The College Fix

Known for her graphic ‘home birth’ comic

Rape culture permeates America, or so we’re told. Want to learn about it in depth?

The New School in New York City is offering a course on “rape culture & sexual justice” this fall, taught by a “feminist performance artist” who also wears hats as a writer, curator, professor, actor and mother.

That “mother” part may be where Christen Clifford’s work has seen the most mainstream attention: She wrote a comic that graphically depicted her home birth, including jumping out of the birthing pool naked and in a rage.

The 4-credit course, with enrollment capped at 18 and a current waitlist, tells students that rape culture is “everywhere” and “everyone’s talking about it,” but few can define and explain it:

This writing intensive course looks at sexual violence in literature and pop culture and asks students to consider different, perhaps difficult, points of view. We will look at the history of ownership during colonization, and investigate social and political issues including rape, equality, justice and patriarchy through critical writing and art. Digital events will be looked at in real time during the months this class is in session. This course emphasizes close readings and a final project.

If you can’t get into her class this fall, Clifford is teaching a slightly different course in the spring with a different course heading:

She has seen mainstream success with actress Molly Ringwald’s reading her work on NPR. That essay on gender, feminism and aging is called “Mother, Daughter, Mustache” and it was published in a Penguin anthology called Women in Clothes in 2014.

Clifford formerly taught at the State University of New York-Purchase, has been a visiting scholar at New York University and has won multiple awards. She is a “core member of the feminist performance art collective the No Wave Performance Task Force,” according to her bio.

Her published work appears exactly where you’d expect to see it – Salon and The Huffington Post (again, involving nudity in front of strangers) as well as lesser-known journals – and her art has been covered in Jezebel, The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Artforum among others.

Clifford’s research interests are “Gender, sexuality, queer culture, equality, the feminine, feminism, activism, sexual assault, rape culture, performance art, theatre, nonfiction literature, video art, writing for performance, solo performance, art and activism, feminist performance art, memoir, essay, storytelling.”

Learn more about Clifford’s courses on her New School bio page.

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IMAGE: Aspen Photo/Shutterstock

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