
Participants can receive credit toward the CTL's graduate and postdoctoral scholar teaching certificates or micro-credentials. Please contact Preston.Cumming@colorado.EDU for more details.
°µÍø½ûÇø the Book
In Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks reimagines education as a practice of freedom and empowerment. Drawing from her own experiences as a student and teacher, hooks advocates for engaged pedagogy—a collaborative, inclusive approach that challenges traditional hierarchies and fosters critical thinking.
Blending personal narrative and theory, hooks explores how education can be a tool for liberation, addressing themes of equity, inclusion, and the intersections of race, gender, and class. She critiques passive, hierarchical teaching methods, instead championing classrooms as dynamic spaces for transformation and mutual growth.
This groundbreaking work continues to inspire educators committed to creating inclusive, empowering, and socially just learning environments.