Memoir focuses on a particular theme or themes of a person’s life. Intersectionality is a complex term formulated by Black legal scholar, Kimberlee Crenshaw, to denote the way different aspects of our identity overlap in relationship to systems of power. This framework is ideal to bring to memoir since it requires critical self-reflection about how our gender, race, class, sexuality (etcetera) matters in how we move through the world.
Throughout the course, students will be guided through exercises to help understand their intersectional identities; read and discuss examples of intersectional memoir; and brainstorm and workshop ideas for their own intersectional narrative writing.
Instructor: Raechel Anne Jolie is a writer and educator living in Ohio, on Erie and Mississauga land. They are the author of Rust Belt Femme. Her other writing has appeared in The Baffler, In These Times, Novara Media, among others. You can subscribe to radical love letters (their newsletter) here. Follow them Twitter @reblgrrlraechel or Instagram @rebelgrrlraechel.
