Opportunities

Audre Lorde Reading Group

September 13, 2019

Audre Lorde’s abundant legacy of teaching, writing, and social movement work will be explored in a free four-week community reading group at the City University of New York (CUNY), where Lorde worked for almost three decades. We will discuss selections from her Collected Poems and Sister Outsider, as well as Lorde’s teaching archives recently published by Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative. Conor Tomás Reed and Jillian Lane Whitewill co-facilitate the dialogues, which will meet on Thursdays, 5pm-7pm, from October 17th to November 7th at the Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth, Ave, NYC.

This reading group is open to all. However, we will intentionally center the participation of people of color; specifically women, gender non-binary, and LGBTQ people. Participants who do not identify with these groups are asked to be mindful about not eclipsing the experiences and participation of those being centered. We also ask that people with access to resources and institutions where Lorde’s work is regularly available pass along this announcement to friends, family, and community members who may not.

Click hereto read a reflection and more about the Audre Lorde Reading Group “Surviving and Speaking Out: Reading Audre Lorde in Community”from Audre Lorde Reading Group member Spencer Garcia discussing their experience reading Lorde’s work in the group.

The Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY seeks to build on the legacy of radical, de-colonial, anti-racist pedagogies at CUNY. A former CUNY educator, Audre Lorde’s teaching methods and practices are central to this legacy, and her vital work as a poet and activist continues to model survival and living for Black / queer / feminist readers. Following from the publication of a selection of Lorde’s syllabi and other teaching materials in Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, co-facilitators Jillian Lane White and Conor Tomás Reed formed the Audre Lorde-focused reading group “Your Silence Will Not Protect You!” Throughout four sessions, this group of twenty participants approached Lorde’s work from their own experiences, applying the power of her teaching / writing / radicalism to the process of elaborating study in community. This group was sponsored by a Humanities New York Reading & Discussion Grant, Lost & Found : The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, and the Center for the Humanities.

TO APPLY:

Space is limited and priority will be given to those who commit to being part of every conversation over the course of the four weeks, and who commit to creating your own Audre Lorde reading group after this one ends.Please click here and fill out this google form to request participation in this reading group.

Deadline: Please sign up here to participate by October 7th, 2019: https://docs.google.com/forms/…

For more information, contact [email protected]

This reading group is sponsored by a Humanities New York Reading & Discussion Grant, Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, and the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY.