THE RADICAL WRITER 4.0

a Mediterranean sensorium ⟡ jul 11 - sept 12

for the next iteration of our relational reading-writing course, we invite you to develop a language of precision where worldmaking emerges from critical engagement with senses + soma.

from Greece to Egypt to Lebanon to Algeria, we will travel across the sea/sand/urban/rock-scapes of the Mediterranean(s) as contested sites where mythologies, ecologies, geological time-scales and colonial psychoses become porous to each other.

who is allowed to cross this seascape? who can never reach for its waters? which sun oppresses, and which sun liberates?

during these 10 weeks, participants will join reading seminars and writing-making workshops — engaging with sound work, 3D spatial scans, symbol design and counter-mapping, as well as pen-and-paper creative writing — to build a worldmaking sensorium while thinking-with a chosen place of investigation.*

for those who are eager to deconstruct their storytelling craft through a sensorial investigation of method + medium.

*we invite you to choose a place local to you that feels like a rich site of imagination + inquiry for the length of the course.

thinking-with

  • mythology | Homer

  • literary criticism | Anne Carson

  • Mediterranean noir | Naguib Mahfouz

  • surrealist poetry | Etel Adnan

  • absurdist fiction | Albert Camus

  • psychoanalysis | Frantz Fanon

meet your teaching team

nathalie attallah

is an artist-designer-scholar, and former teaching fellow at Harvard University. she is a researcher at the Institute for Worldmaking (MIT-affiliated lab), focusing on Arab futurity and building alternative knowledge infrastructures. at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, she often collaborated with sand to investigate deep time, queer ecologies, and entangled systems. nathalie has collaborated with the American Museum of Natural History to critically re-imagine its dioramas, bringing an anti-colonial lens to institutional displays. she is the co-author of Errant Design: Design(ing) Without Solutions in Commons in Design (Valiz).

ella hilaire

is a writer-artist-scholar, and former teaching fellow at Harvard University. her research resides at the intersection of Caribbean decolonial theory, theology, and film studies. at Harvard Divinity School, she developed a multi-species theological narrative of the Haitian Revolution that re-imagines liberation struggles through the lens of the ecological + supernatural. ella is a previous research associate and online contributor at Vanity Fair.

course curriculum

*participants will have scheduled breaks from class to read the two short novels.

frequently asked questions

  • our virtual classes are ~2h on saturdays, 17:30 CET | 11:30AM EST | 8:30AM PST. we recommend finding 2-3 hours/week of reading + daydreaming time outside of class.

  • we highly recommend attending the sessions live to get the most out of our lively community discussions + workshops, but don’t worry if you miss a few sessions— all replays are sent within 24hr of class.

  • the flow of our curriculum alternates between reading seminars, writing-making workshops, and reading weeks. we’ve created a space that balances structure with freedom, with lots of opportunities to move at your own pace. you can drop-in to class and get work done without fear of “falling behind” when you haven’t completed particular readings/research assignments. show up as you are.

  • you are welcome to join with any level of writing experience. previous cohort members have included seasoned writers, beginners, and everyone in-between.

  • we keep spots limited so that we can facilitate an intimate space. participants are visual artists, researchers, playwrights, poets, speculative designers, illustrators and aspiring novelists… from the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

registration is now closed