Denise Chapman

Dr. Denise Chapman is a passionate storyteller, digital media-creator, spoken word artist, and critical autoethnographer who lectures in children’s literature, early literacy and new media/technology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.  She has served as a literacy/inclusion specialist focused on home literacies, critical media literacy, and culturally-sustaining partnerships within diverse communities in Australia and the United States.  Denise uses oral stories, children's literature, film, pop culture, and interactive digital content as windows for critical thinking and transformative, emancipatory opportunities.  As a member of the Digital Education Research Group, Denise’s current research prioritises communities experiencing marginalisation and employs participatory, visual, creative and narrative methods to illuminate inequities and put forward social change.

In 2016, Denise received Monash University’s Faculty of Education Dean’s Award Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.  Denise served as a Deputy College Head for Monash University’s Aquila College for non-residential students from 2017-2019 and has also served as a student advisor for Monash University Education students in the Early Childhood/Primary course. 

Denise has recently been invited to be a guest speaker at the Emerging Writers' Festival 2019 in Melbourne as well as the Melbourne Spoken Word & Poetry Festival.  She's also been featured as a creative at:

• The Community Reading Room's Black Tourmaline in an event entitled: (Re)Storying our Freedom
• Sista Zai presents Afrikan High Tea at Siteworks in an event entitled:  Trickster, Folktales, Poetry
• ART-CREATIVITY-EDUCATION (ACE) Sharing Day performing: Painting my Insides Blue: Managing Changes in the Present by Weaving Words with Ways from the Past (storytelling, spoken word, circle play singing).