Feminist & Anti-Racist Theories of Language & Power

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

Instructor: Dahiya | 6 weeks | Wednesdays May 10-June 14 | 7:00-9:00 PM EDT | ONLINE

According to black feminist theorist bell hooks, "moving from silence into speech is a revolutionary gesture," an integral act of self-transformation. Coming to voice, then, is a form of resistance against what Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison describes as the actual violence of “oppressive language [that] limits knowledge.” In this class, we will draw on feminist and anti-racist thought to re-theorize the nature of language itself, engaging with the fields of linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology. We will start by studying how major scientists such as Pierre Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke in the 19th century argued that brown and black people were cognitively inferior, and therefore incapable of harnessing language. We will draw on Jane Hill in linguistic anthropology to show how colonial and racial logics continue to structure the ways we speak and know. We will use these histories to track alternative modes of coming to voice against dominant speech–such as M. NourbeSe Philip’s poetic revisioning of violent legal language in Zong!—and ultimately imagine our own possibilities for coming to voice. Central questions for us will be: How do the colonial and enslavement logics sever us from our "mother" tongue, and aim to render us voiceless? What does it mean to be without language? How can we attune ourselves to the language of our bodies and language of silence and the language of noise? What strategies have feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial theorists invented for us to come to voice? And finally, who is it we want to reach when we find our voice? In addition to Morrison and hooks, thinkers will include Sylvia Wynter, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Hortense Spillers, M. NourbeSe Philip, Saidiya Hartman, Katherine McKittrick, Ashon Crawley, Jane Hill, Terrence Deacon, and Arthur K. Spears.

Classes are recorded to allow for students to participate asynchronously. If you want to take a class but cannot make the class time, sign up for the asynchronous audit option to follow along on your own. Recordings are password protected and will only be available for the duration of the class and two weeks after it ends.

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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.