The School for Beautiful Scholarship
What it is:
At its foundation, The School for Beautiful Scholarship affirms that when we each share our beautiful offerings—that which we alone can offer—we practice collective liberation. As Ella Baker once said “Give light and people will find the way.” What does it look like for you to find your light? To not be so distracted by everything outside of yourself, but to rather pay attention to what you notice. To see that you are beautiful as you are. And to share that beauty with the universe.
The School for Beautiful Scholarship believes that the life of the mind can (and should!) be pleasurable, sustainable, embodied, beautiful, playful, liberatory, and more!
The school offers a 12-month container support each participant’s study and research of a person/topic of their choice using the embodied study methods Miyuki has learned and developed over the past 20 years (with space to create and use emergent methods).
Embodied study methods include:
drawing portraits of thinkers while listening to them talk/sing
making Visual Theory Maps, collages and zines
reflective charades
nature sound walks
making altars to our learning
In addition to gathering 2-4x/month (for 2 hours each), there are Support and Accountability Partners that connect weekly, as well as additional time to get one-on-one support from Miyuki.
“What if school, as we used it on a daily basis, signaled not the name of a process or institution through which we could be indoctrinated, not a structure through which social capital was grasped and policed, but something more organic, like a scale of care. What if school was the scale at which we could care for each other and move together. . .The practice of school: a unit of care where we are learning and re-learning how to honor each other, how to go deep, how to take turns, how to find nourishing light again and again.”
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, pages 56-57
In preparing for the launch of the school, I spoke with 4 beautiful beings who resonated with my vision (above) to see who my audience was. Olivia Hunte, El Ambrose, Cori Wong, and Yaa Addae: thank you for entrusting me with your words! I created the following questions based on their thoughts and words.
Are you…
a lover of learning, interested in living and practicing theory?
experimental and playful?
excited about life and all of its many wonders?
sensual, a lover of nature, food, tea, and the sacred?
ready to clarify and share your Beautiful Offerings—that which you alone can offer the universe?
Do you crave time to…
heal?
not think about anything at all and to simply be?
follow your curiosities beyond the pressures of Racial Capitalism?
slip back into yourself and see where your ideas lead you as a way that is actively tied to your growth as an individual as well as the growth of the collective?
be more fully grounded in your body, moving, feeling, listening?
Do you wish that studying could be…
easeful, sustainable, fun, sacred, embodied, and tied to our collective liberation?
a container to be who you’ve always known yourself to be?
with others who are actively co-creating a different kind of world?
Embodied Study for Our Collective Liberation
A 12-month Container for Sensual & Joyful Learning
Next cohort start date is 1/16/25. All sessions are virtual.
*Check out the open house recording from 2023 + slides from 2024*
This container was created to begin answering the questions above together in an intimate cohort of like-minded people.
Meet Your Instructor
Miyuki Baker
I am Dr. Miyuki Baker, a non-binary, mixed race Zainichi Korean American artist, activist & scholar living in Huichin (AKA Oakland, CA) who has been connecting people, ideas, and movements with Beautiful Scholarship for the past 15 years through my zines, illustrated theory atlases, graphic note-taking, and most importantly, in my approach to the life of the mind. I am a lifelong learner, curious, playful, and obsessed with multi-sensorial everyday pleasures like eating delicious home-cooked food, making/sharing music with friends, and napping under redwood trees.
I am a parent to a 5-year-old; an Asian co-conspirator of the Church of Black Feminist Thought; and have a PhD from Berkeley in Performance Studies where I first started teaching embodied study for our collective liberation!
I am fiercely committed to our collective liberation, which I credit Fannie Lou Hamer (“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free”) and the Combahee River Collective ( “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression”) for teaching me why. Beautiful Scholarship and education are how I connect my gifts with this wider purpose. Beautiful Scholarship is how I have found alignment with my values of living at the intersection of scholarship, social justice, and making art!
(Photo credit: Kristen Murakoshi)
Testimonials
“I wanted to learn embodied methods that I could use in my practice. . .but I think I learnt how simple it can be. And how effective just being yourself is. That that in itself is a major gift, being the vessel and allowing your own body to be used for whatever idea you are inspired to share - our beautiful offering is ourselves.”
“Embodied Study really became a moment of hope in my life even as I had hard times…I always left feeling fulfilled. And I loved learning all the possible methods to teach and express differently. But the most valuable part of this container was being together, learning together, the vulnerability and care.”
“What Miyuki facilitated helped me connect to a kinship of people who want to practice living in beautiful and liberatory ways.”
“Miyuki offered a lot of support in their facilitation by inviting, interweaving & embracing different forms of expression, play, movement, giving/receiving & studying. We joyfully experimented with these practices throughout our group sessions. The office hours were also really supportive & Miyuki offered affirmation for my personal practices/wonderings/wanderings. All together, Beautiful Scholarship was like being in a spacious cocoon of creativity with a group of lovely, gentle beings — a space to alchemize & transform together, rather than feeling stuck, isolated or alone. Yes to collective creativity portals!”
“I loved the Beautiful Scholarship Portal with Miyuki! We had the chance to be creative, playful, and beautiful, while reimagining and redefining what scholarship can look like. I love Miyuki’s both grounded and playful facilitation, as well as the beautiful visuals they create to inspire and embody beautiful scholarship. This is a wonderful opportunity to tap into your beautiful self!”
“Beautiful Scholarship with Miyuki was delightful. As an academically trained scholar, it was relieving and also productively challenging to be invited into an embodied, relational, sensorially rich engagement with knowledge/creativity/scholarship.
Grateful for this gift!”
Frequently Asked Questions
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In my years of teaching in universities and beyond, I have found that a standard semester is not enough time to really dive deep. Giving us a full year allows us to build together and understand our own patterns throughout 12 moon cycles.
As sol from the first cohort put it when we met for 8 months, “I appreciated the 8 month length! I’d love to explore/create more containers that stretch over 8 months (or more); this pace feels aligned with how I move/process/be.” This is my experiment to try a whole year!
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Yes, and I encourage it! In part, I created the program I wish I had when I was getting my PhD. But if you're at all concerned about juggling your multiple commitments, let's chat.
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No :) You can let it emerge as we practice embodied study together.
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$180/month for Black, Indigenous and People of Color who consider this work to be reclaiming ancestral lifeways stolen by colonization, enslavement & genocide. You can also pay $2000 at once, saving $160. (Limited spots available at this tier)
$280/month for people with under $30,000/year income or access to wealth. You can also pay $3100 at once, saving $260.
$380/month for people with $30,000 – $70,000/year income or access to wealth. You can also pay $4200 at once, saving $360.
$580/month for people with over $70,000/year income or folks from the global North, folks who identify as middle or upper class, people who have access to savings, investments, or inheritance. You can also pay $6500 at once, saving $460.(Thank you to Kate Morales and Sarita Doe for their languaging around costs)
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We will meet with the whole group 4x/month for the first two months, then 2x/month until the final month when we meet 3x/month. But there are also additional opportunities to join me to chat one-on-one, as well as in pairs (Support and Accountability Partners) weekly.
