Michigan State University

Arts and Letters College Directory

Kristian Stewart

  • (She/Her)
  • Assistant Professor
  • English
Biography

Dr. Kristian D. Stewart is an Assistant Professor of English Education at Michigan State University. Her research and teaching centers on writing pedagogy, critical literacy, and glocal approaches to language education, with particular attention to Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), transnational partnerships, and ethical digital storytelling.

Dr. Stewart’s scholarship examines how literacy practices function as sites of exposure, empathy, and civic engagement across local and global contexts. Her ongoing work connects teacher preparation, global citizenship, and justice-oriented literacy education. At MSU, she integrates multimodal composition and international collaboration into her undergraduate and teacher-education courses. Dr. Stewart has published on glocal literacy, transnational curricular activism, and community-engaged digital writing. She has also won campus-wide awards (at UM Dearborn) in the areas of teaching, research, and community engagement.

A former Fulbright Scholar to Greece (2023) and Fulbright Specialist to Indonesia (2024), Dr. Stewart has also served as a U.S. Department of State English Language Specialist in Peru (2025). A highlight of her Fulbright work in Greece was being asked to deliver a plenary address at Jefferson House, the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Greece in Athens.

Currently, Dr. Stewart is engaged in two externally focused research initiatives. The first is Digital StoryXchange: Connecting Lives, Cultures, and Classrooms, a grant she authored and serves as principal investigator, awarded and funded by the Digital Anti-Racist Research Institute at the University of Michigan. This project connects university students and community partners in the United States, South Africa, Greece, and Kenya through ethical digital storytelling and glocal literacy practices.

Dr. Stewart is also a co-investigator on the VR Youth Literacy Project, a grant-supported initiative that explores how immersive virtual reality storytelling can support youth literacy, identity development, and community-engaged learning across the state of Michigan. This project examines VR as a multimodal literacy tool that centers student voice while expanding access to creative and future-oriented literacy practices.

Works

SCHOLARLY WORK (Selected). 

  • Stewart, K., & Khan-Ticha, I. [accepted]. Cultivating global citizenship through a collaborative, UN Sustainable   Development Goals project in the United States and South Africa. African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies (AJIMS). Special Issue: Productive Disruption: Transformational Learning and Teaching for Sustainable Development in Higher Education.
  • Stewart, K., Ivala, E., & Livingston, C. [accepted]. The storyXchange displacement project: Integrating indigenous traditions, multilingual expression, and digital literacy innovation in higher education. African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies (AJIMS). Special Issue: Productive Disruption: Transformational Learning and Teaching for Sustainable Development in Higher Education.
  • Stewart, K., & Ρόντου, M. [Preparing for submission]. Toward a glocal literacy: Utilizing Padlet for collaborative online international learning projects (COIL) in the United States and Greece.
  • Stewart, K., & Motala, S. (2023). You map our world; We write yours. In P. Shangase, D. Gachago, & E. Ivala (Eds.), Co- teaching/Co-research in contexts on inequality: Using networked learning to connect Africa and the world (pp.51-66). Routledge.
  • Stewart, K., & Burke, C. (2022). ‘Can we call this racism?’ YES! Disrupting White educational spaces and affirming students’ positive ‘possible selves.’  Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 6(2), 71-89. https://www.journal.jultr.online/article/33760
  • Stewart, K., Burke, C., & Askari, E. (2022). Change day: How a high school environmental justice class inspired student agency and prompted civic action. Race Ethnicity and Education. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13613324.2022.2069744
  • Motala, S., & Stewart, K.D. (2021). Hauntings across the divide: Transdisciplinary activism, dualisms, and the ghosts of racism in engineering and humanities education. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education (CJSMTE), 7(2), 1-17. Special Issue: Anti-Black Racism and Coloniality in Science/STEM Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42330-021-00153-7
  • Stewart, K., & Gachago, D. (2020). Step into the discomfort: (Re)orienting the White gaze and strategies to disrupt Whiteness in educational spaces. Whiteness and Education, 7(1), 18-31. doi: 10.1080/23793406.2020.1803760
  • Gachago, D., & Stewart, K. (2020). Response-able digital storytelling to reimagine higher education classroom practices. In V. Bozalek, M. Zembylas, & J. Tronto (Eds.), Posthuman and care ethics for re-imagining higher education pedagogies (pp. 123-136). Routledge.
  • Stewart, K. (2019). Restorying South Africa: A digital storytelling praxis for preparing historically conscious teachers. In K. Llewellyn & N. Ng-A-Fook (Eds.), Storying historical consciousness in times of reconciliation: Oral history, public education, and cultures of redress (pp. 168-182). UBC Press. Awarded 2021 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award. Awarded 2021 Publication Award for Edited Book from the Canadian Association of Foundations of Education (CAFE).
  • Stewart, K., & Ivala, E. (2019). They don’t leave any room for humanity; Yet they expect you to be humane. Cape Town teachers respond to the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS). In E. Ivala & C. Scott (Eds.), Faculty perspectives on vocational training in South Africa: Lessons and innovations from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (Chapter 5). Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.
  • Stewart, K. (2017). Classrooms as ‘safe houses?’: The ethical and affective implications of digital storytelling in a university writing classroom. Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CriSTaL), 5(1), 85-102. doi: https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v5i1.102
  • Stewart, K., & Ivala, E. (2017). Silence, voice, and “other” languages: Digital storytelling as a site of resistance and restoration. British Journal of Educational Technology, 48(5), 1164-1175. doi:10.1111/bjet.12540
  • Stewart, K., & Gachago, D. (2016). Being human today: A digital storytelling pedagogy for transcontinental border crossing. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(3), 528-542. doi: 10.111/bjet.12450

KEYNOTES AND PLENARY ADDRESSES

Forthcoming 2026: Transformative Pedagogies in a Time of Polycrisis: International Digital Learning and Literacy Projects as Global Sites of Resistance [Keynote]. 6th Political Science and International Relations (PSIR) Conference. University of the Peloponnese, Kiato, Greece.

(2024). Digital Literacy Projects to Teach English Academic Writing Skills. [Plenary Address]. Workshop Nasional Forum Ilmiah Layanan Bahasa Tahun (FILBA) National Conference, Medan, Indonesia. This presentation won the VanSant-Spoiden Research Award  [Presentation category], Department of Language, Culture, and the Arts, University of Michigan-Dearborn.

(2023). We Don’t Walk the World Alone: Developing a Humanizing and Spatial Gaze for Cultural Understanding. [Plenary Address]. Fulbright Annual Reception, Jefferson House, Residence of the United States Ambassador to Greece, Athens, Greece.See “Educational Exchange, Fostering Global Understanding and Empowering Future Citizen Ambassadors.” Article: https://www.facebook.com/USEmbassyAthens/videos/654544282671081

Video: https://www.fulbright.gr/en/?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1691:educational-exchange-fostering-global-understanding-and-empowering-future-citizen-ambassadors&Itemid=763

English Language Specialist, United States Department of State, Peru, 2025

(2024). Selected by U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy in Peru to lead the project, “Developing Academic Writing Skills for Research Publications” at Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana in Iquitos, Peru, 2025.

Fulbright Specialist, Indonesia, 2024.

(2024). Selected for Fulbright Specialist Project, “Developing a Centre for Academic Writing” at Universitas Negeri Bahasa in Medan, Indonesia.

(2024). Stewart, K. English Language Teaching and American Culture.  [Invited Talk]. English Language Center, Universitas Negeri, Medan, Indonesia.

Fulbright Scholar, Greece, 2023

(2023). Selection Committee Member: Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Program for International Teachers.

(2023). Teaching Cultural Understanding Through Digital Storytelling [Virtual presentation]. Fulbright Train the Trainers Annual Meeting.

(2023). Developing a Humanizing Pedagogy for 21st Century Learning. [Invited talk]. Department of Social and Educational Policy, University of the Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece.

(2023). Developing Rhetorical Devices and Modes of Persuasion. [Invite talk]. Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of the Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece.

(2022). Fulbright Scholar Principal Award Winner, Greece. “Being Human Today: A Digital Storytelling Pedagogy for Teaching English and Training Future Educators.”

 

Gallery
College of Arts & Letters News
Notice of Nondiscrimination | Privacy Statement | Site Accessibility
SPARTANS WILL | © Michigan State University