Step 1: Close Reading

In Depth

Read and invite co-creators of the Pop-Up to read the following two chapters:  

1) Alyson Patsavas’s “How to Make a Trauma Kit,” in Feminist Making, Doing and Sensing

2) Margaret Price’s “Access Priming,” in Feminist Making, Doing and Sensing

In addition, we recommend two additional readings: 

3). the opening chapter, “A Pedagogy of Unwellness,”  to Mimi Khúc’s dear elia: Letters From the Asian American Abyss, published by Duke University Press in 2024. 

This book includes an example of a student-created Tarot Card, available as an open access resource here; this Student card is a key reference in the student testimonials on assessment.

4). Rob Macaisa Colgate’s Hardly Creatures (Tin House Books, 2025) 

Close reading, as the heart of collaboration and conversation, involves its own set of choices: decide how best to model, invite, and share close readings of these assigned texts.  

See here for sample handouts, created by Ada Jaarsma for her Philosophy & Critical Health Studies course, that model how these readings might become integrated into lessons.