Mar 1, 2022
This episode recognizes the fortieth anniversary of two landmark publications for BIPOC queer feminist writing, This Bridge Called My Back and But Some of Us Are Brave—volumes whose foundational insights on the mutual formation of gender, sexuality, race, class, ability, environment, slavery, and colonialism have often been excluded from queer theory’s traditional genealogies.
As part of the Center’s programming theme Care for the Future, invited speakers reflected on these two texts. Kandice Chuh speaks about the ways we are compelled to begin with “we,” and how This Bridge Called My Back asks how and by what means we can be responsible to and for each other--embracing crowdedness despite neoliberal logics of individuality and privatization. Christina León examines positionality as part of doing the work of Bridge and pedagogies of dissent. Amber Musser discusses knowledge made possible by a robust engagement with flesh, putting forth a fleshy methodology for women of color feminism to think about situatedness as a mode of repair and possibilities for brown jouissance. Rod Ferguson shares his relationship with these texts in terms of models for using writing to imagine alternative worlds and institutions and Erica Edwards centers care in foundational queer feminist writing, refusing inclusion on the terms of the established order of women’s rights and as a result, women’s studies.
Check out the full event recordings from this series on the FQT/GSWS YouTube channel.
Episode produced by Tamir Williams.
Original music by David Chavannes: www.dchavannes.com
For more information about the Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies visit www.gsws.sas.upenn.edu