Our Kit of Misfit Parts
Location
We’ll meet at NYPL’s Stavros Niarchos Library Foundation, 5th Ave + 40th St, Room 604 (conference room along 5th Ave — hang a left when you exit the elevator!) at 4pm!
Agenda
This week we’ll meet one another, discuss our individual interests in the class and our collective goals, calibrate our logistical demands (i.e. figure out where y’all are coming from, and how much travel time we should build in!), and explore our plans for the fall and spring.
Looking Ahead
We’ll be visiting ABC No Rio in mid-October. You might be interested in the ABC No Rio Zine Fair @ MayDay Space on September 27!
Today’s Resources
I’ll be drawing on the following texts in my presentation today. You needn’t track them down and/or read them, but you’re welcome to do so if you’re so inclined!:
- Claude S. Fischer, “The Subcultural Theory of Urbanism: A Twentieth-Year Assessment,” American Journal of Sociology 101:3 (1975); “Twentieth Year Assessment” (1995): 543-77.
- Susan C. Schweik, The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (New York University Press, 2009).
- Julia Métraux, “Ugly Laws: The Blueprint for Trump’s Anti-Homeless Crusade,” Mother Jones (August 22, 2025).
- Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disability Act, PBS American Experience (2025) [documentary].
- Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht, dirs., Crip Camp (2020) [documentary].
- See also the NYU Center for Disability Studies and the work of NYPL’s Chancey Fleet.
- Robert Wuthnow, American Misfits and the Making of Middle-Class Respectability (Princeton University Press, 2017).
- Edward Said, Out of Place (Knopf, 1999)
- Edward Said: Out of Place (Al Jazeera, 2018) [documentary].
- Lidia Yuknavitch, The Misfit’s Manifesto (Simon and Schuster, 2017).
- Sam Adler-Bell, “MAGA Misfits vs. Nationalists vs. Reaganites vs. Dorks: The Battle of the Trump Transition,” New York Magazine (December 14, 2024).
- Amanda Shendruk and Catherine Rampell, “Here are the People Trump Doesn’t Want to Exist,” Washington Post (June 6, 2025).
- Louise Schouwenberg, ed., Hella Jongerius: Misfit (Phaidon, 2011).