Night School Durham

10/23/2026

Get cozy with a good book and great company at Night School in 2027. Many January-March classes are already available on our website. Sign up at nightschoolbar.com

10/23/2026

Upcoming classes and events this week at Night School Bar. The bar is open to everyone (21+) Thursday-Saturday, 5-11 PM. Enter in the rear if class is in session.

10/23/2026

10/20/2026

Religious Trauma has increasingly been recognized as a form of harm. Come discuss how religion affects our sense of self and society. Sign up at nightschoolbar.com

Religious Trauma [Durham, NC]
Instructor: Charles Rousseau | 5 Weeks | Wednesdays | November 4 - December 9 (no class November 25) | 7:00-9:00 PM | 719 N Mangum St, Durham, NC

Why is religion a source of healing for some and suffering for others? How do religious ideas become part of our sense of self? And who do we become when our religious world begins to unravel?

The term “religious trauma” has entered the language of therapists, clergy, journalists, and those seeking to understand painful religious experiences. While its meaning remains ambiguous and contested, the term draws attention to a paradox: the very traditions that nurture our sense of self can also distort and damage it. Precisely because religion can shape identity so deeply, the consequences of this paradox have often been especially acute for people whose identities or communities have been marginalized, excluded, or oppressed by religious institutions, including many LGBTQ+ people and others who have found themselves at odds with the religious traditions that shaped them.

This five-week, discussion-based course engages religion and trauma with both critical distance and imaginative sympathy. It places contemporary understandings of religious trauma in conversation with psychoanalysis, theology, philosophy, literature, and art. Together, we will explore how religion shapes the psyche through questions of belonging, authority, identity, desire, justice, suffering, and power.

Weekly readings, designed to take approximately 30 minutes, may include works by Judith Herman, Daniel Shaw, Erich Fromm, Carl Jung, James Baldwin, Shelly Rambo, and Randall Kenan, and selections from the Book of Job. Each class will bring visual art, theory, and literature into conversation through seminar-style discussion.

10/19/2026

Write from an embodied place. Sign up at nightschoolbar.com

Somatic Writing
Instructor: Anna Broadwell-Gulde | 5 Weeks | Mondays | November 2-December 7 (no class Nov. 23) | 7:00-9:00 PM | 719 N. Mangum St, Durham NC

What can our bodies teach us if we listen? How can guided movement, written reflection, and literary discussion help us access deeper layers of somatic experience? How might somatic practices generate new avenues for creative expression? In this five-week course, we’ll explore the body’s wisdom experientially, theoretically, and creatively. Each week, we’ll combine a somatic practice, such as breathwork, guided meditation, or gentle movement, with a discussion of a poem or theoretical text on embodiment and an in-class journaling prompt. The final class will offer participants the opportunity to share their work in small groups. Course texts may include but are not limited to works by Audre Lorde, Joy Harjo, Ocean Vuong, Mary Oliver, Lucille Clifton, bell hooks, Maggie Nelson, Ross Gay, and others.

10/17/2026

What makes a narrator reliable anyway? Aren’t we all unreliable in some way? Come discuss favorite short fiction and learn techniques for writing that can make your reader question both the narrator’s reality and their own. Sign up at nightschoolbar.com

The Unreliable Narrator: Fiction Writing Workshop [Durham, NC]
Instructor: Christa Westaway | 5 Weeks | Fridays | November 6-December 11 (no class Nov. 27) | 7:00-9:00 PM | 719 N. Mangum St, Durham NC

A story is shaped by the person who tells it. When narrators withhold details, give unclear accounts, or play to readers’ preferences, we question the story. Why would a writer choose to use the voice of an unreliable narrator? Rather than debate whether or not the facts of their story add up, we’ll ask how their version of reality might comment on or complicate our understandings of objectivity and shared reality. In this class you’ll be invited to ask questions like: who is this narrator, where are they in time, what is their motivation for telling this story, what details contradict what we think of as facts, and why are they making the story so complicated? Answers to these questions tell an alternative story, one that is just as open to interpretation as the story itself.

Over the course of five weeks, we’ll read and discuss the craft elements that inspire questions about unreliable narrators and the powerful storytelling techniques that keep us wondering, questioning, and in search of a story’s meaning. Through investigation we’ll look for the deeper commentary embedded in the hidden stories told by narrators. In addition to selected readings and group discussions, each week you will write stories of your own using guided prompts meant to inspire the creation of unreliable narrators and to encourage both practice and play. New and experienced writers are welcome!

10/16/2026

The week ahead — check out upcoming classes and events at Night School Bar. The bar is open to everyone (21+) Thursday-Saturday 5-11 PM. Enter in the rear if class is in session.

Sign up for one-day and multi-week classes at nightschoolbar.com. Free events don’t require registration.

See you at the bar for thinking and drinking, good company and great conversation.

10/12/2026

Do you experience the contradictions of working with the non-profit world? Sign up at nightschoolbar.com

Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex [Durham, NC]
Instructor: Leigh Campoamor | 5 Weeks | Tuesdays | November 3-December 8 (no class Nov. 24) | 7:00-9:00 PM | 719 N. Mangum St, Durham NC

The term “nonprofit industrial complex” refers to the ways nonprofits are enmeshed in powerful webs of elite influence from funders, who represent corporate and state interests. Most people who work in the nonprofit sector do it because they value the expressed goals of the organizations, despite constant funding cuts. However, some critics argue that nonprofits don’t serve the historically marginalized communities they claim to, and that they co-opt the language of social movements without effecting social change.

To understand how nonprofits came to dominate the organizing landscape in the U.S., we’ll look at the history of nonprofits and the role they play in contemporary neoliberal capitalism. Questions we will consider include: Does philanthropic funding direct nonprofit work away from community building? Does the need for nonprofits to sustain themselves disrupt their capacities to address systemic problems? Is there a way forward for social justice organizing that doesn’t require professionalization, corporatization, and competition for resources? And how has this all changed post-DOGE?

By sharpening our critique of the nonprofit industrial complex, we’ll also be able to think about possibilities for the future of nonprofits. Together we’ll explore how critiques of the nonprofit industrial complex allow us to ask deeper questions about the world we want to live in. Readings/viewings might include the following authors and organizations: INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence; Dean Spade; Ruth Wilson Gilmore; Andrea Smith; Dylan Rodriguez; and Christine E. Ahn.

10/11/2026

This one-day class is sold out! We do not anticipate having additional room, but we will accept folks on a walk-in basis if we have it. We are not keeping a waitlist and no additional reserved spots are available. We hope you’ll enjoy the market and visit us at the bar or for another class!

10/10/2026

Join us tonight as we celebrate 3 years on Mangum Street! Dress in your favorite vintage party clothes. We’re rolling up the rugs and throwing back to the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Cocktails, cake and great company as you find your posse of film nerds, literature lovers, or politicos. See you there! *FREE*