Feminist and Queer Publics

Stephanie Clare’s seminar (developed in partnership with Jesse Oak Taylor) surveys contemporary public-facing writing in feminist and queer studies, highlighting writing in multiple forms and modes including blogs, websites, op-eds, monographs (including “auto-theory”), and essays. It foregrounds scholars in the field who are explicitly interested in engaging beyond the academy, both by bringing their work to non-academic publics and also by joining and building communities of thinkers that are not based in the academy. Students will explore public-facing platforms and public-facing initiatives such as the Op-Ed project, The Conversation, Signs’ “Ask a Feminist” series, Wikipedia Edit-a-Thons, Public Books, the NYC Trans Oral History Project, and NYU Press’s Think Broadly series. The course also will task students with practicing forms of public-facing writing, primarily through a course blog that features responses to readings, co-authored essays that will be submitted for publication, and short pieces of “auto-theory.” Students will consider what it means to produce literary and cultural criticism in community, and further venture to other sites of feminist/queer engagement to consider writing in the context of activist organizations such as “Queers for Economic Justice,” the “National Domestic Workers Alliance,” and Black Lives Matter.