ENDLESS FLUIDITY: COMING-OF-AGE STORIES IN TRANS MEMOIR

The bildungsroman is a German literary genre more commonly known as a ‘coming-of- age’ story. In a Bildungsroman, we watch a young protagonist move through the trials and tribulations of becoming an adult, with the plot and narrative revealing each step of this educational, emotional, and spiritual transformation. Transgender writers, and specifically memoirists, have a unique perspective on this sub-genre, as their ‘coming-of-age’ stories can happen at any time, at any age, and can repeatedly occur throughout their lives. Through this lens, the transgender memoir offers an expansive definition of the bildungsroman, and to themes of human transformation in relationship to others, themselves, and the cultural and biological world. In this course we will be looking at the origins of the bildungsroman, and then applying and teasing out definitions and challenges to this genre through the memoirs of transgender writers Harry Dodge, Lou Sullivan, Cecelia Gentili, and Andrea Long Chu, essays of scholars Mel Y.Chen, Zeyn Joukhadar, Melissa Febos, Louise DeSalvo, and an edited volume by Catronia Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Ericson. Students will write one 10-15 page memoir piece, with a number of smaller personal essays and in class assignments.
THIS CLASS IS AVAILABLE IN PERSON
​AT ABRONS ARTS CENTER:
466 Grand Street, NY, NY

Tuesdays 6-9 PM EST
October 14th - November 4th, 2024
4 sessions +
culminating share out on Thursday November 14th 
$350 Tuition
BIPOC sliding scale available
50% low income discount available
+ $25 non-refundable registration fee

INSTRUCTOR

Tanya Marquardt is a writer, performer, Magyar-Canadian, and genderqueer. Their book Stray: Memoir of a Runaway was The Advocate Best Queer History & Bio, and their Pushcart nominated “The Transznemű Ember I Needed to See” was a Notable in Best American Essays 2022. Tanya’s writing appears in Prism, Medium, Plentitude, huffpost, OffAssignment, and Grain. A punk-musical version of Stray toured New York, Toronto and Vancouver; Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep, Tanya’s play about discovering a sleeptalking personae through their iPhone, was on NPRs Invisibilia. Their performance “Creature” toured to Budapest, Hungary. Tanya teaches writing at Hunter College.
Image of Lou Sullivan, from the Louis Graydon Papers, courtesy of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society.
This program is made possible through the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA).