Teaching creative non-fiction with a black feminist methodology

Thursday 25th November 2021 11:00-12:30 | Online (zoom)

Minna Salami

A workshop/discussion centred around creative non-fiction and a multidisciplinary black feminist methodology presented by Minna Salami. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in short writing exercises set by Minna, and to hear her speak about her book Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone.

Minna Salami is a Nigerian, Finnish and Swedish writer, feminist theorist and lecturer. She is the founder of the multiple award-winning blog, MsAfropolitan, which connects feminism with contemporary culture from an Africa-centred perspective and the author of Sensuous Knowledge. Minna is listed alongside Angelina Jolie and Michelle Obama as one of 12 women changing the world by ELLE Magazine. She is a contributor to the Guardian, BBC, CNN, The Independent, Al Jazeera, the New Internationalist and many other publications.

As a lecturer and keynote speaker, Minna has spoken at over 200 universities, cultural events and conferences, on five continents. She has presented talks at some of the world’s most prominent institutions such as the UN, EU, The Oxford Union, The Cambridge Union and The Singularity University at NASA, and discussed #MeToo with Germaine Greer, Afropolitanism with Paul Gilroy and global feminism with Nawal El Saadawi. She has consulted governments on gender equality and she has curated events at The Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Series Overview

Creative writers teach in schools, universities and the community, on retreats, in theatres and in workshops. Teaching is often a key part of a writer’s career, and there are rich possibilities creative arts education across a huge range of contexts. But how do you teach creative writing? Can you? How can the field be made more accessible?This series offers anyone considering teaching creative writing as part of their career development the opportunity to look in detail at the theory and practice of creative writing pedagogy in a variety of institutional and community settings.

Following on from last year, the series will address the historical principles and contemporary critiques of creative writing pedagogy, and how these are responding to wider institutional and societal developments. It will consider in detail the theory and practice of employing these pedagogical skills both within and outside higher education. Attendees will be invited to reflect on future possibilities and challenges for the development of creative writing teaching, enabling a deeper awareness and knowledge of creative writing as a subject of study, a future career, and a creative practice.

Students are not expected to attend all the sessions, but the series has been designed to allow for an arc of learning from theoretical principles to practical engagement.

The sessions will take place online via Zoom, once a month for the 2021/22 academic year.