Joel Saxe

My research interests include critical pedagogy, media literacy, contemporary and historical movements for social justice, the cyber-commons and links between grassroots and online activism, blogging and YouTube as classroom curricular outcomes, youth and the entertainment industries, Indy media, and the ethnography of Yiddish culture and Jewish radicalism. Through artist-educator media literacy residencies, I’ve worked with students and teachers in DYS youth detention facilities and local middle and high schools.

Courses Taught: 

Youth, Democracy, and the Entertainment Industries, YouTube as a Site of Resistance? (Honors Reading Seminar), Oral History and Popular Culture, Introduction to Filmmaking, Video Arts I & II

Publications: 

• "Revealing Our Roots: Stories of our Progressive Jewish Inheritance." (March 2006), curator and lead artist of a group exhibition at the Forbes
• Remembering the Flamingo Park Meeting (2005), a community installation & dialogue, Smith College Chapel, Northampton, MA; Tamiment Labor Archives, New YorkUniversity; Dept. of Jewish Studies, Florida Atlantic University.
• Washington Avenue, part 1(2002). Black Maria Film Festival, 2003, Tambay Film Festival, 2003.
• Stages of Life(the video): An Intergenerational Theatre Project about Quabbin Reservoir(1997). Producer, videographer, editor. Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs.
• Dance on the Wind(1993). Interview camera, dance videographer. Profiles Eno Washington and African-American and West African dance. Winner, New England Film Festival, 1993. Special Merit.
• Yiddish Folksingers on Miami Beach(1991). Recipient, Folk Arts Grant, Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Second Place, National Jewish Video Competition, 1994. Screenings: Museum of Modern Art (New York) 1992, American Folklore Association 1992, Dallas Video Festival, 1992, University/Film Video Association 1992 Conference, Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, Tel Aviv, 1993, Festival of New Jewish Film, Great Lakes Film, 1994, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, 1994, Klezcamp, 1994, Pacific Film Archive, 1998, NOGA Culture & Science Cable TV(Israel), 1998, New Museum of Contemporary Art(New York), 1999.

Grants: 

Selected by Unlocking-the-Light, a federally-funded grant, to do artist-educator residencies, teaching media literacy and developing curriculum for youth and teachers at DYS Youth Detention Facitlites in Massachusetts, 2007-2009

Work in progress 

Chapter “How ‘Critical’ Can Art Pedagogy Be?” in Standing up, for a Change: Voices of arts educators; publisher: National Arts Education Association.

Documentary: “The New Time,” an oral history of Willie Surenko, a Jewish Communist.

Ongoing radio producer: Bread & Roses weekly program exploring issues of social justice and creating a fair economy on Valley Free Radio, WXOJ, 103.3FM.