Writing Elsewhere Geographies

There is a sense of pervasive hesitation among us all to imagine, really imagine, that a different way of being and living is possible, and possible within our shared spacetimes. Elsewhere Geographies intends to be a space where we gather to learn, curate, and imagine other methods and modes of being and belonging in the here and now. How do we construct survival from within geographies of violence and oppression? What inquires, reckonings, and refusals are part of the process of building our own cartographies of belonging?

Edward Said wrote: “In the history of colonial invasion maps are always first drawn by the victors, since maps are instruments of conquest. Geography is therefore the art of war but can also be the art of resistance if there is a counter-map and a counter-strategy.” Elsewhere geographies, then, are these counter-maps. The cartographies and architectures and maps we imagine, experiment with, and cultivate towards worlding the worlds we inhabit. These are the blueprints we make towards abolitionist and relational futures.

The course material will be drawn from across resistance poetry, liberatory writing (theory and op-eds), and narrative essays, rooted in anti-imperial, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist principles, but also rooted in interrogation, world-building, and expansive ways of storytelling. Each session will include short readings interspersed with generative prompts to experiment with utilizing these concepts as tools and instruments of extending ourselves and our worlds. We will read excerpts and works from poets, writers, and activist-scholars such as June Jordan, Christina Sharpe, Danez Smith, Amal Dunqal, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Linda Quiquivix, Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Artie Vierkant, Sara Ahmed, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitteh, Ursula K. Le Guin, Basel al Araj, Amiri Baraka, George Jackson, Ghassan Kanafani, and B. R. Ambedkar. The goal is also to bring together writing and works that often aren't read in conversation with each other, but in these conjunctions, entire worlds could be re-imagined. Each session will have time for discussion, sharing and feedback on individual writing and creations.

Participants will be encouraged to work on a speculative reimagining of any mode of being from within their lives towards making a personal journal or zine, writing an essay or op-ed, or material they could use to share and educate with amongst their communities:

• whether that's a personal radical transformation of a habit or thought (“If you want to be an intellectual, you have to be engaged” ~ Martyr Basel al-Araj, Palestinian activist and writer)

• whether that's a rally call against a procedure or institution (“I think of complaint as a queer method, because in a way it is about redirecting a “no!” to the institutions, saying no to them. There’s power in that.” ~ Sara Ahmed, writer and scholar)

• whether that's learning to recontextualize and reimagine entire structures (“that’s a critical component for the rest of the world to learn from—is the centrality of demolishing the health system as a precondition to ethnic cleansing” & “the clinic is central to Palestinian society’s resistance” ~ Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, Palestinian surgeon)

Writers, poets, educators, and community-engaged organizers, and anyone else invested in collective study and writing as a mode of liberatory praxis towards world-building will find resonance in the course. I ask that you bring your searching, authentic selves, and take with you what you learn and absorb out into the world. Our world doesn't merely need more poets and writers to publish in static literary spaces, but poets and writers who are carrying their poetics and discerning selves into the quotidian, into the daily grind of living.