Celebration in Praxis: An Interview with Graduate Teaching Fellow Ju Ly Ban

Posted on by Madeleine Barnes

Ju Ly Ban is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center and teaches composition at Baruch College. Her research moves through Black feminism, queer kinship, and translation. Drawn to poetry and letters, she created JULY PO BOX, an online multilingual project for slow, thoughtful letter exchange. In and beyond the classroom, she seeks ways to bridge the words of fellow researchers, artists, and activists.

Introduction: As part of our Spring 2025 issue of Pedagogy in Praxis, we present a series of conversations with Graduate Teaching Fellows and seasoned faculty, reflecting on the evolving landscape of pedagogy in higher education. These interviews explore diverse approaches to teaching, critical engagement, and the lived experience of navigating the classroom as both scholars and educators. Conducted over Zoom, the discussions have been transcribed and edited for clarity and focus, while preserving the texture and nuance of each speaker’s voice.

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Maddie: I’m so excited to interview you—thank you for being on board. My co-editor, Joe Riccio, and I really want to celebrate our interviewees and highlight how awesome our teachers are.

Ju Ly Ban: I really appreciate it. It’s amazing that you’re celebrating members of the Baruch English Department, and it reminds me of a course I’m teaching this semester. I’m teaching 2150, and I subtitle it, “Celebrate.” My students also had to create interviews and essays for their second big project. So this is perfect. I’m also studying Black queer feminist thought, and after reading Audre Lorde and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, I was just thinking that I really need to celebrate every day more, and I wish this for my students, too. It’s a really important thing to do.

Maddie: I love that theme. That’s beautiful, and I agree completely. Did you teach before your Graduate Teaching Fellowship at Baruch? 

Ju Ly: Yes, I taught in South Korea before coming to Baruch, doing TA and RA work at the university level, and I taught high school and middle school. I worked with students after school, and also I gave public lectures on English Literature. I was more used to that cultural background.

Maddie: Amazing. Have you encountered any surprises while teaching at Baruch?

Ju Ly: Well, besides the ceiling falling down and the heater not working–

[both Maddie and Ju Ly laughing]

Ju Ly: –I’m surprised by how open my students are. They have to write their literacy essays for their first big project, and I was really surprised about how openly they write about their communities, including family histories and personal histories. I felt really moved when I read these pieces, and it reminded me that the classroom is a powerful place where you can sit and write about something you were thinking about a lot, but never had the time or space to language it out.

Maddie: Awesome. You’re reminding me of a bell hooks quote about the classroom as a radical space of possibility. Although we can’t control the overall structure of higher ed, our individual classroom is a place of possibility.

Ju Ly: I read a lot of bell hooks last year! Her work, especially Teaching to Transgress, taught me so much about the importance of laughter and humor in the classroom, especially.

Maddie: Do you draw on specific ideas of bell hooks’ work when you’re teaching at Baruch? And whose work do you like to present to your students early on?

Ju Ly: Yes, definitely. I want to incorporate more works by hooks next semester. This semester, my students worked on their interview essays and I did audio sessions. My students have to listen to an Audre Lorde interview that she did in the 1980s, and I always start with Lorde because she also taught within CUNY. I want my students to engage with her CUNY experience and her New York experience, and then delve into their own projects. Both hooks and Lorde are huge influences.

Maddie: What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced in regards to teaching at Baruch?

Ju Ly: I think managing time and energy can be a challenge when you’re taking classes in addition to teaching. As a GTF, I’m both completing my own assignments and grading my students’ assignments while figuring out how to pay my rent. 

Maddie: I feel that. Do you have any advice for someone in their first semester of teaching in terms of how they can figure out a balance that works?

Ju Ly: The teaching practicum I took at Baruch the summer before the first semester started was really, really helpful. Brooke Schreiber was the director; Brooke is amazing, and she gave me incredibly helpful advice. Even with advice, I was nervous on the first day, but then I went in and began teaching. The first-year teaching blog is really helpful, and my coworkers and Baruch faculty members have been helpful and supportive. My wish is for everyone to be paid more.

Maddie: Agreed. I remember feeling nervous on my first day, too. After that initial first class you’re describing, did you get into a rhythm?

Ju Ly: Thank you for sharing your experience, too. Yes, I got into a rhythm after awhile–on the first day, I felt nervous in part because I’m not the type that people usually picture when they think of someone with authority–I don’t look like Hemingway. I’m not a lovely old man. [Maddie and Ju Ly laughing] A very tall student raised his hand and for some reason I felt intimidated. Then he asked if he could go to the bathroom, and I said yes! I thought, wait, I do have some authority after all! There are a lot of freshmen in my courses and they’re so young, but you still get nervous, because you care.

Maddie: Yes, I think a lot of folks will be able to relate to this. Sometimes I think being nervous, especially in the beginning, is a sign that you’re doing something you care about. Speaking of which, can you tell me about your research interests and whether or not you incorporate them into your teaching? 

Ju Ly: For sure–I’m studying queer feminism and themes of care, survival, and love. These themes are, of course, deeply meaningful to me, and I try to share the wonderful essays and audiobooks I come across in my studies with my students. I learn a lot in my Baruch classrooms because I’ll decide which texts to teach, and my students go beyond my expectations every time, sharing their personal experiences and helping me think differently in specific ways. 

Maddie: That’s so beautiful! How do your students respond to Lorde’s work, and themes of care, survival, and love? It sounds like you’re inviting students to engage with her work with audio clips, and through the lens of their own lives.

Ju Ly: Thank you, yes. I love including audio clips because we can ask questions like, did I hear that correctly? How does this sound? I was surprised because so many students already know of Lorde–but for many students, this is their first time being introduced to her work, which is exciting. I ask them to write a short biography for Lorde after reading her poetry or listening to her interviews without using Wikipedia or any formal biography. So they are using those words, like “survival,” in their biographies. One student wrote a bio for Lorde that said, “Audre Lorde is a woman of voice, grounded in survival, love, and care.” Just listening to my students voice these views in their own words was empowering. Lorde is especially important to me—in “A Litany for Survival,” there are powerful closing lines: “So it is better to speak / remembering / we were never meant to survive.” 

Maddie: Awesome. Now I need to know: what texts are you most excited to teach in the near future?

Ju Ly: I really want to teach more literature classes with a focus on people of color. I would love to teach poetics. Currently, I’m doing archival research on Korean American poet Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, who wrote Dictee, so I’d love to include archival research practices in my teaching. I just passed my qualifying exams this semester, so I’m thinking about all of this in great detail.

Maddie: Congratulations, we have to celebrate this, too! 

Ju Ly: Thank you! The exam helped me think about her work through a Black queer feminist lens because I think it makes sense for the work. Viewing her work through this lens helps her words dance.

Maddie: Wow. Yes. When I hear you talk about what makes words dance, celebration, survival, poetics, and archival work, my first thought is that if you were one of my teachers, I would feel so incredibly lucky. Did you have any teachers who you call upon when you’re teaching?

Ju Ly: I almost always love literature teachers. They have good tea. [Ju Ly and Maddie laughing] And teaching, like learning, literature, is so often about thinking together and problem-solving. A professor who comes to mind, actually, is Kandice Chu.

Maddie: Kandice! Tell me.

Ju Ly: So you know how she has a candy bucket? You don’t? Kandice has a huge bucket of chocolate in the classroom that we can pass around, and I started doing that before my first semester of teaching. I bring some small chocolates or crispy snacks to encourage my students to eat, especially when they’re struggling at 9:55 am. Everyone can have one chocolate. I noticed that my students will come up to me asking for chocolate, and this encounter is very precious, because they want to interact and candy is great small talk material.

Maddie: That’s freaking awesome. Everyone needs treats—for energy, for a mood boost, for talking points. The image of the bucket strikes me as really caring. What do you spend the most time trying to help your students deal with?

Ju Ly: Last semester, I prepared a class about echo chambers and how they work in terms of information circulation. Are we really sharing information, or are we inside of an echo chamber repeating things? We listened to a podcast about this together and then discussed it. They were already so aware of the echo chamber concept and eager to discuss it. They know about this topic, but not how to access it. It feels relevant to the ways we’re all learning and experiencing AI at the same time.

Maddie: How do you approach AI with your students? 

Ju Ly: Every semester, I keep refining my approach in collaboration with my students. For example, before starting the research essay assignment, I created a fake chatGPT essay and made my students grade it. Some students failed it, and some gave it an A, and we discussed why. We were able to dissect what makes sense, versus what is being said or repeated in a fancy way. We ask: is there a thesis? I think the students who give the essay an A at the beginning have the most to learn in my class because they’re oten afraid of writing in English, dealing with limited words, and feeling pressure to use fancy words or pressure to present ideas in a specific way. It’s always great practice to show students concretely how the Chat GPT essay is or is not responding to the original prompt.

Maddie: This seems like a great exercise. Recently, I was reading about how writing instructors miss seeing essays full of errors and the mess that comes with writing through ideas. Which brings me to: If you could communicate one piece of advice to students in the writing courses who are wrestling with the messiness of writing, what would it be?

Ju Ly: I always ask my students to stretch their arms, and to build in moments of self-care, even light stretching. Baruch students really need self-care moments, especially during the first part of the semester. My students have shared that they are working numerous jobs, taking 5-6 classes in one semester, and helping with family responsibilities. They’re going through a lot, and I would say, try to listen to yourself and bring in somatic moments, because we spend a lot of time in our heads, thinking, thinking, thinking. What are we feeling, and where are we? 

Maddie: This! I feel called out. [laughter] It was so wonderful to talk with you–hearing you talk about your approach to teaching—from chocolate to queer poetics to interviews to stretching—is a gift. Thank you.

Ju Ly: I just want to say that sunshine is going over your face right now, and you’re smiling; this is a cool visual experience for me. The interview made my day.

Maddie: Mine too. I think the sun is saying: don’t forget to celebrate, for real.

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Closing reflection: I am deeply moved by Ju Ly’s laughter, and by the way she speaks about her students, teaching, and research with both profound care and intellect. She brings a rich teaching background from Korea and her doctoral studies to Baruch, where she integrates sensory experience, archival practice, and poetics into a distinctive pedagogical approach. She communicates with warmth and curiosity, offering a crucial reminder: we must care for our bodies, especially when so much of our time is spent in the realm of ideas.

What I loved most about this interview was the immediate alignment we felt in our belief that celebration is essential to both life and education; everything flowed naturally from this shared sensibility. Her humor, her deep commitment to Black queer feminist poetics, and her will to celebrate her students’ writing reminded me of every teacher who has left a lasting impact on my life. Her care felt because she is intentional with it. Even the way she noticed the sunlight at the end of our conversation, drawing attention to what made me smile, made me feel seen, and I am confident her students feel that same recognition and presence in her classroom.

Key takeaways: It’s normal to be nervous; shoutout to Brook Schreiber and Kandice Chu; everyone should have a chocolate bucket; try creating an assignment that asks students to write author bios based on listening to interviews without looking at Wikipedia; check out “A Litany for Survival” and think about how we were never meant to survive; stretch; discuss echo chambers; notice what our bodies are trying to tell us.

Find Ju Ly here: