About Laura
Laura K. Porterfield, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Urban Education at Rutgers University-Newark. Her research attends to the intersection(s) of visuality, affect, and social life, particularly for, by and about Black women and girls. Her scholarship focuses on how youth learn about human difference from visual texts and everyday spaces, along with how notions of affect and visuality impact diversity, equity, and inclusion endeavors in K-16 spaces.
Over the past 15 or so years, I’ve been fixated on sight and seeing, its relationship with emotions, and what we learn from the convergence of both seeing and feeling.
Drawing from critical Black sociology, from the pioneering intensive community studies and theoretical contributions of W.E.B. Dubois, to the feminist sociological imaginings of Patricia Hill Collins, and other black studies scholars like Tina Campt, Deborah Willis, bell hooks, and Nicole Fleetwood, I have been working to contribute to the field by bringing together the worlds of education, visual studies, and critical black sociology.
