She has taught at Siena College (1996–7), the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (1997–2003), and Mills College (2003–). With Jena Osman, she edited the arts journal Chain from 1993 to 2003.[3] In 2012, Spahr co-edited A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism with Mills colleague and fellow-poet Stephanie Young.[4]
Both Spahr's critical and scholarly studies, i.e., Everybody’s Autonomy: Connective Reading and Collective Identity (2001), and her poetry have shown Spahr's commitment to fostering a "value of reading" as a communal, democratic, open process.[5] Her work therefore "distinguishes itself because she writes poems for which her critical work calls."[6]
In addition to teaching and writing poetry, Spahr is also an active editor.[5]
Activism
Spahr's participation in the 2011 Occupy Movement is chronicled in her 2015 book That Winter The Wolf Came.[7] According to Spahr, she spent time in the encampments and participated in protests, although she and her son "never spent the night."[8] Her work examines social issues, including the repercussions of the BP oil spill, the global impact of September 11 attacks, capitalism, and climate change. She uses poetry as a mechanism to provide cultural recognition and representation to social movements and political actions.[9]
American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language [co-edited with Claudia Rankine ], (Wesleyan University Press, 2002)
Poetry and Pedagogy: the Challenge of the Contemporary [co-edited with Joan Retallack ], (Palgrave, 2006)
A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism [co-edited with Stephanie Young], (ChainLinks, 2011)
^from the essay "All/Together Now: Writing the Space of Collectivities in the Poetry of Juliana Spahr", American Women Poets in the 21st Century, Wesleyan University Press, 2002.