Allison Bumsted is a faculty member in the Humanities department at Austin Community College. In addition to teaching multiple sections of the Introduction to Humanities course to dual credit students each semester, Allison is an active working scholar in her own right.
As you’ll hear in this conversation, she began her own academic career as a student at ACC, ultimately following her curiosity all the way to Doctoral degree, and most recently to her first book published through the University Press of Mississipi. The book is entitled “TeenSet, Teen Fan Magazines, and Rock Journalism”, and exemplifies a core commitment of Allison’s work as a teacher and scholar. Namely, she invites us to take seriously what people value, regardless of whether the objects of value in question adhere to traditional conventions of ‘high culture’.
During this interview you’ll hear her say that she wants her students to share a communal joy in learning, and this, of course, is what a thriving learning community is all about. It’s my pleasure to share this conversation with Allison Bumsted—let’s dive in.
