Crystal J. Zanders
Dissertation
Unseen: Black Autistic Women's Masking Practices, Pressures, and Possibilities
In progress
Black autistic women often go unevaluated, undiagnosed, unsupported, and ignored by the medical-industrial complex, autism researchers, and society at large. Without the support and acknowledgment of their disability, many Black autistic women often have to mask or hide their autistic traits. For Black autistic women, failure to mask may come with serious consequences; in some instances folks have been killed. However, masking is associated with increased anxiety and depression, which could also lead to suicide. How do Black autistic women survive this labyrinth of racism, sexism, ableism, and societal expectations?
In this qualitative case study, I will complicate the traditional narratives about autism and about Black women by investigating the embodied phenomenon of masking for Black autistic women, examining the messages that Black autistic women receive about disclosure and masking, and exploring the ways in which societal race and gender expectations affect disclosure and masking practices.
Publications
December 2022
Co-Writers: Anne Ruggles Gere, Anne Curzan,J. W. Hammond, Sarah Hughes, Andrew Moos, Kendon Smith, Kathryn Van Zanen, Kelly L. Wheeler, and Crystal Zanders
We continue the conversation around communal justicing (see below) by responding to Shawna Shapiro's "A Kariotic Moment for CLA."
October 2021
Co-Writers: Jathan Day, J., Sara Hughes, Crystal Zanders, Kathryn Van Zanen, and Andrew Moos
Five graduate students reflect on their experiences in multiple roles to address the question, What does a good teacher do now?—during a pandemic, in a moment of reckoning with white supremacy, in the face of uncounted griefs and challenges. We contend that good teachers craft communities of care for students, colleagues, and themselves. We advance trauma, accessibility, surveillance, and labor as particular sites for that project.
February 2021
Co-Writers: Anne Ruggles Gere, Anne Curzan, J. W. Hammond, Sarah Hughes, Ruth Li, Andrew Moos, Kendon Smith, Kathryn Van Zanen, Kelly L. Wheeler, and Crystal J. Zanders
Critical language awareness offers one approach to communal justicing, an iterative and collective process that can address inequities in the disciplinary infrastructure of Writing Studies. We demonstrate justicing in the field’s pasts, policies, and publications; offer a model of communal revision; and invite readers to become agents of communal justicing.
June, 2019
Co-Writers: Crystal J. Zanders and Emily Wilson
This review of the University of Utah’s Writing Placement exam evaluates the possibilities of the exam’s construct, addresses the tool's limitations, and analyzes it in light of similar placement tools. The review concludes that although there are challenges specifically related to the scalability, security, and language ideology of the exam, its holistic nature, local assessors, and process-oriented view of writing ensure its effectiveness as a writing placement test.