North America
This week highlights Audre Lorde’s “Notes from a Trip to Russia” because it was written based on her experience of participating in an African Asian Writers’ Congress in Tashkent as the only woman of colour. Her being a national of the USA does not exclude her affiliation with internationalist literary feminist/queer against hunger and sexism. Further, her tuned observation of racialized relations and class both in Russia and the USA is a valuable addition to this syllabus. Her writing of sexuality or pleasure in flirtation is also outstanding to reflect her queerness queering literary internationalism across the Cold War borders. Claudia Jones’ legendary journalist pieces would be complementary.
Primary text
Lorde, Audre. 2007(1984). “Notes from a Trip to Russia” in Sister Outsider. Berkeley: Crossing Press. Pp.13-35
Secondary texts
A forum of reflections on Audre Lorde’s Notes from a Trip to Russia in 2020.