Liberating Narratives with Sonya Lea
Four Wednesdays in May of 2024 over Zoom from 6-8PM PST (5/8, 5/15, 5/22, 5/29)
All classes will be recorded for any who can’t attend live.
How we live in the world is contingent upon how we imagine that world to be.
An ethos of responsivity thus begins by reimagining our literal inextricability from
that toward which we are called to respond...
—Astrida Neimanis, Rachel Loewen Walker, "Weathering": Climate Change and the "Thick Time" of Transcorporeality
…the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled.
—Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
In the desert, in the Palace, I lost track of time, not just of the hours and dates, but also of a certain sense of the temporal, the march of a single day.
—Justin Torres, Blackouts: A Novel
This four-week online program creates a way to liberate our narratives through asking questions about our writing and the ways we experience our stories. We’ll give ourselves a relaxed space in which to bring awareness to our narratives. We will write beyond the ways we’ve told a story to ourselves and others.
This is a generative course to learn to blend our writing with philosophy, magic, timelessness, and other otherworldly practices of one’s imagination. For writers of a ‘personal’ narrative, inquiry into communal liberation can move a personal story beyond the self, situating it within a relational landscape. For fiction writers, this is the time to develop awarenesses of the philosophic backgrounds of your characters, and to explore the ancient or historic lines that inhabit your story. We will look at models of memoir, fiction, and nonfiction writing that embrace liberation through noticing neglected and abandoned stories, and an inquiry into the nature of identity and where the self might exist.
The word ‘liberation’ comes from the French liberacion, the act of freeing or of being freed, and from the Latin, līberātiō, the act of setting free, release, deliverance, acquittal, discharge, or release from debt. In this class, we will self-define liberation for our stories as well as discuss liberation as an act of reclamation and recovery, including freedom from restrictive socio-political and systemic conventions that would absent parts of our stories.
THIS IS FOR YOU IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO : Write a story or an essay; work on a newsletter, podcast, or reportage; reconfigure a piece of writing; write a novel or short story; write or think or be with others.
In four sessions we will create/re-create a narrative through four gateways. The form will focus on talks and generative writing that allow us places of entry and study to:
• Cultivate curiosity about our writing and life.
• Reclaim family and communal history through examining stories of political and social worlds, stories of class and power, stories of chosen and other-than-human family, stories outside of the binary, shadow stories and so on.
• Write the mystical stories and the mystery in our life/writing process.
• Explore the philosophy evident and hidden in our stories.
As is usual in my classes, you can choose your own assignment rather than follow the ones that I provide. No one is obligated to share, and we create a container for the writer to share in the most supportive way for their work. There will be a small optional reading assignment for each class. The class will open and conclude with a sound ritual featuring our writing.
Two-hour class meetings will be held over video chat, using Zoom. Optional material to read in preparation for the class. No one is required to share or receive comments.
Max: 13 students
Pricing:
The following payment model is inspired by and borrowed from the payment model of Bayo Akomolafe’s class, We Will Dance With Mountains: Into the Cracks.
This workshop offers a sliding scale based on your relative financial standing. In an effort to reflect disparity in economic condition and access to wealth, the following payment system is designed for those with more wealth to help cover the costs of those with less access to wealth and resources. We trust your discernment of your current financial situation and how you fit into the global economic context.
As you decide what amount to pay, please consider your present-day financial situation governed by income, but also the following factors: historical discrimination faced by your peoples; your financial wealth (retirement/savings/investments); your access to income and financial wealth, both current and anticipated (how easily could you earn more income compared to other people in your community, country, and the world; are you expecting an inheritance); people counting on your financial livelihood including dependents and community members; the socio-economic conditions of your locale (relative to other places in your country and in the world); your relationship to food & resource scarcity.
$400 Partner
$350 Supporter (Note: this amount reflects the “real” value of this course.)
$150 Companion
$50 Friend
A limited number of scholarships are also available for anyone needing further financial assistance. Please email Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com for more info, or if you are feeling challenged in any way by the financial requirements of participation.