Opacity and Transparency in Craft and Workshop

Event Description

Instructors’ Roundtable: Opacity and Transparency in Craft and Workshop

The goal of the Instructors’ Roundtable is to deepen discussion of topics that will assist GrubStreet instructors to rethink, revise, and update workshop practices in order to create a more inclusive, equitable, and welcoming workshop experience for all participants.

Let’s get granular with our language around craft, its stakes and implications for fostering an inclusive and equitable workshop culture! In this newly designed in person instructors’ roundtable, framed by Grub DEIB values and mission, we will focus on one aspect of craft as it shows up in our workshop, teaching and own writing: opacity.

Opacity is at the core of equitable and inclusive workshop practices. Opacity accepts that everything that makes a work of art, ART, can never be understood completely; rather, art demands different kinds of expectations and encounters responsive to its specificity and process. Let's discuss how we, as instructors, can invite readers to honor a writer's cultural specificity while also inviting writers' awareness of the cultural matrix in which they work (e.g. dominant culture gaze/audience).

We will start by discussing a short reading by Martinican philosopher Edouard Glissant (link here) to prompt our reflections, and then share case -studies and practices relevant to opacity and its opposite, transparency.

This is not a workshop led by an ‘expert’. Rather, a roundtable where everyone is learning and sharing and equally engaged in this work. Marika will facilitate and prompt the conversation. Come as you are and bring ideas and experiences with opacity, as well as questions and doubts on all things “opaque”!

This event is for GrubStreet instructors only.

Class Format
This class will take place in-person at our Center for Creative Writing in Boston's Seaport neighborhood.

Covid-19 Update:
GrubStreet's space will be mask optional when Boston's Covid-19 Community Level is low or medium. When the Covid-19 Community Level is high, our space will require masks. Please check GrubStreet's Covid-19 page for the latest info on masking and Community Levels before visiting in-person.