In the order of things (1966 in french, 1970 in english), foucault examines how the fundamental codes of a culture govern language, perception, exchanges, values and hierarchies. Order is, at one and the same time, that which is given in things as their inner law, the hidden network that determines the way they confront one another, and also that which has no existence except in the grid created by a glance, an examination, a language. These categories can be so ingrained, so insidious, they seem transparent, inherent. We are living in a time where received assumptions around gender, race, capitalism, etc. , are being not only questioned but being blown apart.Literary genres are structures devised to create order out of the chaos of our existence. They always reflect cultural hierarchies and biases. There is nothing natural about genre. As june jordan so famously said, the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. This class will look at strategies a broad range of trans and cis writers are using to trouble received genre grids and to express new orders of consciousness and embodiment, including the use of fabulist tales; shapeshifting; imitation; adaption; retelling; myths; hybridity; the tabooed; an embrace of the monstrous and the marginal; and a revisioning of the divides between human, technology, and nature. This class will involve readings and generative exercises that will culminate in the substantial final creative work.

Visit Workday to view this information.