Though focused on questions of grace, Theodorea Regina Berry's book, States of Grace: Counterstories of a Black Woman in the Academy, speaks deeply to another associated construct, dignity. At once theoretically grounded and narratively candid, this auto-ethnographic account documents Dr. Berry's challenges and pathways toward a desire for grace. Like her foremothers Anna Julia Cooper and Angela Y. Davis, Berry utilizes the intersections of her identities and their core as an African American woman to explicate multiple ingresses towards three central layers of grace: spiritual, communal, and the how one's self embodies grace that she calls personal conduct. Berry does so through the lenses of critical race feminisms, a series of reflexive counternarratives that form a memoir. Throughout, Berry doesn't shy away from self-critique or its role in moving towards simultaneously living the race in grace, surviving spirit murder, and dancing with dignity. As a result, States of Grace is a robust, accessible book, equally at home in an undergraduate teacher education course or an advanced graduate theory course. -Walter S. Gershon, Associate Professor in the School of Teaching, Learning & Curriculum Studies, Kent State University
Dr. Theodorea Regina Berry's new book, States of Grace: Counterstories of a Black Woman in the Academy, is the latest in a series of important works that continually force us to reckon with the interconnectedness of race and gender through the framework of critical race feminism. This book, which continues an important tradition of reflexive and transformational scholarship by critical Black women education scholars, draws on auto-ethnographic methods to reflect on the importance of engaged pedagogical practices that call attention to race and gender inequalities while warmly demanding and calling for a liberatory form of teaching and learning in the academy. This is an important book. -Marvin Lynn, Dean, Graduate School of Education, Portland State University
