Jamie Warren

Jamie Warren has a Ph.D. in American History from Indiana University, and she is an Assistant Professor at BMCC-CUNY where she teaches American history, the history of women and gender, and women’s studies. Her research focuses on slavery in antebellum South with a particular focus on death, the body, and the philosophy of history.


Past Olios with Jamie Warren


“To Get Free of Oneself”: Power, Self, and the Possibility of Beauty in the Work of Michel Foucault

By the end of the course, you will be familiar with Foucault’s major works and major claims. But more importantly, you will find yourself transformed. Seriously. Foucault never fails to change me at my core, and I am always thankful for the ride.

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

May 18, 2021, 6 p.m.

Reconstruction 101: The True Beginning of the Nation We Live in Today

From Constitutional rights to the basic question of “What is the ideal relationship between a person and her government?” one cannot understand America’s present conflicts without understanding what is arguably the true beginning of the nation we live in today.

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Feb. 7, 2021, 3 p.m.

Society Must be Defended

No one needs to be reminded of the critical importance of this election. We hope this event will help you develop more meaningful discourse in your own family and communities about what, exactly, is at stake. Being alive right now is a scary thing. But I truly believe that Foucault, had he lived to see it, would have found this moment truly thrilling in its rich possibilities for creative social transformation. He might have also said “I told you so.”

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Oct. 4, 2020, 4 p.m.

What is Memorial Day? Historical Memory and Intentional Forgetting

Let's join together on the day after Memorial Day for this political action of reading and remembering. Indeed, this holiday of remembering is about much more than honoring dead soldiers.

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

May 26, 2020, 10 p.m.

Where is your 'RightNow?' The Philosophy of History *Sold Out*

This is a six-part Olio seminar on the philosophy of history. While history is the study of the past, the philosophy of history is a study of how we study the past. Stated differently, the philosophy of history interrogates the historical imagination, and asks us to question why we believe the past is worthy of our attention.

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

May 17, 2020, 4 p.m.

*Sold Out* Where is Your 'Right Now'? The Philosophy of History Seminar

This is a six-part Olio seminar on the philosophy of history. While history is the study of the past, the philosophy of history is a study of how we study the past. Stated differently, the philosophy of history interrogates the historical imagination, and asks us to question why we believe the past is worthy of our attention.

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

May 17, 2020, 4 p.m.

The World Before Germs

In this Olio we will learn about the history of germ theory, and the contentious efforts made to convince the public that their most feared killers were invisible.

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

April 7, 2020, 7:30 p.m.

What is an Author?

Join Jamie Warren for an Olio dedicated to analyzing and discussing Michel Foucault’s much-celebrated essay, “What is an Author?” We will learn about Foucault’s concept, “the author function” and its chilling role in the production of ideology and power.

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

March 5, 2020, 7:30 p.m.

'I would die for you’: The Feminist Politics of a Broken Heart

Rather than viewing their weakness for love as a contradiction of feminist strength, this Olio will explore the possibilities for thinking of the broken heart as a breeding ground for radical thought and social transformation.

Venue: None

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Feb. 28, 2020, 7:30 p.m.

The Art of Dying, The Act of Grieving

This Olio will look the lost art of dying, the absence of clear social expectations for the grieving, and try to understand how and why we let death disappear from life.

Venue: Work Heights - Electric

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Dec. 19, 2019, 7:30 p.m.

Eros: The Geometry of Desire

Does falling in love trap us, keeping us bound to our beloved? Or, is it in fact the absence of love that cages us? With Anne Carson as our muse, Jamie Warren guides us through an evening dedicated to the topic of Eros.

Venue: Moon Rise Studio

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Oct. 23, 2019, 7:30 p.m.

The Art of Dying, The Act of Grieving

Join Jamie Warren in a Bushwick artist's apartment as we discuss death and grieving. This Olio will look at the lost art of dying, the absence of clear social expectations for the grieving, and try to understand how and why we let death disappear from life.

Venue: Living Room

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Sept. 13, 2019, 7 p.m.

Death, Sex, Race, and Other Lies We Tell Our Bodies

Join Jamie Warren for an Olio dedicated to the often overlooked chapter in Foucault's "History of Sexuality" entitled 'Right of Death and Power Over Life' Why does a book about modern sexuality conclude with a thesis on death?

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

July 11, 2019, 7 p.m.

OlioTour | Federal Hall & African Burial Ground

In this Olio, we will try to understand how a people who lived in a world vastly different from our own, made sense of their lives by burying their dead. Join us for an Olio + walking tour to the African burial ground.

Venue: Federal Hall

Teacher: Jamie Warren

June 25, 2019, 6 p.m.

The Emergence of Sexuality

Join Jamie Warren at the beautiful Assemblage Nomad space as we look closely at Foucault's claims about sexual repression, societal norms, and the notion of the 'self' in modern life.

Venue: The Assemblage | NoMad

Teacher: Jamie Warren

June 14, 2019, 7 p.m.

What Would Buffy Do? Radical Feminism and the Slayer

In this Olio we'll gather in Neuehouse's beautiful screening room and ask ourselves what lessons we can learn from the slayer as we navigate modern patriarchy and capitalism.

Venue: Neuehouse Madison Sq.

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Feb. 25, 2019, 7:30 p.m.

OlioHouse | Our Stories, Our Bodies: Rape Culture in American History

This Olio will examine what it means to live in a rape culture. While the goals of this weekend will remain rooted in learning from academic scholarship, participants might find that such scholarship can provide a source of transformation and even healing.

Venue: OlioHouse | Wassaic, NY

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Feb. 2, 2019, noon

Somebody to Love: A Feminist Reading of Freddie Mercury

We will talk about whether identity categories provide strength and solidarity, or do they limit the radical and creative possibilities just beneath the surface of political life?

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Jan. 11, 2019, 7 p.m.

OlioHouse | Homecoming Dance 2018

In this Olio we will lay our nostalgia bare, and try to reckon with this powerful, political emotion.

Venue: OlioHouse | Wassaic, NY

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Nov. 17, 2018, noon

Woman as Other, Woman as Lover: The Search for Self and The Politics of Love

In this Olio, we will examine how the experience of being other shapes women’s relationship to the world around them, and perhaps more importantly, to themselves.

Venue: Blender Workspace

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Oct. 17, 2018, 7:30 p.m.

OlioHouse Launch Weekend

Join us for the launch of OlioHouse in Wassaic, NY. The Full Day includes an introductory lesson, lunch, a writing workshop, a drawing class, the evening Olio, and a bonfire to cap it all off.

Venue: OlioHouse | Wassaic, NY

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Sept. 15, 2018, 11:30 a.m.

Think Olio Wassaic | Eros: The Bittersweet

Join us for our first Olio in Wassaic, NY. Are the edges of the self similar to the edges of the written word? Abstract, arbitrary, and open to transformation? Does falling in love bring us closer to our truest self? Or, does love’s force have the power to annihilate the self?

Venue: OlioHouse | Wassaic, NY

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Sept. 15, 2018, 6 p.m.

Olio Seminar | Sex, Power, and Self: A Feminist Exploration of Pleasure and Pain

In the midst of the profound cultural shift, feminists have found themselves, once again, debating which sexualities and pleasures are acceptable and which must be denounced. Can a woman claim to be liberated and simultaneously take delight in her own sexual submission?

Venue: Nowadays

Teacher: Jamie Warren

July 16, 2018, 7:30 p.m.

Think Olio x Brooklyn Museum | America Was Never White

In this Olio we will join together in this political action of reading and remembering, fittingly, on Independence Day weekend.

Venue: The Brooklyn Museum

Teacher: Jamie Warren

July 7, 2018, 6 p.m.

The Myth of Progress: Our Most Violent Fantasy

Let us look closely at the myth of historical progress and ask ourselves just how we came to believe that the past exists in service to the future.

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

May 11, 2018, 8 p.m.

A Radical Prescription for Democracy

In this Olio, participants wrestle with the relationship between democracy and freedom.

Venue: BAM Fisher

Teacher: Jamie Warren

March 15, 2018, 7:30 p.m.

Perverts, Creepers, and Freaks: A History of Sexual Perversions

In this Olio, we will explore the history of sexual perversions, examining how and why particular sexual desires and behaviors were labeled as bad, abnormal, and unnatural at certain periods in Western thought.

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

March 9, 2018, 7 p.m.

Think Olio Read-In | The 2nd Amendment

We must reckon with the possibility that the NRA’s political influence will not wane as long as their message dominates our discourse. In this spirit, we invite you to participate in a Think Olio Read-In of the 2ndAmendment.

Venue: Judson Memorial Church

Teacher: Jamie Warren

March 8, 2018, 7:30 p.m.

The Body in a Cage: Modern Prisons, External and Internal

Big Brother watching you? Surveillance state surrounding you? So what. Power has already trained you to survey yourself, to discipline your body and soul into obedience.

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Feb. 9, 2018, 7 p.m.

The Monster Right Here: Cold War Nostalgia and the Ambiguity of Goodness in Stranger Things

The government is bad, only kids know the truth, friendship is the highest moral good, and magic is real. But, still, we must ask, who is the monster?

Venue: Nowadays

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Jan. 31, 2018, 7:30 p.m.

**Olio Seminar** // Woman as Other, Woman as Lover

This seminar will go deep, straight to the intellectual bone, as we wrestle with our own demons of self, sex, love, and our longing for authentic freedom.

Venue: Nowhere Studios

Teacher: Jamie Warren

July 9, 2017, 3 p.m.

The Woman Question

The woman question actually posed the inquiry: 'What are women good for?' Let's discuss the psychic and social ramifications of being a question.

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

June 30, 2017, 7 p.m.

Buffy 20th Anniversary Party // A Radical Feminist Seeks Answers from The Slayer

Through discussion and the viewing of a few clips, we will look critically at the show’s overarching narrative, asking ourselves: Was Buffy truly a feminist icon? If so, what kind of feminist?

Venue: The Footlight Bar

Teacher: Jamie Warren

June 17, 2017, 7 p.m.

*Read-in* America Was Never White: The Costs of Historical Memory and Intentional Forgetting

Memorial Day actually has significant and little-known ties to the history of American slavery and the ongoing struggle to preserve, remember, and honor the history of black Americans amidst the cultural cancer of white-supremacist historical revisioning.

Venue: Chinatown Soup

Teacher: Jamie Warren

May 28, 2017, 3 p.m.

She's Not Your Mother: Ecofeminism and the Gender of Agriculture

In naming our planet Mother Earth, are we empowering women? Or are we in fact naturalizing and justifying the exploitation of women’s bodies?

Venue: WeWork North Williamsburg

Teacher: Jamie Warren

April 12, 2017, 7 p.m.

It's Not Their Country Yet: Organizing the Resistance Across the Blue/Red Divide | FUNDRAISER

Down Home North Carolina and Hoosier Action seek to build a new model for small-town America.

Venue: The Footlight Bar

Teacher: Jamie Warren

March 21, 2017, 7 p.m.

Making Kerouac Our Bitch: On Being a Woman and a Reader of Misogynist Writers

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

March 10, 2017, 7 p.m.

What Would Buffy Do? A Radical Feminist Seeks Answers from The Slayer

Venue: Brooklyn Boulders

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Feb. 25, 2017, 6 p.m.

Society Must Be Defended: A Call to Intellectual Arms

Venue: IDIO Gallery

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Feb. 19, 2017, 4 p.m.

Woman as Other, Woman as Lover: The Search for Self and the Politics of Love

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Jan. 13, 2017, 7 p.m.

The Woman Question

Venue: BOND Collective Gowanus

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Dec. 6, 2016, 7:30 p.m.

Emergence of Sexuality: Foucault, Sexual Identities, and the Modern Self

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Oct. 13, 2016, 7:30 p.m.

The Monster “Right Here”: Cold War Nostalgia and the Ambiguity of Goodness in Stranger Things

Venue: Brooklyn Boulders

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Sept. 24, 2016, 7:30 p.m.

What Would Buffy Do? A Radical Feminist Seeks Answers from The Slayer

Venue: Strand Bookstore

Teacher: Jamie Warren

Aug. 3, 2016, 7:30 p.m.

To Die is to Become: Death and the Self in the Philosophy of Foucault

Venue: Berg'n

Teacher: Jamie Warren

July 14, 2016, 7:30 p.m.

The Emergence of Sexuality: Foucault, Sexual Identities, and the Modern Self

Venue: Nowadays

Teacher: Jamie Warren

June 21, 2016, 7:30 p.m.

Corpse, Cadaver, or Carcass? Dead Bodies and the Making of Race

Venue: Round K

Teacher: Jamie Warren

May 24, 2016, 7:30 p.m.


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Olio: A miscellaneous collection of art and literature.