Professor of Religious Studies SB Rodriguez-Plate recently presented the Seguinland Institute’s “Good Life” invited lecture. Seguinland, an alternative higher education institute on the coast of Maine, offers college-level credits while maintaining an emphasis on “gap year” and alternative/experiential education.
Rodriguez-Plate’s lecture, “Against Authenticity: Towards Authoring and Acting,” was intended to encourage students and the local community to think beyond the idea that we become authentic people when we “find ourselves.” In contrast, they encouraged people to “author themselves” and to make identity a work of performance in which we are all actors, shaping and forming who we are.
Drawing on their own experiences as a gender-queer person, Rodriguez-Plate emphasized the ways we all “perform” our identities, and in this way create our sense of self. “Our ‘self’ is not somewhere deep inside of us, but connected to our external environment, those we love and are in relationship to,” they said.
