Elise Quinn

At its broadest, my research is driven by the following questions: how do we all get free?; whose knowledges count?; how does systemic oppression shape space and overdetermine life-chance?; what are our (Black, brown, queer, feminist, working-class) legacies of resistance? My radical political awakening came by way of community organizing in Chicago and Oakland, where I was particularly involved in advocating for decolonized approaches to urban development (affordable rents, just cause evictions, an end to displacement, prison abolition, etc.). Now that I am in graduate school, I plan on building upon my experiences and interests to sharpen my analysis of the ways that race, gender, sexuality, and class structure space. I want to contribute to Black, feminist, and Marxist subfields of critical human geography because they personally speak to my experiences navigating space- but more importantly, I aspire for my research to cultivate publicly engaged scholarship that builds stronger alliances between the academy and social justice activists. 

I am currently devising a Master's thesis under the advising of Dr. Joshua Inwood, where I plan to examine the spatial import of Septima Clark's Citizenship School program in the 1960s Southeastern U.S. The project will centralize themes including literacy within the Black radical tradition, geographies of subaltern schooling, women as the vanguard of the civil rights movement, and notions of Black citizenship/national identity. 

Degrees: Bachelor of Arts, Geography, DePaul University