“The Politics of Desire” with Dr. D-L Stewart – The Michigan Daily

University of Michigan community members gathered in the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s Helmut Stern Auditorium Wednesday to hear D-L Stewart, chair of the Higher Education Department in the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver, speak on the politics of desire in higher education. The talk was organized by the U-M Spectrum Center as part of the LGBTQ+ History Month series. During their talk, Stewart discussed the role of desire in higher education, and specifically how the desire of marginalized people has been minimized and denied. 

The talk was cosponsored by the Center for Campus Involvement, Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the School of Education Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education.

Stewart focuses their research and writings on the intersection between the institutions and practices of higher education and diversity, equity and inclusion. He was recognized as a 2022 Senior Scholar Diplomate and received the 2021 Contribution to Knowledge Award from ACPA-College Student Educators International. They were also the 2021 president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. 

Stewart began the lecture by describing how resource scarcity can drive how people interact with each other and the perceived power dynamics between the groups. 

“Politics (is) about the competition for resources which are or are perceived to be scarce,” Stewart said. “Resources that are perceived to be scarce are contested and withheld from some groups by those with the power and influence to strip (them) away.”

Stewart went on to describe his definition of desire, which they said is a scarce resource that often has a visible impact on our society. According to Stewart, the politics of desire refers to the interaction and power dynamics, or “politics,” caused by “desire” for scarce resources. 

To Stewart, desire is an essential driving force of human behavior. 

“I want us together to consider the rootedness of desire as an embodied and affective force that sometimes overtly and sometimes subtly directs our thoughts and behaviors,” Stewart said. “We might consider desire to be a vector — something that has movement and direction to it. Desire to me is a vector: it has direction, it has movement, it takes us somewhere.”  

Educational institutions, in Stewart’s view, often emphasize discipline over desire by encouraging students to follow a set of classroom rules rather than acting on their individual wants. He said for students who are a part of marginalized communities, these rules can feel particularly restrictive.  

“If desire is a resource that is perceived to be scarce and therefore contested and withheld, then Queer and nonbinary folks are told ‘Your desires and too much and we need to remove them from you and withhold them from you,’ ” Stewart said. “Certain children get overpoliced in the classroom, typically Black, brown and Indigenous; poor and working class; and Queer and trans students.”

Tristan Morton, Spectrum Center associate director, helped plan the event and introduced Stewart. Morton highlighted the importance of uplifting scholars from marginalized communities — like Stewart — by drawing attention to their work. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Morton said the Spectrum Center has also been collaborating directly with Stewart and holds his work in high regard. 

“We reached out to Dr. Stewart because our office is doing a year-long scholar in residence with him,” Morton said. “A lot of the work Dr. Stewart does is really aligned with the vision of the Spectrum Center. We always want to be able to uplift amazing scholars in our community.”     

LSA freshman Arthur Pfeifer-Rubey attended the event and spoke highly of Stewart’s speech. They said they found it compelling and inspiring to their own path.

“I thought it was amazing,” Pfeifer-Rubey said. “It’s so important to see people in high positions, like professors, who’ve been doing this work for 23 years. It’s like, I could be like that. I could do that work. As I am, I can exist in these spaces and help others exist in these spaces.” 

Daily News Contributor Nolan Sargent can be reached at nsarge@umich.edu.

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