This autoethnography explores our experiences teaching an undergraduate autoethnography course entitled, ‘Writing Lives’. We, Keith and Nathan, Professor and Doctoral candidate, convey narrative scenes and reflections of sharing and analysing our published stories with students, working with students through the process of writing their personal stories, and transformative moments during the course. We emphasise a vulnerable, reflexive, and empathetic approach to teaching and learning that allows students and teachers to uncover aspects of who they are and hope to be in the classroom. This work advocates a number of unique benefits to autoethnographic practices that foster open and intimate bonds.
The American Dental Dream-the cultural desire for straight, white teeth-is difficult, if not impossible, for poor and working-class people to achieve. Using ethnographic fiction, autoethnography, poetry, and qualitative interviewing, I brush away the taken-for-granted assumptions about teeth. I explore the personal, relational, and structural consequences of this cultural desire, and show how social class writes itself on our bodies. I write these culture-centered teeth tales to show how one might cope with their teeth.
Bodyweight—the number on the scale—has been constructed as an objective measure of health, and weight loss as synonymous with healthier. Weight has been used as a way of classifying and controlling people, ignoring the embodied, relational, and cultural meanings attached to health and weight. Instead, these subjective experiences are lumped into a numerical category. Our society's obsession with weight is weighing us down and most of us should toss out our scales. Scale stories offer a departure from canonical narratives about physical health and body image by emphasizing emotions and lived experiences instead of bodyweight and numerical categories.
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