By Emily Sok, Published February 26, 2024
Contact: Aja.Martinez@unt.edu
University of North Texas Bio: https://english.unt.edu/people/aja-martinez-phd
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aja-y-martinez-22882214/
Dr. Aja Martinez is an Associate Professor of English at University of North Texas whose work has emphasized “counterstory as methodology” and critical race theory (CRT), Latina/o and Mexican American studies, as well as Women and Gender studies. She serves as co-editor and co-founder of Writers: Craft & Context, an open access journal that values writing composition, pedagogy, and interdisciplinarity. She is also co-editor of the journal Composition, Literacy, and Culture. She recently became chair of the Coalition for Community Writing.
Her book Counterstory: The Rhetoric and Writing of Critical Race Theory applies CRT and feminist lenses to counterstory genres in ways that show how CRT is a valuable tool that can inform pedagogy, methodology, and practice. Counterstory enables individuals who would otherwise be excluded and marginalized “to intervene in research methods that would form master narratives based on ignorance and on assumptions about minoritized peoples like Chican@s” (“A Plea for CRT“). As Dr. Martinez wrote,
“It has not always been the popular choice to say, ‘I am a critical race theorist,’ but it was never as dangerous a choice as it is today. To be a critical race theorist in this era is to defiantly struggle for literacy rights against legislative bans on our histories, our languages, our bodies, our lives.”
From https://ncte.org/awards/ncte-intellectual-freedom-national/
Take a look at some of Dr. Martinez’s publications, many of which center on counterstory and CRT:
- “The Catharsis for Poison: A Counterstory Retrospective” (2022), in Composition Studies, available here
- “Why Critical Race Theory Matters” (2022), in Ethnic Studies Review, available here
- With Vershawn Young (eds.), Code-meshing as World English: Policy, Pedagogy, and Performance (2011), published by NCTE, available here
The Virginia Community Writing Collaborative 