ABSTRACT
Nelli Sargsyan pens a multi-genre autoethnography, written in English but peppered with Eastern Armenian and Russian, to reflect upon her experiences with courage and rage. She grapples with the question—what is bravery?—highlighting the assumptions of individualism and risk-taking in the dominant conception of bravery. Instead, Nelli argues that “we need to re-conceptualize bravery as a communally sustained practice,” including the notion of resonance between one’s bravery and the bravery of others in the community. For example, she reflects on the ways in which her students’ creative courage has influenced her own bravery in her classes and on campus. She invites women of color to consider the ways in which relationships with others may be a source of bravery, for “creative courage is contagious.”
