Sunday May 17, 2015
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
THE POWERHOUSE ARENA [Dumbo]
37 Main Street
Brooklyn, NY
11201
For more information, please call 718.666.3049
RSVP appreciated: RSVP@powerHouseArena.com
-or-
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In her most personal book yet, poet, critic, scholar and nonfiction writer Maggie Nelson recons with the complexities and joys of queer family-making through a firsthand account that blends memoir with critical theory.
About The Argonauts:
“In the 17th century a book like Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts might have been called an anatomy, by which I mean it’s a learned, quirky, open-hearted, often beautiful naming-of-parts. The anatomy never forgets the fragile embodied world–its carnality or its finitude. And such is The Argonauts: a memoir (debriefing, really) at once raw, pensive, exhilarating, sad, funny, and embodied in the same profound way. Some of the memoirist’s topics are unprecedented. Merely by describing her works and days, Nelson—like a kind of female Voltaire—could be said to wage staunch battle against the as-yet-undead forces of banality, stupidity, prejudice, and moral sloth.” —Terry Castle, author of The Professor: A Sentimental Education
Maggie Nelson has made a name for herself as a border-smashing writer of books that straddle poetry and prose, academic writing and cultural reporting, memoir and criticism. At its center is a romance: the story of the author’s relationship with artist Harry Dodge, who is fluidly gendered. Nelson describes the complexities and joys of becoming a stepmother to Harry’s son, as well as her journey to conceive the child who they are now raising together.
Writing in the spirit of critics like Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Nelson’s experience serves as a way to explore how iconic thinkers and theorists have tried to untie the vexing knots that limit the way we talk about gender and the domestic institutions of marriage and childbirth. Perfect for fans of Eula Biss, Leslie Jamison, and Anne Carson, The Argonauts is a must-read for literati, academics, and anyone interested in the new contours of the contemporary American family.
About the Author:
Maggie Nelson is a poet, critic, and nonfiction author of books such as The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, Bluets, and Jane: A Murder. She teaches in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts and lives in Los Angeles, California.
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