This course is an opportunity to think through the ways common communicative tropes are used to promote paradigms rooted in binary thinking, biological essentialism, white supremacy and heteropatriarchy. As artists, designers, critical thinkers and activists, we will explore our roles in deconstructing, denaturalizing, reclaiming and/or reimagining such tropes in order to build collective cultural narratives rooted in transformative justice. In this course we will explore the following key questions: How do common figures of speech impact the production of social identity (race/class/gender)? In what ways have linguistic tropes (such as “the one drop rule”) naturalized concepts of race, class, gender and national identity? What are the roles of “culture-jamming,” “subvertisement” and “creative hijacking” in the deconstruction of oppressive narratives through creative action? In this course we will explore these questions (and more) as we read and discuss texts from current fields of queer, sonic, and decolonial studies.

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