Autotheory: Writing Workshop

Full Tuition: $300 — Scholarship Options in Drop-Down Menu

Instructor: Andrews | 6 weeks | Tuesdays May 9-June 20 (no class June 3) | 7:00-9:00 PM EDT | ONLINE

In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks famously writes: “I came to theory because I was hurting.” hooks says she “saw in theory then a location for healing.” For many, reading theory is not merely an exercise in abstraction, but is instead a way of giving voice to our felt and embodied experiences. This has been especially true for feminist theorists who have refused the distinction between private and political, personal and academic. Increasingly, the mixing of theory and life writing has found its way into scholarly and popular writing. Lauren Fournier describes the genre of autotheory as: “the commingling of theory and philosophy with autobiography—as a mode of critical artistic practice indebted to feminist writing and activism.” In the recent past, this kind of writing has been popularized as a genre by Maggie Nelson (by way of Paul Preciado), but it has its roots in earlier feminist writings, and especially Black Feminist writing. Over the course of four weeks, we’ll examine examples and antecedents and develop our own writing for exploring our lives in relation to theory and philosophy in order to help us both understand that theory and our own lives. And then we’ll take a week off to research and write before coming back to share with the group for our final two weeks.

This course is for people who already have in mind particular theoretical and philosophical texts they want to explore in relation to their lives. We will work on writing and exploring the theory and philosophy you bring to the table together, and help each other write with them in order to create our own works of theory. If you are already working on writing that blends life writing and theory and want to dive deeper or share pieces of what you’re working on, even better! We will work to develop and refine up to ~30 pages of writing, which may either be a stand-alone essay or portion of a longer work. Note: if the number of participants goes over 12, we will add an extra day–July 27–to enable everyone to workshop.

There is no audit option for writing workshops, as all participants are expected to participate in the workshopping sessions.

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All tuition goes to paying instructors and staff a living wage. We encourage you to pick the payment tier that corresponds with your needs, but ask that you please consider our commitment to fair labor practices when doing so. We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class, and one full scholarship per person per term. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out or you would like to pay tuition on an installment basis, please email us directly, and we will work with you.

If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, please email us and we will reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After classes begin, we are only able to make partial refunds and adjustments.