Hilton Als’s latest book, White Girls, is an essay collection (personal and critical) that takes the idea of “white girl” and twists it through the lens of American culture.

It is a book that defies an easy read, or contemplation in solitude. Is it a mess, a mockery, and brilliant? Is it confusing, contradictory, and liberating? Does it serve identity politics to itself on a platter? Is it post racial? Is it fierce?

Join curators and artists Malene Dam, Bridget de Gersigny, and Ted Kerr for a public conversation on the book. Participants will be invited to read passages that stuck with them and that they want to discuss, and as a group we will engage in a conversation about the book, its impacts and possible meanings.

When is White Girl is part of “NO NARRATIVE PRECEDED US” an ongoing collaboration between Dam, de Gersigny, and Kerr started in Oct. 2013 with public conversations and performances in New York and at CCS Bard. Using the format of a reading group the collaboration explores the intersections of identity politics with shared queer and feminist histories across time.

White Girls is available for purchase at the Bureau. 

Bios:
Malene Dam is a Danish born artist and curator currently a student at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.  She engages in an array of issues related to contemporary society, most recently with a strong focus on queer temporality, histories of feminism, education, and conflict. Her research-based practice addresses temporal and spatial notions of cultural collectivizations, inquiring how discourses situate themselves as knowledge. She holds a BFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and a MFA in Photography and Media from CalArts.

Bridget de Gersigny is a South African born, visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Her work draws upon political history and technological communications, often related to shifting ideologies, through a post-colonial and queer lens. She is a 2014 Queer/Art/Mentorship Fellow and recently completed her MFA at ICP-Bard. She holds a BA degree from the University of Cape Town, in Psychology and Literature, and Art History from University of South Africa.

Canadian born Ted Kerr is a New York based artist, writer and organizer whose work focuses on queerness, HIV/AIDS and community. He was the 2011 Artist in Residence at the Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary, and is currently the programs manager at Visual AIDS.