Content note: trigger warnings, microaggressions within

In an early episode of the fourth season of Lena Dunham’s hipster HBO comedy Girls, the auteur’s character, Hannah, is about to read a short story composition to her classmates in a creative writing workshop. It’s an intimate group. Hannah is at the head of the table; sitting around it are the professor and 10–12 students. The other students in the class were given a copy of the story earlier and are supposed to have read it already. This will be the first time the class hears the author read it aloud to them.