Sexuality and Queer Studies

Spring 2018

Instructor: Prof. Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman

SQS6b: T&TH,2-3:20, Shiffman 201

Office Hours: Rabb Hall, Room 135

Thursdays 11-1 and by appointment

Office Phone: 781-736-2165

Email:

Course Description:

This course introduces students to the academic study of sexuality and queer studies. Our primary goal is to explore the emergence of modern sexual and gendered categories (heterosexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, etc.) and the history and politics of sexual identity movements. Specifically, we will explore the impacts of social, cultural, historical, and political contexts on LGBTQ persons and communities over time.

Our readings trace the history of the field from its beginnings as Lesbian and Gay studies to the more recent institutionalization of queer theory. Topics under specific consideration include forms of oppression including heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia, as well as resistance to such oppression; queer activism, diverse experiences of sexuality; and representations of LGBTQ sexualities, identities and experiences in literature and film. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which other categories of identity, including gender, race, ethnicity, class, culture and nation, intersect with and shape sex and sexual identity.

Learning Objectives:

  • Identify and critically analyze key concepts, themes, and forms of expression in the interdisciplinary field of sexuality and queer studies.
  • Trace the development of LGBTQ activism in the United States with particular attention to inequities of race, class, citizenship status, access
  • Understand how sexuality—including bodies, desires, inclinations, and orientations— is socially constructed.
  • Understand and explicate the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality in the lives of LGBTQ persons and communities
  • Situate sexuality and queer studies as both an academic discipline and as a political site for liberatory social change

Required Texts:

Nikki Sullivan,A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory

James Baldwin,Giovanni's Room

Janet Mock,Redefining Realness

Jonathan Ned Katz,The Invention of Heterosexuality

Papers:

In this class, students will write 4 critical response papers of approximately 3-4, double- spaced pages. Guidelines for critical responses will be provided.

* Late papers will not be accepted except in cases of emergency. If unforeseen circumstances place you at risk for submitting a paper after its due date, please contact me in advance to arrange an alternate time to submit your paper.

Attendance and Participation:

Success in this four-credit course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for this class. Such preparation includes readings, research, and preparation of an oral presentation and papers. You are required to attend all classes when the college is open. Chronic absence and tardiness will adversely affect your ability to participate in class discussions and, thus, will adversely affect your grade. You are expected to come to class having read all of the assigned material for the class. Please bring to every class meeting specific questions and comments to contribute to class discussions.

*This class will occasionally ask you to read, hear, view difficult material and to engage in sometimes painful dialog. Your language, modes of address, questions, and contestations must be respectful and considerate of all other participants in the class.

*Unless otherwise and specifically approved for in-class work, the use of laptops, tablets, cell phones, and/or any other electronic means of communication is strictly prohibited in class.

Grading:

Critical Response Papers = 75 % of your grade

Attendance and Participation = 25% of your grade

Accommodations:

If you have a documented disability and wish to arrange for appropriate accommodations, please see me immediately.

Academic Integrity:

You are expected to fulfill your class requirements honestly. Plagiarism is when you use someone else's ideas, language, or work and pass if off as your own. This is theft, and it is cheating. Plagiarism is unforgivable in this class, as in all of your classes in this university. Students found guilty of plagiarism risk failure of the course and appearance before the university’s board of judicial affairs.

Schedule of Classes:

Note: We will follow this syllabus as closely as possible. If after class has gotten underway, I discover that some revisions are necessary, I will make them accordingly. You will be told of changes in advance.

Week 1

Thursday, 11 JanuaryCourse Introduction and overview

Week 2

Tuesday, 16 JanuaryClass Cancelled/To Be Rescheduled

Week 3

Tuesday, 23 JanuarySullivan, Chapter 1 “The Social Construction of Same-Sex Desire”; Foucault, “We the Other Victorians” (LATTE)

Thursday, 25 JanuarySullivan, Chapter 2 “Assimilation or Liberation: Sexuality or

Gender”; Halperin, “Is There a History of Sexuality?” (LATTE)

Week 4

Tuesday, 30 JanuaryGiovanni’s Room

Thursday, 1 FebruaryGiovanni’s Room;

Week 5

Tuesday, 6 FebruaryUnscheduled/Reading Day

Thursday, 8 FebruaryGiovanni’s Room; Before Stonewell (film)

Week 6

Tuesday, 13 FebruaryBefore Stonewell (film); Response Paper 1 Due

Thursday, 15 FebruarySomerville, “Scientific Racism and the Emergence of the

Homosexual Body” (LATTE); Ross, “Beyond the Closet as a

Raceless Paradigm” (LATTE)

Week 7

Tuesday, 27 FebruaryCohen “Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens”;

Moore, “Reframing Disclosure Paradigms: Coming Out, or

Inviting In” (LATTE)

Thursday, 1 MarchKatz, The Invention of Heterosexuality

Week 8

Tuesday, 6 MarchVanita Gupta class visit

Thursday, 8 MarchKatz, The Invention of Heterosexuality

Week 9

Tuesday, 13 MarchSullivan, Chapter 3 “Queer: A Question of Being or

a Question of Doing”; Berlant and Warner, “Sex in

Public”;Response Paper 2 Due

Thursday, 15 MarchMireille Miller-Young, “Putting Hypersexuality to Work:

Black Women and Illicit Eroticism in Pornography”

(LATTE); Robert Reid-Pharr, “Dinge” (LATTE);

Week 10

Tuesday, 20 MarchTongues Untied (film)

Thursday, 22 MarchClare, Eli, “Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies: Disability and

Queerness” (LATTE); McRuer “Compulsory Able-bodiedness and Queer Disabled Existence” (LATTE)

Week 11

Tuesday, 27 Marchbell Hooks, et al. video “Liberating the Black Female Body Panel”

Thursday, 29 MarchSullivan, Chapter 5 “Performance, Performativity, Parody,

and Politics”;Sullivan, “Fat Mutha: Hip Hop’s Queer Corpulent Poetics” (LATTE) ;Sullivan, “Fat Mutha: Hip Hop’s Queer Corpulent Poetics” (LATTE)

Week 12

Tuesday, 10 AprilMunoz, “Feeling Down, Feeling Brown: Latina Affect, The

Performativity of Race, and the Depressive Position” (LATTE); Ahmed, “Queer Feelings” (LATTE)

Thursday, 12 AprilSullivan, Chapter 6 “Transsexual Empires and Transgender

Warriors”; Snorton, “’A New Hope’: The Psychic Life of

Passing” (LATTE) ;Response Paper 3 Due

Week 13

Tuesday, 17 AprilMock, Redefining Realness;

Thursday, 19 AprilMock, Redefining Realness;

Week 14

Tuesday, 24 AprilMock, Redefining Realness;

Thursday, 26 AprilPuar and Rai, “Monster, Terrorist Fag”; Puar, “Queer Times,

Queer Assemblages”; Harper, “Take Me Home: Location,

Identity, Transnational Exchange” (LATTE)

Finals WeekResponse Paper 4 Due

Sexuality and Queer Studies

Opening Discovery and Discussion Questions

1)What motivated you to take this class, and what do you hope to gain from it?

2)What specific topics relating to sex, sexuality, and gender are you most interested to discuss?

3)Why might it be important to study the intersections of gender, race, ability, and nationality when studying the lives, histories, and politics of LGBTQI communities?

4)To what extent do you feel comfortable discussing issues of identity, group difference, social inequity, and power? How might these topics figure in the study of sexuality?