Reading Gender Queer Memoir [6-weeks, $250 Suggested]
Instructor: Stillman | Sundays July 24-August 29 | 5:00-7:00 PM ET
The most banned book in the country right now is the graphic memoir, Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe’s beautiful coming-of-age story. Other queer icons prone to self-disclosure are adding to their stories with explanatory texts like Alok Vaid-Menon’s Beyond the Gender Binary. What about you? Are you questioning your gender, as so many are these days? Or maybe there’s someone in your life who is? Or perhaps you just love memoirs? In this class, we’ll look at a range of art and media that fit loosely under the label of queer memoir, and while we do, we’ll think critically about gender identity as a narrative project. Where do our genders come from? Are they innate? Can they change over time? How much control do we have over our gender identities, and if our genders aren’t chosen, then how are they formed? What is the ever more complicated role of desire in the gendering process? And why are these texts—most of which are gentle narratives of self-exploration—so exceptionally threatening to our public institutions? Join us in “Reading Gender-Queer Memoir” to meet a new group of friends and to learn more about memoir, storytelling, being gender queer, and, perhaps most of all, to learn more about yourself.
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For each class, four (4) full tuition scholarships and five (5) 80% tuition scholarships are available. Direct student donations are a crucial aspect of our funding model, and without them, we are not able to pay instructors 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. 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.