The Unforgettables Reading/Working Group is a discursive event series that gathers together readers/workers from various disciplines and walks of life to discuss feminist texts old and new. Initiated by artist Ofri Cnaani and curator Roxana Fabius in 2016, the series looks to imagine a future where no one is forgotten.

Each session is led by a member of the A.I.R. community who curates a syllabus of texts or other media on a topic of their choosing. Everyone is invited to study, converse, and learn together, collectively contributing to a growing library of feminist futures.

To receive updates on the group’s meetings, please contact us at info@airgallery.org.

Season VII (2025)

Season VII: Session 3

Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 6:30 PM at A.I.R. Gallery

On Threats to Order

Led by kimi malka hanauer

Readings and Materials:

• Achille Mbembe, “The idea of a borderless world,” Circulations and the African Imagination of a Borderless World, Chimurenga Chronic, October 2018.

• Vicky Osterweil, “Introduction,” In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action, 2020, pp. 1–19.

• Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, “We have not forgotten French colonial crimes: a letter to Benjamin Stora,” The Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World, 2024, pp. 76–96.

Season VII: Session 2

Thursday, March 13, 2025 at 6:30 PM at A.I.R. Gallery

On Militourism & Sovereignty

Led by Aya Rodriguez-Izumi

Readings and Materials:

• Teresia Teaiwa, “Reading Paul Gauguin’s Noa Noa with Epeli Hau‘ofa’s Kiss in the Nederends: Militourism, Feminism, and the ‘Polynesian’ Body," Uts Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 1999, pp. 53–69.

• Haunani-Kay Trask , Introduction, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, 1999, pp. 1–21.

• “E Mau ke Ea: Sovereignty, Sanctuary, and Collective Liberation” a talk by Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio.

Season VII: Session 1

Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 6:30 PM at A.I.R. Gallery

On Constructing History

Led by Lizania Cruz

Readings and Materials:

• Sylvia Wynter, “Novel and History, Plot and Plantation,” 1971.

• Jacques Rancière, “Is History a Form of Fiction?,” The Politics of Aesthetics, 2004, pp. 35–41.

• Robin Coste Lewis, “Voyage of the Sable Venus” (excerpt), Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems, 2015, pp. 64–65.

Season VI (2021)

Season VI: Session 1

Tuesday, October 26, 2021 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom

On Identity Politics

Led by Christian Camacho-Light and Roxana Fabius

Readings and Materials:

• The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977).

Season V (2020)

Season V: Session 2

Monday, November 23, 2020 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom

Special Session (Obituaries of the American Dream): As a woman, femme, or gender nonconforming person living in America, what have you sacrificed in order to thrive professionally?

Led by Lizania Cruz

Readings and Materials:

• Audre Lorde, Poetry is not a luxury.

• Jacqueline Battalora, Birth of the White Nation, Youtube lecture.

• Kristen R. Ghodsee, Why Women Had Better Sex under Socialism. The New York Times, August 12, 2017.

• Lisa Lerer, Elizabeth Warren Says Child Care Is Key to Bringing the Economy Back. The New York Times, August 6, 2020.

Season V: Session 1

Monday, October 26, 2020 at 6 PM Eastern Time on Zoom

Led by Bat-Ami Rivlin and Joan Snitzer

Readings and Materials:

• Lambros Malafouris, At The Potters Wheel: An Argument for Material Agency (Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach, Knappett, Malafouris, 2008, pp. 19-36).

• Isabelle Graw, The Value of Liveliness: Painting as an Index of Agency in the New Economy (Harvard lecture, Painting Beyond Itself, 2013).

• Mignon Nixon, On The Couch (October, Vol. 113, 2005, pp. 39-76).

• Gabriel Orozco, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Carrie Lambert-Beatty and Megan Sullivan, To Make an Inner Time: A Conversation with Gabriel Orozco (October, Vol. 130, 2009, pp. 177-196).

Season IV (2019-2020)

Season IV: Session 5

Monday, May 18, 2020 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom

Led by Kyna Patel

Readings and Materials:

• Trio A (1978) by Yvonne Rainer.

• “A D.I.Y. Dance for your Home, from Yvonne Rainer” by Brain Seibert.

• The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt.

• Part 2, chapter 7 (The Public Realm: The Common), pages 50-58.

• Part 5, chapter 24 (The Disclosure of the Agent in Speech and Action), pages 175-181.

• "Twist, Bend, Reach, Step: A Merce Cunningham Solo Anyone Can Try" by Marina Harss.

• The dance is 50 Looks (1979) by Merce Cunningham.

Season IV: Session 4

Monday, April 27, 2020 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom

On the ways we are connected, our responsibility to one another, and the creative strategies we have at our disposal to meet difficult times

Led by Susan Stainman

Readings and Materials:

• Rebecca Solnit, Chapters 1 and 4 of Hope in the Dark. 

• Ross Gay, Joy Is Such A Human Madness from "The Book of Delights." 

• A letter exchange between Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark

Season IV: Session 3

Monday, April 6, 2020 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom

Led by Roxana Fabius and Renana Neuman

Readings and Materials:

• Lara Glenum, Funereal Mineral Landscape

• Donna Haraway, Chapter 3 of "Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene

• Meriem Bennani, 2 episodes of 2 Lizards

Season IV: Session 2

Tuesday, February 4, 2020 at 7 PM at A.I.R. Gallery

On feminist narratives of place in photography, film, and literature

Led by Maxine Henryson

Readings and Materials:

• Jane Rendell, Feminist Architecture from A to Z

• Jhumpa Lahiri In Other Words

• Sarah M. Broom The Yellow House

• Eudora Welty One time, One Place

Season IV: Session 1

Monday, October 28, 2019 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by H.A. Halpert

Readings and Materials:

• Catherine Malabou, Ontology of the Accident, 2012

• César Aria (translated by H.A.), Hepatitis Diary

Season III (2018-2019)

Season III: Session 5

Tuesday, July 9, 2019 at A.I.R. Gallery

On Darkness

Led by Christian Camacho-Light

Readings and Materials:

• Sampada Aranke, Material Matters: Black Radical Aesthetics and the Limits of Visibility, 2017

• Shaka McGlotten, Black Data, from “No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies,” 2016

• SAVVY Contemporary exhibition essay Ecologies of Darkness: Building Grounds on Shifting Sands, 2019

• Simone Browne, Torches, Torture, and Totau: Lantern Laws in New York City, from "Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness," 2015

Season III: Session 4

Monday, January 21, 2019 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Sarah Demeuse

Readings and Materials:

• Ursula Le Guin, Life on the Frontier, 1996

• Camilla Grudova, Unstitching, 2017

• Clarice Lispector, The Smallest Woman in the World, 1964

Season III: Session 3

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Diann Bauer

Readings and Materials:

• Karen Barad, Troubling Time/s and Ecologies of Nothingness: Re-Turning, Re-Membering, and Facing the Incalculable, 2017

• Laboria Cuboniks, Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation, 2015

• Arrival, dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2016

Season III: Session 2

Monday, November 19, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Roxana Fabius and Patricia M. Hernandez

Readings and Materials:

• Catherine D’Ignazio, Designing for Other (Than Straight, White, Rich Men), 2016

• Catherine D’Ignazio, Feminist Data Visualization

• Silvina Ocampo, The House Made of Sugar.

Season III: Session 1

Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Renana Neuman

Readings and Materials:

• Avery Gordon, Some Thoughts on Haunting and Futurity, 2011

• Audre Lorde, Between Ourselves, 1976

Season II (2017-2018)

Season II: Session 9

Monday, June 25, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Ofri Cnaani and Roxana Fabius

Readings and Materials:

• Layli Longsoldier, 38, 2018

• Christina Sharpe, The Weather, 2016

• Lucy Lippard, Undermining: A Wild Ride Trough Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West, 2014

Season II: Session 8

Monday, May 21, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Ofri Cnaani and Roxana Fabius

Readings and Materials:

• Denise Ferreira da Silva, On Difference Without Separability, 2016

• Clarice Lispector, Report on the Thing

Season II: Session 7

Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Elizabeth Povinelli

Readings and Materials:

• Elizabeth Povinelli, "Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism", 2016

Season II: Session 6

Monday, March 19, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Carlos Motta and John Arthur Peetz

Readings and Materials:

• Carlos Motta, John Arthur Peetz, Carlos Maria Romero, The Spit! Manifesto, 2017

Season II: Session 5

Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Aya Rodriguez-Izumi

Readings and Materials:

• Octavia Butler, Bloodchild, 1995

Season II: Session 4

Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Jack Halberstam

Readings and Materials:

• Jack Halberstam, Trans* A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability (Chapters 1, 2 and 6), 2017

Season II: Session 3

Monday, November 20, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

On 'Good Life' and Ugly Feelings

Led by Janna Dyke and Ofri Cnaani

Readings and Materials:

• Lauren Berlant, Excerpts from Cruel Optimism, 2011  

• Sianne Ngai, Introduction on Ugly Feelings, 2015

Season II: Session 2

Monday, October 16, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

On Identity politics and normativity/antinormativity in queer theory and queer theory's impact on the field of theory more generally

Led by Elizabeth Larison

Readings and Materials:

• Hilton Als, pages 11-51 of "Triste Tropiques" from White Girls, 2013

• Robyn Weigman, lecture "Eve's Triangles: Or Queer Theory without Anti-Normativity" 2014

• Rebekah Sheldon, Queer Universal, 2016

Season II: Session 1

Monday, September 18, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

On Agency and Perspectives on Cognition and Feminism and the implications of the body and mind dualism, trends in neuroscience, and alternatives in philosophies of science from a feminist perspective

Led by Park Myers

Readings and Materials:

• Helena Knyazeva, Nonlinear Cobweb of Cognition, 2008

• Antonia Majaca and Luciana Parisi, The Incomputable and Instrumental Possibility, 2016

• Kate Shepherd, FWD: The Telephone Game, 2014

Season I (2016-2017)

Season I: Session 7

Monday, June 26, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Katherine Behar

Readings and Materials:

• Katherine Behar, Introduction to Object Oriented Feminism, 2016

• Anne Pollock, Queering Endocrine Disruption, 2016

• Katherine Behar, Facing Necrophilia or 'Botox Ethics', 2016

Season I: Session 6

Monday, May 22, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

On Latinx Feminisms

Led by Christian Camacho-Light and Roxana Fabius

Readings and Materials:

• Donna Kate Rushin, "The Bridge Poem" from This Bridge Called My Back (ed. by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa), 1981

• Gloria Anzaldúa, "La conciencia de la mestiza" from Borderlands: La Frontera, 1987

• Rita Segato, "Patriarchy from Margin to Center: Discipline, Territoriality, and Cruelty in the Apocalyptic Phase of Capital", 2016

• Sofia Cordova, "La Vedette de América", 2012

Season I: Session 5

Monday, April 24, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Gabriela Vainsencher and Megan Pahmier

Readings and Materials:

• Emily Dickinson: Article by her publisher (including poems and letter fragments), 1891

• Virginia Woolf, An Excerpt from A Room of One’s Own,Chapter 3, 1929

• Elena Ferrante (2 texts), Excerpts from letters to her editors, 2016

• Alexandra Schwartz, "The Unmasking of Elena Ferrante", 2016

• Adrian Piper, Art Criticism Essay Suggested Guidelines, 2016

Season I: Session 4

Monday, March 20, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Ofri Cnaani and Roxana Fabius

Readings and Materials:

• Hannah Arendt, "A Classless Society" from The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

• Rebecca Solnit, "Short History of Silence" from The Mother of All Questions, 2017

• Emma Goldman, "Victims of Morality", 1913

Season I : Session 3

Monday, February 20, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Roxana Fabius and Patricia Margarita Hernández

Readings and Materials:

• Donna Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto", 1984

• Rosi Braidotti, "Four Theses on Posthuman Feminism" from Anthropocene Feminism, 2016, edited by Richard Grusin

• Joan D. Vinge, "Tin Soldier", 1974

Season I: Session 2

Monday, January 30, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Amber Esseiva

Readings and Materials:

• Judith Butler, preface from Precarious Life, 2006

• Zadie Smith, Speaking in Tongues, 2009

• Michelle Cliff, If I Could Write This In Fire, 2008

Season I: Session 1

Monday, December 12, 2016 at A.I.R. Gallery

Led by Ofri Cnaani and Roxana Fabius  

Readings and Materials:

• Shulamith Firestone, The first chapter of The Dialectic of Sex, 1970

• Karen Barad, excerpt from Posthumanist Performativity: Toward and Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter , 2003

• Anne Boyer, excerpt from Garments Against Women, 2015

• Ursula K. Leguin, She Unnames Them, 1985