Education
Ph.D. Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies, The University of Arizona, 1993
Biography
Jules Balén came to CSUCI from The University of Arizona having served as the Associate Director of Women's Studies. During the eight years in this position Balén worked with others to develop strong graduate, undergraduate, and internship/service learning programs including chairing the committee to develop an innovative concentration in Chicana Studies.
Balén served as principle investigator on a faculty/curriculum development grant funded by the Ford Foundation through the Institute for Public Media Arts to produce a year-long, team-taught course that addressed oppressive practices and issues of diversity through a combination of theory, experiential learning, and video production. The course, "Crossing Boundaries: Diversity and Representation," engaged cultural, critical race, and feminist theories with creative writing and video production. At CI, Balén has worked with students in LGBT Studies to bring research on bullying to local community leaders through an annual Anti-Bullying Summit (video link below).
Balén earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies from the University of Arizona with a focus on embodiment and power relations and has published articles on topics ranging from feminist humor to activism and pedagogy. Balén's book on LGBTIQ choral movement, _A Queerly Joyful Noise: Choral Musicking for Social Justice_ (Rutgers, Oct 2017), takes up how choral musicking offers effective counterstorying opportunities that specifically address the cultural damage to the identities of LGBTIQ peoples and how such practices might be amplified to better heal and create social change.
Areas of specialization include twentieth and twenty-first-century world literature, feminist & ethnic studies, post-colonial philosophy, activism and social change, sexuality and gender studies.
Trained in facilitation and mediation processes, Balén combines this practice with the research on engaging differences productively to help students, colleagues, and community groups see differences as a source of vitality. Balén is proud to have served in faculty development capacities for the campus and the region on two of our Hispanic Serving Institution grants: Project ISLAS (Institutionalizing Student Learning, Access and Success) and Project ALAS (Aligning Learning and Academic Success) and to be currently serving as CSUCI's Faculty Development Director with a focus on institutionalizing minority serving practices at every level of faculty development.
Balén consults in the community and nationally with organizations interested in social justice that want to better align their decision-making processes, policies, and practices with their ideals. (See Liberating Group Wisdom link below).
Before and during the process of earning degrees Balén worked as a carpenter, building everything from furniture and cabinets to houses and apartment complexes, and teaching carpentry skills to women and underprivileged teens. But the job Balén loved best--besides teaching--was delivering singing telegrams.
Representative Courses Taught
- ENGL 349 Multicultural Literature
- ENGL 432 Arts of the Harlem Renaissance
- GEND 433 Intro to LGBT Studies
- ENGL 354 Studies in Cultural Literature
- FJS 210 Ethics for a Free World
- PHIL 210 Ethics for a Free World
- FJS 360 Exploring Freedom and Justice
Scholarship
Keywords
twentieth and twenty-first-century world literature, feminist studies, post-colonial philosophy, activism and social change, sexuality and gender studies