Lecture
Afropessimism with Frank B. Wilderson III
This feminist reading group will meet virtually
Is the secret in the silence, or is it hiding in the sound? If everybody knows it but nobody speaks it, in what way does a story become a secret? What happens to a secret when nobody keeps it? What kind of secret is a threat? What kind lines your secret heart? Who gets to read your secret diary? Who wants to? In this collaboratively structured Feminist Reading Group, we will explore together the movement and charge of secrecy, how information withheld, intentionally or not, creates spaces in which to be alone, in which to be outside, in which to be together in subversive communion. We will consider secret handshakes, secret hideouts, and secret histories as we read from Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Renee Gladman, Édouard Glissant, Judy Grahn, Saidiya Hartman, Saretta Morgan, Fred Moten, Eileen Myles, Vi Khi Nao, Alice Notley, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Leslie Scalapino, Elaine Scarry, Asiya Wadud, Dana Ward, Simone White, Raúl Zurita, and others, including texts we’ll select collectively for our collaborative packets over our five weeks together.
This town has a secret. Pass it on.
