Lamar L. Johnson

Lamar Johnson is Associate Professor of Language and Literacy for Linguistic and Racial Diversity in the Department of English at Michigan State University. He is interested in the complex intersections of race, language, literacy, and education and how English language arts (ELA) classrooms can become sites for racial justice.  

His current projects focus on the following questions: (1) How do Black lives matter within ELA classrooms? (2) How are white supremacy and anti-blackness re-inscribed through educators’ disciplinary discourses and pedagogical practices? and, (3) How can Critical Race English Education (CREE) be an analytic framework and methodological tool for literacy teacher educators of Color and teacher educators more broadly? To tackle these questions, Lamar has developed a working theory and pedagogy—CREE.  CREE is a theoretical and pedagogical construct that tackles white supremacy, race, and anti-black racism within English education, ELA classrooms, and beyond. Moreover, CREE centers the Black literacies educators can use to disrupt violence and curricula and pedagogical inequities against Black youth in schools.  

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Johnson, L. L. (2021). Critical race English education: New visions, new possibilities. NCTE/Routledge.   

Johnson, L. L., Boutte, G. S., Greene, G. & Smith, D. (Eds.) (2019). African diaspora literacy the heart of transformation in k-12 schools and teacher education. Lexington Books: Rowman and Littlefield.

Johnson, L. L., Gibbs Grey, T. M., & Baker-Bell, A. (2017). Affirming and confirming our humanity: The importance of storytelling for early career language and literacy scholars of Color. (Themed Issue for Journal of Literacy Research).   

Baker-Bell, A., Butler, T., & Johnson, L. L. (2017). From racial violence to racial justice: Praxis and implications for English teacher education. (Themed Issue for English Education).  

Johnson, L. L., Bryan, N., & Boutte, G. (2019). Show us the love: Revolutionary teaching in (un)critical times. Urban Review, 51(1), 46-64.  

Johnson, L. L. (2018). Where do we go from here?: Toward a critical race English education. Research in the Teaching of English, 53(2), 102-124.  

Johnson, L. L. (2017). The racial hauntings of one Black male professor and the disturbance of the self(ves): Self-actualization and racial storytelling as pedagogical practices. Journal of Literacy Research, 49(4), 1-27.  

COURSES TAUGHT:

ENG140: Literature and Society (Black Intellectual Thought through African American Writers)
ENG308: Literature for Young Adults
ENG408: Sociopsycholinguistic Approaches to Reading in the Disciplines