Gender Studies Graduate Research Workshop
Title: Jahan Jahan
This collection of love poetry revisits a Persian tradition with a homoerotic emphasis. While addressing or discussing the beloved, the speaker in this series contemplates death, exile, religion, political protest, queer space, & the end of the world. Written in strict forms, these poems also use non-binary gendered pronouns following Persian grammar.
Presenter: Jahan Khajavi (MFA English)
Jahan Khajavi is a poet & MFA student in Creative Writing at the University of Notre Dame. When not in South Bend, Jahan lives & works in Rome, Italy with recent performances there at the Fondazione Giuliani, the Swiss Institute, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, & Silvia Fendi’s backyard.
February 28
4:00 pm
336 O’Shaughnessy
Title: places we might find her body
places we might find her body is a book about memory, nature, addiction, transition, personhood, and, most of all, home. Whether that place is real, imagined, or no longer accessible, the speaker within these poems experiences “home” as both a yearning as well as a site of trauma. They make and unmake themselves and those around them in an attempt to understand and reconcile the events that led to their mother’s addiction—and subsequent disappearance—simultaneously as they navigate their own traumas in a queered body.
Presenter: s.c. bostwick (MFA English)
s.c.bostwick is a nonbinary trans poet born and raised on Coast Salish Territory, now known as the pacific northwest. They are a second year MFA candidate in poetry at Notre Dame and an editorial assistant for Action Books. Their work can be found in Homology Lit and is forthcoming in Deluge and Dream Pop Press. They are currently working on their first collection of poetry centered around nature, memory, home, addiction, and, of course, a mother’s love.