The English department at Georgia College & State University invited author Addie Tsai to campus Wednesday evening to speak about her “breathtaking [Frankenstein] retelling full of queer, biracial, gender-swapping goodness,” according to an event listing discovered by the New Guard.
The lecture was sponsored by GCSU’s fully-funded Creative Writing master’s degree program.
The writer, who identifies as “nonbinary” herself and lists “any/all” pronouns in her email signature, has worked as a professor at several colleges and universities throughout the country since 2008 and currently teaches creative writing courses at the College of William and Mary.
“It was a few years ago I began to consider ways to rewrite the novel from a queer and biracial/non-white lens,” Tsai said in a statement shared with the New Guard. She went on to explain that members of the LGBTQ+ community frequently feel excluded from classical works of literature and that to “queer them, figuratively and literally,” helps her community feel more represented.
Tsai has given dozens of lectures on college campuses around the country, including the University of California, Regis University, and the University of Arizona, among others.
In June, following the pro-life Dobbs victory in the Supreme Court, Tsai offered to perform complimentary copyediting services in exchange for donations of $50 or more to abortion organizations.
i am in the middle of a cross-country move but i feel helpless. if you could use support on: feedback on 10-20 pages, query, cover letter, or something else I'm not thinking of – & you send me a receipt for $50 to abortion funds – i got you
— 蔡一芝 (addie tsai) has no chill & is proud of it (@addiebrook) June 24, 2022
A review of the other speakers featured in GCSU’s Visiting Writers series indicates that every single one of the three guest lecturers uses their work to advance leftist social causes. Shouldn’t students who are studying creative writing be exposed to the classical works of literature that have been revered by human society for centuries? Students should have the opportunity to learn from a broad variety of perspectives.