On October 21, 2011, writer Edwidge Danticat spoke at the Africana Studies Program's Distinguished Alumnae Series about her book Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work, as well as her time as a student at Barnard.  Danticat, a Haitian immigrant to the U.S., proposed the power of reading and writing as dangerous forms of resistance, stressing the idea that every act of creation is a risk.  To create dangerously then, means also to create fearlessly, requiring the search for truth despite powers that may oppose it (such as oppressive regimes).  Danticat said that storytelling gives strength to both the teller and the audience, and thus artists often create for something larger than themselves.  After reading a passage about an immigrant mother who searches for a way to tell a story to her child, she noted that her best writing teachers were the storytellers of her childhood in Haiti and Brooklyn, many of whom were illiterate.

Danticat's insights reminded me of the political nature of both writing and reading.  It made me curious as to what many of the authors of the books and articles I read in my gender studies courses hope to achieve in their writing.  Is it greater consciousness for themselves and their readers?  Do they hope to have some kind of concrete effect on the way things function (or does an increased awareness lead to change in and of itself)?  Danticat's comment about the illiterate storytellers who influenced her also made me wonder about whose stories/viewpoints can be heard and spoken and whose are left out or silenced.  I think this question is particularly relevant in any discussion about Western feminism and “Third World women.”  While writers like Chondra Mohanty and Uma Narayan stress the importance of understanding “local” contexts, one must ask through what channels we can receive this contextual information (i.e. whose voices are allowed to travel across national, cultural, or linguistic borders), especially if some of the women we are talking about cannot read or write.  This discussion about who is heard and why they are heard is relevant not only in a global landscape, but also within our own nation.

--Renee Slajda