DAY ONE

Part 1: Draw your feelings intro activity (all lead)

1) Open ended prompt: draw how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking about. 2) Play Solange’s “Don’t Touch My Hair in the Background”3) Take volunteers to share their drawings and what inspired them4) Briefly reflect on the purpose of using drawing in the classroom

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Part 2: Introduce and discuss central framing question for today’s class (Maxine leads)

"It wasn’t a match, I say. It was a lesson."

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen is hard to categorize.  As a text, it cannot be pinned down by a single genre or mode of writing: Rankine weaves poetry, prose, essays, paintings, photographs, and scripts together and into a single work.  Thinking through Citizen as a text that inspires learning—as a text that announces itself as “a lesson” (159)—we can also think of Citizen as offering a theory of pedagogy.  

Take a moment to free-write about the following questions: if Citizen was a teaching guide, what would its pedagogy be? How would Citizen think about the process of learning? What can we learn from not just the content, but also the structure of the text? How does the inclusion of different genres and modes of expression affect its pedagogy?

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Part 3: Close Reading activity (Anna leads)

“if we start with our experiences of becoming feminists not only might we have another way of generating feminist ideas, but we might generate new ideas about feminism . . . Ideas would not be something generating through distance, a way of abstracting something from something, but

from our involvement in a world that often leaves us, frankly, bewildered . . . trying to describe something that is difficult, that resists being fully comprehended in the present.” (Ahmed 12)

“Even as I have labored in this way, I have noticed . . . signs of not quite being able to admit a difficulty . . . when I discuss some of my own experiences of sexual violence and harassment, I keep using you and not me, allowing the second person pronoun to give me some distance. I tried putting in me after it was written, but that me felt too strained, and I let the you stay but with qualification. Feminism: it can be a strain. This strain is evident as tension in this text,

sometimes revealed as a confusion of pronouns and personas; a tension between telling my own story of becoming feminist, being a diversity worker, handling what you come up against, and

making more general reflections about worlds.” (Ahmed 14)~

In pairs, select a passage of text from the first half of Citizen that interests, confuses or excites you in its formal or aesthetic choices. Then, close read the passage, writing down observations with your partner that you can share back with the class. We will come back as a group to read and discuss everyone’s chosen passages.As you work through your close reading, you are welcome to think through the following questions to get started or if you get stuck (though you certainly do not have to):

How could you read your passage through or against the Ahmed quotations above? Who is the passage addressing? Who might be the imagined audience of the passage? What type of reading experience, textual engagement, or pedagogy does your passage

encourage? Would you consider your passage to be didactic? How does your passage depict violence? When do you think your passage is taking place? Does it use repetition or otherwise

connect to other passages within the book? Who/what is/are the subject(s) of your passage? How does the speaker position herself in

relation to these subject(s)? How might you characterize the implied narrator/author of the passage? What type of

tone/language does the narrator use? Where do you see Rankine herself fitting into the passage?

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PART 4: Dramatic Reading & Discussion of Macroaggressions (Chy leads)

“Not About” Swaying.1

My tears stupid?reck-less?The swaying of her body,back and forth,

1 Chy Sprauve, “‘Not About’ Swaying,” last modified June 18, 2015, chy-sprauve.com/portfolio/swaying/.

to the rhythm of his fallhis peril

unverified?

My hurtundignified?

How trepidatiously she heldrighteousness’s hand that day.

You don’tget to have a say bout what feels realMy heart’svalves are the only thingsyou can’t quantify and extrapolate data from Because you wanna look at vandalism accessorized bya state-sanctioned nihilism use that as an excuse to vilify waking and moving people

My tears stupid? Not that. Notagain. You don’t get to do thatagain To use My vulnerability as an excuse to commit murder.My openness in this field of bloodno.We believe despite what history has shown us.

We prayin spite ofbeing strong-armed into tailor-made pipelines

That just not good enough for you?You want more?

reck-less. The way in whichyou demandstarched ironed shirts from usThe way in which you demand that wefold our arms and legs into ourselves as we walk.

How you talksome of us into believing that we somehow biologically unsuited for love.because you kick us outta class.’cause we loud (read: restless)’cause our clothes (read: expression)’cause we shoot (read: escape)’cause we shoot (read: escape)’cause anything but capable of contradiction we anunfinished drawingwe an abandoned prototype

we trytoo hard. some of us trytoo hard to shape our bodies into custom-fitted buoys and large-breasted caterersandstill some of us,not wearing those starched shirts, are forced into those pipelines,2 so painstakingly created by those that would have us be a whisper of a scent on this Western skin‘Cause we lawless.‘Cause we sideshow.‘Cause we express our boredom too ostentatiously in that room,tightened by all those damn desksCan’t breathe with all those desks.Instead ofthrowing a lifeline outto those young men that be choking on the hot air in that roomYou tell us,with the conviction and angst of a swelling, Southern mobthatthe rhythm of our swaying bodies is not held up byany applicable data.

~

the facts.3

-You (irresponsible television news journalist)ask her (black woman who lost a son / partner/ father)questions (Do you feel for those who do not feel for you? How long do we have to give you cursory condolences?)you wouldn’t fathom asking her (any white woman, anywhere).

-He (our Black president, seemingly drowning in studiesupon studies that analyze structural racism)said,infull earshot of the American public,that Micah Xavier and the man who murderedblack Charleston churchgoers had thesame kind of hate in their hearts.

-On Facebook, black people plead endlessly fornon-violenceand disparage “militants.”

2 “Pipelines” are an important visual in “‘Not About’ Swaying” because of the imagery of both literally and figuratively being forced into pipelines. Pipelines are also a reference to the “school-to-prison pipeline” so often mentioned when discussing criminal justice.3 Chy Sprauve, “the facts,” last modified August 28, 2016, chy-sprauve.com/2016/08/28/facts/.

-I look into the eyes of every black boy I see on the street.I wish them a forcefield.

~

Part / section I of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen explores microaggressions. Per professor Derald Sue, microaggressions are “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.”4 Reading this section inspired me to think back on various microaggressions performed against me as well as people who look like me in the world.

I wrote the poem “‘Not About’ Swaying” when I was working through what Mike Brown’s mother might have felt when media personalities and others began questioning, it seemed, the very veracity of the notion that Mike Brown had a right to life. This is, to me, both a microaggression and an aggressively violent practice of erasure5 that appears to be commonplace when black people are victims of racially charged / racially motivated crimes.

When the families of murdered or otherwise abused black people express fury, anger, or sadness over their murdered or injured loved one, reporters seem to pick apart their reactions. If a family member seems angry or vengeful, some reporters use that as an opportunity to disparage the family or the victim, or otherwise shame the party. It is as if black people are not allowed the space to express a full range of natural, human emotions (when their loved one is murdered by a seemingly racist police force—or, at the very least, by a police force employing practices that disproportionately target black people) when their loved ones are the targets of state-sanctioned violence. These sorts of criticisms function as a kind of psychic violence against black people who have already been harmed by the state’s often violent disciplining practices.

Both poems speak to the media’s role in performing psychic violence against black people who have suffered at the hands of the criminal justice system. However, “the facts” also addresses the lingual violences that black people have performed against other black people, in the form of tone policing.6 Finally, the last line in “the facts” describes the helplessness often felt by those who have been overburdened with both racialized “micro” and macroaggressions. The only thing the speaker can do in “the facts” is wish for the black boys seen on the street to be protected.

Notes: How might we speak to our students about microaggressions? Do we have to speak directly

to microaggressions if and when we choose speak about it or is a discussion of stressors in general also a viable way of examining microaggressions with students?

How did Rankine’s exploration of microaggressions speak to you, if at all? Perhaps you might write a creative response to a section of her text.

When I Googled “microaggressions,” these images were found:

4 Heben Nigatu, “21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear On A Daily Basis,” Buzzfeed, last modified December 9, 2013, https://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/racial-microagressions-you-hear-on-a-daily-basis?utm_term=.kuw7j6ywEk#.btYvgNmE1n.5 Some argue that the term “microaggression” minimizes the sometimes very painful indignities that members of marginalized communities contend with. Because the term “microaggression” is somewhat commonly understood now, however, I choose to use this terminology here.6 “Tone policing (or tone trolling or tone argument or tone fallacy) is an antidebate appeal based on genetic fallacy, which attempts to detract from the validity of a statement by attacking the tone rather than the message.” (Wikipedia, s.v. “Tone policing,” last modified Dec 22, 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing).

DAY TWO

Part 1: Start with free-write we didn’t get to last week: What kind of learning does Citizen inspire? (Maxine leads)

a. Play “Weary” by Solange in the backgroundb. Students share back & discuss responses

- Relatedly: brainstorm and discuss lesson(s) or idea(s) people might have to teach Citizen to their undergrad students.      

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Part 2: Dialogue with Sara Ahmed (Maxine and Anna lead)

While reading bell hooks’s Teaching to Transgress, we saw how the practice and performance of an interview—whether you are interviewing yourself, a mentor, or a friend—

is an important part of a feminist pedagogy.  Feminist thinkers and teachers like bell hooks and Sara Ahmed understand that a feminist community should offer a place where not one, but multiple voices can be heard and spoken.  Sara Ahmed writes, “Feminism as a collective movement is made out of how we are moved to become feminists in dialogue with others. A movement requires us to be moved” (5).   (The second-person voice and questioning form of Rankine’s Citizen might speak to this too.) Engaging in a dialogue with each other is crucial to developing a feminist pedagogy and practice.   In the spirit of feminist conversation, we have created a space for dialogue in our own classroom.  

~

SA: “What do you hear when you hear the word feminism? It is a word that fills me with hope, with energy” (1). MK: I love that Ahmed begins Living a Feminist Life by asking what we hear when we hear the word feminism.  It becomes more and more apparent throughout her text that the act of listening is part of living a feminist life.  Her response to her own question is also so significant; she immediately brings in the importance of feminism as “sensational,” or calling up embodied and felt responses to our environments. What do you hear when you hear the word “feminism”? What feelings does the word bring up? Do any particular passages in the text come to mind where you felt your understanding of feminism changed, inspired, or challenged?  You:

Your partner:

SA: “Feminism needs to be everywhere because feminism is not everywhere.  Where is feminism? It is a good question.  We can ask ourselves: where did we find feminism, or where did feminism find us? . . . I ask ‘from where?’ but also ‘from whom?’ From whom did I find feminism?” (4). MK: Sara Ahmed talks about moments in her life when someone or something revealed a struggle to be at home in the world.  Thinking back to the story Ahmed tells about herself in conversation with her auntie, Gulzar Bano, who she describes as one of her first “feminist teachers,” I want us to think a little bit more about what it means to be a feminist teacher. Have you had any person in your life who you consider a “feminist teacher”?  Has there been a moment in your education—maybe in our class, maybe while reading Ahmed’s text—that has helped make feminism part of your life?  What about that experience made learning and thinking about feminism possible?

You:

Your partner:

SA: “In this book I want to think of feminist theory too as homework, as a way of rethinking how feminist theory originates and where it ends up. What is this thing called feminist theory?” (7)

AZ: Ahmed (as well as hooks, Rankine, Christian, and others scholars we’ve encountered) questions what we think of as a theory -- what is or is not theory, where theory takes place, who writes theory, it relationship with the academy, etc.  How might you answer Ahmed’s question: “What is this thing called feminist theory?” How do you see Ahmed defining or questioning “theory” as a genre”? What experiences have you had with feminist theory as student? As a teacher? What is the value of using feminist theory in the classroom?

You:

Your partner:

SA: “If a world can be what we learn not to notice, noticing becomes a form of political labor. What do we learn not to notice?” (32)“Documentation is a feminist project; a life project. When did you begin to put the pieces together? . . . Feminism is DIY: a form of self-assembly . . . Becoming feminist: how we redescribe the world we are in.” (26-27)

AZ: This reminds of the processes of “self-actualization” that hooks describes in Teaching to Transgress as a goal for both teachers and students participating in an “engaged” pedagogy. For hooks, engaged pedagogy “seeks to transform consciousness, to provide students with ways of knowing that enable them to know themselves better and live in the world more fully” (194) and, relatedly, frames the classroom as a "space of possibility” (12). How can we support students in “putt[ing] pieces together,” “self-assembl[ing],” or “redescrib[ing[ the world we are in”? How can we enable students in the process of “notic[ing]” structures that they may have “learn[ed] not to notice”? What sorts of activities or projects have you done in your classes, experienced as a student, or heard about that could enable this sort of self-actualization?

You:

Your partner:

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Part 3: Creating a class toolbox / feminist killjoy survival kit (Chy leads)

“The materials are books, yes, but they are also spaces of encounter; how we are touched by things; how we touch things. I think of feminism as a fragile archive, a body assembled from shattering, from splattering, an archive whose fragility gives us responsibility: to take care.”7

~

7 Ahmed, Sara (2017-01-13). Living a Feminist Life (Kindle Locations 411-413). Duke University Press. Kindle Edition.

Reader,

I hope this text finds you well. I hope that you have texts that help you into wellness. Let us work on building something together. You do not need to know; take what speaks to you. Also, take what rattles you. Drop things that hurt too much when you need to.

This is a thing: don’t let anyone but you regulate what you can carry.

And so, we begin:

How can we create a (physical?) space for feminist documentation? Or, we will create a space for feminist documentation.

What objects touch you (in the classroom and beyond)? What do you wear to remind you to take care (is it a protective armor, like a sharp blazer or coat8, or a gem you chant with)?

Why are some archives just so strong, while ours (our feminist, our black-brown-other-archive) is a loose bundle of threads?

The need demand to document; to bear witness. The need demand for strategic essentialism. The need demand to discover the questions the answers hide.9

If we don’t document, they don’t remember. And we don’t remember (remember what10?).

There is something to be said for mis-remembering and for forgetting. This is an art.11

Just what exactly are we responsible for when we talk about putting together the fragile archive? There can be pressure to do this right.

We can come apart but still be as pointed (sharp tools: think Audre Lorde) as we want to be. Maybe this is a requirement. (Are there requirements?)

Teaching as a fragile archive. Bent records as pedagogy. Celebrate the breaking12! Let us work with our archive all the time. In love and in friendship. And at dinners. We

can dance while we teach. It can be fun. We can make our theories move.13

This container, this box, must be flexible, limber, nimble. To account for all things in a feminist’s experience. To account for failings. To account for a learning curve. Learning curves. Learning curves are a thing.

Curve this box just so, then.

8 “We think not just with our brains but with our bodies…and our thought processes are based on physical experiences that set off associated abstract concepts…[I]t appears that those experiences include the clothes we wear.” (Sandra Blakeslee, “Mind Games: Sometimes a White Coat Isn’t Just a White Coat,” The New York Times, March 6, 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/clothes-and-self-perception.html.)9 In his essay, “On the Creative Process,” essayist and novelist James Baldwin exhorts artists to expose the “questions the answer hides.” (James Baldwin, “On the Creative Process,” James Baldwin: Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds Work / Other Essays, ed. Toni Morrison (Library of America, 1998), 670.)10 What might “they” forget?11 You (I) don’t always want to think about all of these heavy, breaking things. Sometimes you (I) want to pretend. Pretending can be self-care. Make-believe is not just for children. The sensational can also be protective. 12 “[C]ome celebrate / with me that everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed.” (Lucille Clifton, “Won’t you celebrate with me,” 1993.)13 See: Solange, A Seat at The Table, Saint Records/Columbia, 2016.

Let us come undone!

Please think of the exercise below as a ritual or practice. A feminist ritual. Or a becoming-feminist ritual. Or a coming-to-feminism ritual.

o Are there any quotes, people, books, objects, memories, that make you feel at home as a practicing feminist? Or as a coming-to-feminism practitioner?

o Are there any objects you reach for again and again in the classroom?o Is there any practice, object of clothing, pattern of speech, that you employ / use in the

classroom to establish trust and / or pattern(s) in the classroom?o What things do you hold on to in your life and in the classroom? Tactile things. Things

you touch. What do you touch that brings you joy, makes you feel strong? Sensational things.

ACTION: Please write and / or describe any of the above things and put them in the box (on the table; the box below is yours). So, at the end of this session, we will have a toolbox to work with.14

- You might think of the above space as your own personal toolbox or a practicing box. Whatever it is, it is for you.

14 Might you use a toolbox in your own classes? Or, do you already have something of a toolbox? If you do have a toolbox (or something like it), how do you ask your students to take care of it? How does it represent a fragile archive (if it does at all)?