Instructor: Dr. Chris Patterson
GRSJ_V 515A-201
Title: Critical and Creative Social Justice Studies Seminar
Description: How can creative projects transform unjust social realities? How can research and scholarship inspire creative works that impact communities outside academia? How can works of speculation, documentation, and collaboration help us imagine ourselves and our worlds otherwise?
To explore these inquiries, this course centres the critical-creative tradition: a lineage of works by marginalized authors, artists and thinkers who have sought to channel the knowledges of academic privilege toward creating change by blending critical and creative projects. We will read, write and critique critical-creative work (creative non-fiction, short stories, poetry, booklets, social and interactive medias) alongside theories of creativity by marginalized writers that spotlight historical and social contexts of settler colonialism, imperial racial capitalism, and patriarchal white supremacy. The goal of the course is for students to understand the critical-creative tradition by producing critical-creative works themselves, aimed for audiences within and outside the academic realm, such as literary journals, social media, magazines, speeches, op-eds, and collaborative community projects that help inspire change.