Maya Gibson
Assistant Teaching Professor of Women's & Gender Studies
385 McReynolds Hall
Email: gibsonmc@missouri.edu
Biography
Dr. Maya C. Gibson believes passionately in the power of education: to set you free, to make you a more vocal member of society, and to generate a more informed citizenry. Her first love is music, and her second is narrative. These two threads intertwine in almost every interdisciplinary thing she teaches in the Honors College. Music and narrative are woven throughout her approaches to teaching and thinking: for example, what are the interconnected stories we tell when we tell the story of music, whether blues, rock, jazz, or classical? How do differences of gender, race, class, and sexuality complicate these stories, enriching the frame? It is this heady blend of music and history, narrative and culture that infuse her classes with energy, whether the class is a Tutorial on Reading Toni Morrison, Black Women in Music, or Diagnosing the Dark, the fourth and final component of the two-year Humanities Sequence. Her home department is in Women’s and Gender Studies in the College of Arts and Science.
Dr. Gibson hails from the suburbs of Washington D.C. where both parents worked for the federal government. It was there that she discovered an enduring love of Washington politics. She ventured to the Midwest to attend Oberlin Conservatory and College in Ohio, where she earned degrees in Vocal Performance, English Literature, and Black Studies. She has advanced degrees in Afro-American Studies and Music History from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her favorite musician is the jazz vocalist Billie Holiday. She loves needlecrafts, including sewing, knitting, and needlepoint but not crochet, which she can’t seem to grasp, although she is still trying.
Regularly Offered Honors Courses
- GN_HON 2011H – Unbound: Reading Without Limits
- GN_HON 2120H – Black Women in Music – From Billie Holiday to Beyoncé