Being Human: A Personal Approach to Race, Class & Gender

In this workshop, we will address the ways race, class, and gender impact our lives, our work, and our culture. As a class, we will create connection and community by practicing deep listening, daily writing, deep reading, and the sharing of ideas and observations. Together we will identify stereotypes and myths embedded in systems of power and privileges that divide us from one another and result in inequalities and destruction that impact not only our lives and the lives of others around the world, but also the earth, our future, and humanity itself. In this class, we’ll read laws that have validated centuries of punishment and inequality based on distortions of race, gender, and sexual orientation. We’ll see how other writers grapple with their own sense of self within the cultural paradigms of their lives and how they use language to help them express experiences that helped shape them. We will learn more about the ways that building narratives can help us make sense out of this experience of being human and alive on this planet at this point in time. My goal is for every student to open their minds and hearts to the lives of others. In the process, I hope they’ll also gain new perspectives and write with more comfort, fun and fluidity from the inside out. Revision will help refine their work, by creating pictures through words, using dialogue and descriptions, knowing what to keep, what to build upon, and what to let go. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact kwatters@sas.upenn.edu.