F273. We’re Recruiting: Teaching & Enacting Social Justice in the Writing Classroom

Marquis Salon 5, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two
Friday, February 10, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

 

To teach writing is essentially a political act—we give our students the tools to examine and question their culture and the potential to change it. But how much of our own agenda do we bring into our curriculum? How do we teach our students to think and speak critically from their own experience? Teaching writers and activists in realms of racial justice, feminism, LGBTQI, and environmentalism share their methods, successes, and failures to integrate social justice and the pedagogy of writing.


Participants

Moderator:

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir, Whip Smart, and the essay collection, Abandon Me. She serves on the board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and she is assistant professor of creative nonfiction at Monmouth University and MFA faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Syreeta McFadden is one of the founding editors of the online literary magazine, Union Station. She is a columnist for the Guardian US. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, NPR, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Feministing, The Brooklyn Rail, and Storyscape Journal.

Colin Beavan is a writer, coach, consultant, and social change activist. He is the author, most recently, of How To Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness That Helps the World. He attracted international attention for his year-long lifestyle-redesign project and the wildly popular book, No Impact Man.

Sreshtha Sen is a writer from New Delhi, and one of the founding editors of the Shoreline Review, a poetry journal in India. She is currently completing her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, where she teaches at SUNY Purchase College through their internship program.

Rachel M. Simon is the author of the poetry collection Theory of Orange and the chapbook Marginal Road. She works as the assistant director of multicultural affairs & LGBTQQ Coordinator at Pace University. She teaches college courses at Bedford Hills Women's Prison and SUNY Purchase College.

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