Charles Sutton, Ed.D.

Phone:

317-274-2002

Email:

chasutt@iu.edu

Education

• Ed.D. Educational Leadership, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville (2024)
• M.L.I.S., San Jose (California) State University (2009)
• B.S., Business Management, Milwaukee (Wisconsin) School of Engineering (2001)
  
  

Biography

Prior to IU, Charles worked for over fifteen years in public libraries. His teaching/learning philosophy centers community – community organizing, community-engaged and community-based participatory research. His research explores the social-material manifestation of circulating knowledges with an emphasis on collaborative community change initiatives that address complex local/global challenges across community contexts. Charles’ dissertation, Liberate this Music, at Least: The Table(s) ‘bout to Turn on Education, explored the educational mission of librarianship and the public library’s role in community collaborative change initiatives. A sonic-inspired, place inquiry employing spatial and humanistic methodologies recognized divergent ways of knowing (centering African diasporic intellectual and aesthetic traditions) and situated, local and historical knowledges understood as partial, dynamic, and relational. The implications of this doctoral research led to an admonishment for librarianship to “return to the source” (Amilcar Cabral) of knowledge. His aim is knowledge justice through a restructuring of knowledge toward health and wellbeing. He imagines a world where divergent knowledges and bodies co-exist.

Research Interests

• Black Studies
• Community Collections and Archives (Community knowledge)
• Knowledge Organization
• Structure of Knowledge
• Digital Humanities / Digital Libraries
• Sonic Epistemologies
• Place Inquiry and Spatial Methodologies
• Leadership
• Public Infrastructure (physical, digital, conceptual)
  
  

Courses

• LIS-S 506 Introduction to Research
• LIS-S 558 Library Leadership