Kimberly B. George. Feminist. Writer. Bridge Builder.

Classes

Class Description: This four-week creative writing course teaches you to pay attention to embodied knowledge. Drawing on anthropology, philosophy, and feminist theory, we’ll discuss the historical reasons for how the “body” has been split from the “mind” in Western culture. We’ll do contemplative writing exercises that restore a sense of mind-body integration. You’ll gain skills to improve your writing, as you learn to honor the body in your creative process.

Frequently Asked Questions:

How does an online class work?: You will receive 4 lectures in mp3 format, as well as some supplementary written course materials that lead you through the course. Then, depending on what level of writing coaching you have signed up for, you will meet 1:1 over Skype with the class instructor, who will also review your writing assignments.

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Classes

I will be offering one more workshop in Seattle before heading back east. Please see below for details:

New note on the class: This class is now full.

For those who can’t attend or missed the class but who would like to purchase an audio copy of the lecture, please email me with your contact information at listeninglikeafeminist AT gmail.com.

Workshop Title: Church, Violence, & Listening Like a Feminist
(Or, “What exactly is going on in that sermon?”)

Date: Sunday, August 7, 6:00–8:30 p.m.

Cost: $22

Location: Lower Queen Anne, Seattle. More details to be sent to participants after they register.

Class format:

The class is lecture-style, and it’s designed to get you thinking more carefully and analytically about the intersection of gender, sexuality, Christianity, and violence. Our case study for the night will be sermons given on narratives of sexual violence in the Bible: we will examine what works well and what does not work well as those sermons take on a very complex topic. In our investigation, we will look closely at the very implied meaning(s) of terms like “masculinity,” “femininity,” and “violence.” You will learn to pay more attention to how rhetoric works, and you will learn to see how gender-based violence is always part of larger systems of violence (such as classist, racist, and national systems of violence).

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Classes

Updated 6/8: Please note, this class is now full. If you are interested in signing up for future classes, please email kimberlybgeorge@gmail.com with your contact information.

Do you have stories you want to tell?
Is this the season for you to invest in your desire to write?
Then consider signing up….

Write From the Body
June 8, 15, 22, and 29
6:30–8:30 p.m.
Lower Queen Anne (Seattle, WA)

~$225~

Class Format:
Each session will offer both teaching and a time to discuss participants’ writing. We are a kind group—no need to be intimidated! Guided class reflection on your writing will prove enormously useful to your revision process. Further, having the privilege of giving feedback on others’ writing is guaranteed to improve your own.

Common Questions:
Why is this class called “Write from the Body?”
This class focuses on accessing sensory experience in order to write well. We will talk about writing from our embodiment and do contemplative exercises to grow in that awareness. We will also talk about how and why the body has come to be marginalized within contemporary “western” culture. While this is a writing class, you will also get a dose of philosophy, anthropology, and feminist theory.

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Classes

If you live near Seattle, here is some information on the last writing class I will be teaching before I run off to Connecticut to start my new grad program at Yale Divinity. While my class is a writing workshop, the theory in the class draws heavily on the writings of feminist thinkers who advocated seeing “the body as text.” Here’s the info:

Writing (and Living!) From Your Body

~A seminar for writers, therapists, and entrepreneurs~

or anyone who wants to explore the value of mind/body connection in the work that they do

We don’t live in our bodies well.

Since at least the time of the Enlightenment, Western science and philosophy has privileged the “rational” mind over the feeling body. “I think therefore I am,” said Descartes, famously locating human existence—and the knowledge we gather of the world around us—solely in abstract mental processes. To Descartes and the ensuing rationalist legacy, trustworthy knowledge was not in a sensing, experiencing body, but rather in the “objective” mind somehow removed from the body.

And yet, in more and more postmodern disciplines (from psychotherapy to linguistics to feminist theory), we are seeing a resurrection of the “body as text”—the idea that the body actually houses a wellspring of knowledge about ourselves and our world. This class is space for you to consider the value of integrating “body knowledge” into traditional assumptions about how we come to know what we know. We will ask questions like:

· In valuing the mind as apart from the body, and in defining reason as abstract and transcendent, how have we lost the concrete, incarnate nature of knowledge?

· How has disconnection from our bodies affected our work? Our relationships? Our connection to our physical environment?

· How could the practice of writing and journaling serve to reconnect us to “body knowledge?”

The class will both explore relevant theory from diverse discipline and offer practical techniques for living, writing, and creating a more embodied life.

Dates: Fridays, June 19 & 26, July 3, 10, & 17

Time: 9:30–11:00 a.m.

Location: 444 Ravenna Blvd., #309, Seattle, WA 98115

Instructor: Kimberly George

Cost: $125 for the 5-week course. $25 deposit will hold your registration. Class limited to the first 5 people who register. To register or receive more information, please email:writeexpressions@gmail.com

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