The Uses of Anger: Feminist and Anti-Racist Philosophies of Rage [6-weeks, $250 Suggested]

Instructor: Dahiya | Tuesdays 7:00-9:00 PM | September 20-October 25

In her 1981 speech titled “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” Audre Lorde argued that anger and rage are the result of racism and sexism, but that anger is not futile. Instead, it is “loaded with information and energy.” By acknowledging our rage, we can take the first step in urgent battles against racism and sexism, as well as class exploitation and climate change. In other words, we might ask: what are the political uses of anger? As Lester C. Olson argues, it is important to attend to anger, since it is “prismatic” in that it has powerful uses and also is a possible hazard in that it can harm our bodies, and cause chronic illnesses. How can we use our anger without annihilating ourselves? Or, does the explosion of our rage, as Frantz Fanon argues, open up the possibility for us to “experience self-knowledge and the reconstruction of ourselves”?
We’ll begin by reading psychology, anthropology, and theory to explore the relationship between anger, rage, emotion, and affect. We will then study how it is not our anger that is the “problem,” but rather the systems of oppression and hatred aimed at our destruction. We will spend six weeks naming the sources of our anger and imagining a feminist, anti-colonial, and anti-racist rechanneling of anger and rage into what Susan Stryker calls “the basis of self-affirmation, intellectual inquiry, moral agency, and political action.” In addition to Lorde, Fanon, and Stryker, thinkers will include bell hooks, Brittney Cooper, Sarah Ahmed, La Marr Jurelle Bruce, and Myisha Cherry.

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For each class, four (4) full tuition scholarships and five (5) 80% tuition scholarships are available. Due to limited scholarship funds, we are currently only able to offer one class per term at the full scholarship level to any individual student—if you need a full scholarship, please sign up for the class you most want to take and email us to waitlist for any additional classes. We will add you when funds become 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.

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