Document Type
Praxis
Abstract
This article argues that putting the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) in conversation with Queer Composition Pedagogy can support LGBTQIA+ students and their often-fraught positions at Catholic universities. Beginning with my history as a gay Catholic at a Jesuit college, I examine the Jesuit value of cura personalis or “care for the whole person” by asking how queer students at a Catholic college can be wholly cared for in an institution that marginalizes queer people. Locating this conversation in the context of the first-year writing classroom, a contact zone where students come from diverse personal and disciplinary backgrounds, this article links queer composition pedagogy to the five phases of IPP. The assignments and conversations possible in a queer IPP first-year writing classroom provide models for LGBTQIA+ students to view their identities on Catholic campuses as rhetorically situated. Queering IPP embraces contradictory, uncertain, and open-ended conclusions, which leaves more room for students to see the synergistic relationship between themselves and the classroom. Ultimately, this can lead to queer students receiving more support in their evolving identities at Catholic colleges through a lens of new kind of care: queera personalis.
Recommended Citation
Hamill, Jimmy. "Queera Personalis: Theorizing a Queer Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm in First-Year Writing." Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal Vol. 14: No. 1 (2025) . Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/jhe/vol14/iss1/12