Week 11: Awaeke Emezi’s Freshwater and the Battle for Transgender Rights

In light of our upcoming Literary Arts Festival, featuring Akwaeke Emezi (author of Freshwater), and the current controversy over Bud Light and Transgender Rights, please read and reflect on the following pieces:

“My Friends and Family Know I’m Not a Woman”: Akwaeke Emezi on Figuring Out She Is Transgender

by Otosirieze Ob-Young

January 20, 2018

Akwaeke Emezi, most recently photographed for Vogue ahead of the release of her debut novel Freshwater, has come out as a non-binary transgender person—she is not a man in a woman’s body, she is just not a woman. She realized this five years ago and has since undergone surgeries to remove her uterus.

“It’s easier when I’m alone. My friends and family know I’m not a woman — I’ve told them — but some continue to think of me as one anyway,” she writes in a new, intimate essay for New York Magazine‘s The Cut. “I ignore it because sometimes it’s easier to not fight, to accept the isolation of being unseen as a safe place. I exist separate from the inaccurate concept of gender as a binary; without the stricture of those categories, I don’t even have to think about my gender. Alone, there’s just me, and I see myself clearly.”

But her case is a peculiar one, as she is also an ogbanje—a term she has used for herself for years now. An ogbanje, in Igbo cosmology, is a being born into the world but who constantly leaves to rejoin the spirit world.

Children, inhabited by Ogbanje, (like Ada in Freshwater) grow up sensuous and multi-dimensional, while also struggling with their sense of self, an often tumultuous journey that requires enormous stamina to stay strong.  

Also read: “Behind the Backlash Against  Bud Light’s Trans Gender Influencer”

Akaeke Emezi will read from her work at the Literary Arts Festival, this Thursday, April 27 (4-6) in the New Theater on Jay Street.

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OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Please join us at the 2023 City Tech Literary Arts Festival on Thursday, April 27, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., at the Academic Complex Theater, 285 Jay Street.. 

This year’s event features acclaimed multidisciplinary artist, writer, and a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree Akwaeke Emezi, author of Freshwater and the bestsellers You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty and The Death of Vivek Oji. 

Please register here now!  

All are welcome  

There is also a limited virtual option to join by Zoom available to City Tech students, faculty & staff. Please choose the virtual option when registering for the event and the link will be sent two days before the event.  

For more information see 

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/literaryartsfestival/

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Ahead of the event:

Register to attend in person or on zoom. I will also provide a recording of the event if the time and date are not convenient for you.

I will offer extra credit for any students who post their thoughts about the event and/or reading.

Watch: My introduction to  Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater: Video

Read: Chapters 1-3 of Freshwater: HERE

Content Warning: After chapter 3, the novel covers some difficult material relating to self-harm and sexual assault.  We will not be reading the full novel together but I encourage you to do so if you find the novel as captivating as I do. It is a brilliant, beautiful work but, again, covers difficult material.

I am also giving an extension for your modernism assignment. If you have not uploaded it, please do so by Wednesday, April 24th.

Here are the directions:

The Modernism Assignment asks that you review two sites on the Poetry Foundation website:

1) Literary Modernism and 2) “Harlem Renaissance”

STEP ONE: Read “Literary Modernism,” then scroll down. Choose one of the listed poets.  Read the poet’s biography, then choose one of his or her poems for discussion.

STEP TWO: Write a 3 paragraph response to the poet and poem

Paragraph #1: Summarize key points from the poet’s biography (be sure to use the biography from this site)

Paragraph #2: Connect a biographical detail to the main theme of the poem (or connect the poet or poem to a point addressed in the essay on modernism).

Paragraph#3: Discuss what you find “modern,” interesting, or unusual about the poem.  Include your favorite line(s) that demonstrate this.

STEP THREE: Do this again for a poet from the “Harlem Renaissance”

STEP FOUR: By Mon., April 27, upload this assignment to our googledrive link: HERE

To upload a file from your computer press “new” (on upper left corner) and then “upload file”

Due Date: Mon. April 27