Cities | Discussion Group: Kathy Acker - Don Quixote

Kathy Acker - Don Quixote hosted by Ainslie Roddick

"Women, as minority, have always been especially preoccupied with finding their own identity and with questioning the status that society has attached them to, as opposed to men who are supposed to have a centred and unquestionable identity. Turning back to the quote then, we will see that for a woman, the city would be, even to a greater extent than for a man, the place to be outside the familiar space, the place to get out of the unit usually associated with her and therefore, the place to become, to be. The city would provide the perfect metaphor for women's searching of the self."

Considering Cristina Garrigós González’s above provocation, we will read and discuss Kathy Acker’s 1994 Novel Don Quixote, Which Was a Dream. Acker’s Don Quixote is an indomitable woman on a formidable quest: to become a knight and defeat the evil enchanters of modern America by pursuing "the most insane idea that any woman can think of. Which is to love.'" In this visionary world, Don Quixote journeys through American history to the final days of the Nixon administration, passing on the way through a New York reminiscent of prerevolutionary St. Petersburg and a brutally defamiliarised contemporary London.

Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network.

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