MCM 0901A: Unruly Crossings: Queerness, Race, and Globalization
Spring 2011
Instructor
Ani Maitra
Office Hours: Fridays, 2-4 pm, 155 George Street (Room 208)
Email Address:
Time and Location
Seminar: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1-2.20 pm
Location: The Henkle Room (Room 106) at 155 George Street
Screenings: Sundays and Mondays, 7-11 pm
Location: The Henkle Room
Course Description
What happens to sexuality and race when bodies cross borders? This course uses queerness as a critical tool to examine the normative sexual and gendered assumptions underpinning contemporary discourses of race and diaspora. We will ask: What do racism, sexism, and homophobia have in common and how do they differ? How have prevalent ideas of sexuality, race, and gender impacted national, global, and diasporic cultural formations? What can the experience and representations of queer migrants tell us about the global-local divide and its implicit forms of control? Participants will be introduced to theoretical readings (from critical race theory, feminist & queer theories, ethnography, and psychoanalysis) as well as to popular media and literary
representations of queer and immigrant identities and cultures.
Enrolment limited to 20. Prerequisite: one MCM course. All others must seek the permission of the instructor.
Requirements
● Active attendance at all screenings and seminars: This means that you have read all the texts at least once before class. Also, please remember to bring your texts, reading notes, and blog posts to class. ● Regular blog posts
● 1 seminar presentation
● Two short papers (5-7 pages)
● One final paper (8-10 pages)
● Completion of all assignments. There will be no extensions except in exceptional cases.
Readings
All readings are available online at http://unrulycrossings.wikispaces.com. If there are any changes for a particular week, you will be notified via email.
Blog Posts
If Once you are enrolled for this class on Banner, you will be sentreceive an invitation to join the course blog. All participants are required to post their thoughts on the readings and screenings by 9 am on Tuesday and Thursday. You will be exempt from posting only if you are presenting in class that day. Blog posts are short and informal and need not be fully formed arguments. These posts should help you develop your ideas further in seminar and can also be outlines for your final paper.
Presentations
Each participant needs to pick will sign up for a day from the syllabus and present on the material from the syllabus for a day for about 20-25 minutes. Again, these presentations are not fully formed arguments/papers and should be able to stimulate discussion. More on this in class.
Assignments
There are 3 three written assignments for this course. The first two will be short response papers (5-7 pages) where you will be asked to choose from a list of questions. The final longer paper (8-10 pages) will be more open-ended where you will be allowed to write on a topic of your choice. You will, however, need to discuss your interests and/or abstracts with me for the final paper. You will have about a week to write each of the two short papers and about ten days for the final paper. Please see the syllabus for specific dates.
Screenings
All screenings will be held at 155 George (Room 106) on Sunday and Monday nights, 7-11pm. You are required to attend only one of the two weekly screenings.
Reviewing Films
The films on the syllabus will be available after seminar in the basement of 155 George Street in the Archives Screening Room (Room 002), which is open Mon-Fri, 11.30-4 pm. The films must be viewed in Room 002 and cannot be checked out. You are advised to watch the films multiple times when you are writing about them.
Grading
Weekly blog posts (2 posts/week): 10%
Participation in seminar: 10%
Presentation: 10%
2 short papers (5-7 pages): 30%
Final Paper (8-10 pages): 40%
SYLLABUS
WEEK 1
Thu, January 27, 2011 –INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW
WEEK 2 (Homosexuality, Race, and “Discourse”)
Screening:
Jan 30 & Jan 31, 2011
The Life and Times of Sara Baartman. 1998. Dir. Zola Maseko. RT: 55 minutes
Twilight of the Gods. 1995. Dir. Stewart Main. RT: 15 minutes
Readings:
Tue, February 1, 2011
· Foucault, Michel. 1976. The History of Sexuality. 3-49.
· Somerville, Siobhan. 2000. “Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body.” Queering the Color Line. 15-38.
Recommended:
· Foucault, Michel. “Then Historical a priori and the Archive.” The Archeology of Knowledge. 126-131.
Thu, February 3, 2011
· Gandhi, Leela. 2007. “A Case of Radical Kinship: Edward Carpenter and the Politics of Anti-colonial Sexual Dissidence.” The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India. 91-116.
· Boone, Joseph. 1995. “Vacation Cruises; or the Homoerotics of Orientalism.” PMLA. 89-107.
· Lane, Christopher. 1995. “Theorizing ‘the Empire of the Self-Same’.” British Colonial Allegory and the Paradox of Homosexual Desire. 1-13.
Recommended:
· Chaudhary, Zahid. 2004. “Controlling the Ganymedes: The Colonial Gaze in J.R. Ackerley’s Hindoo Holiday.” Sexual Sites, Seminal Attitudes: Sexualities, Masculinities and Culture in South Asia. 83-98.
WEEK 3 (Globalization and Diaspora)
Screening:
Feb 6 & 7, 2011
The Wedding Banquet. 1993. Dir. Ang Lee. RT: 106 minutes
Readings:
Tue, February 8, 2011
· Appadurai, Arjuna. 1990. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Public Culture. 1-24.
· Hall, Stuart. 1994. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader. 392-403.
· Bhabha, Homi. 1994. “The Commitment to Theory.” The Location of Culture. 28-56.
Thu, February 10, 2011
· Harvey, David. 2000. Chapters 4 and 5. Spaces of Hope. 53-94.
· Sanchez-Eppler, Benigno, and Cindy Patton. 2000. “Introduction: With a Passport Out of Eden.” Queer Diasporas. 1-14.
WEEK 4 (Marxism and the Cultural Left)
NO SCREENING on Feb 13 & 14, 2011
Readings:
Tue, February 15, 2011
· Butler, Judith. 1997. “Merely Cultural.” Social Text 52-53. 265-77.
· Fraser, Nancy. 1997. “Heterosexism, Misrecognition, and Capitalism: A Response to Judith Butler.” Social Text 52-53. 279-289.
· Rorty, Richard. 1998. “A Cultural Left.” Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth Century America. 73-110.
Thu, February 17, 2011
· Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. (Selections: Introduction and Chapter 1.)
· Harvey, David. 2000. “The Body as an Accumulation Strategy.” Spaces of Hope. 97-116.
ASSIGNMENT #1 HANDED OUT IN SEMINAR
WEEK 5 (The “State” of Queerness)
NO SCREENING on Feb 20 & 21, 2011 (LONG WEEKEND)
NO CLASS ON Tue, Feb 22, 2011 (LONG WEEKEND)
Readings:
Thu, February 24, 2011
· Edelman, Lee. 1995. “Queer Theory: Unstating Desire.” GLQ. 343-346.
· Caserio, Robert, Lee Edelman, Judith Halberstam, José Muñoz, and Tim Dean. 2005. “The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory.” Forum: Conference Debates. 819-828.
· Reddy, Chandan. 2005. “Asian Diasporas, Neoliberalism, and Family: Reviewing the Case for Homosexual Asylum in the Context of Family Rights.” Social Text, 23: 101-119.
· Somerville, Siobhan B. 2005. “Notes toward a Queer History of Naturalization,” American Quarterly (Volume 57, Number 3): 659-675.
ASSIGNMENT #1 DUE IN SEMINAR
WEEK 6 (Homosexuality and AIDS: Transnational Perspectives)
Screening:
Feb 27 & 28, 2011
SIDA/AIDS. 1992. France. Dir. Jennifer L. Burford. RT: 6 minutes
Sea in the Blood. 2000. Canada. Dir. Richard Fung. RT: 26 minutes
The Witnesses. 2007. France. Dir. André Téchiné. RT: 112 minutes
Readings:
Tue, March 1, 2011
· Beger, Nico J. 2004.Tensions in the Struggle for Sexual Minority Rights in Europe: Que(e)ring Political Practices. (Selections: 1-17, 40-76)
· Fassin, Eric. 2001. “Same Sex, Different Politics: ‘Gay Marriage’ Debates in the France and United States.” Public Culture 13(2): 215-232.
Thu, March 3, 2011
· Patton, Cindy. 2000. “Migratory Vices.” Queer Diasporas. 14-37.
· Bersani, Leo. 1988. “Is the Rectum a Grave?” From AIDS: Cultural Analysis, Cultural Activism. Ed. Douglas Crimp. 197-222.
WEEK 7 (Queer Migration and Criticality)
Screening:
March 06 & 07, 2011
My Beautiful Laundrette. 1985. Dir. Stephen Frears. RT: 97 minutes
Brincando El Charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican. 1994. Dir. Frances Negrón-Muntaner.
RT: 55 minutes
Readings:
Tue, March 8, 2011
· Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands: La Frontera/The New Mestiza. (Selection: 19-120.)
Thu, March 10, 2011
· Luibhéid, Eithne. 2008. “Queer/Migration: An Unruly Body of Scholarship.” GLQ. 169-190.
· Gopinath, Gayatri. 2005. Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures. 1-29.
· Smith, Andrea. 2010. “Queer Theory and Native Studies: The Heteronormativity of Settler Colonialism.” GLQ. 41-68.
WEEK 8 (Queering Capital through “Culture”: “Aberrations” in Black)
Screening:
March 13 & 14, 2011
Foxy Brown. 1974. Dir. Jack Hill. RT: 94 minutes
Badass Supermama. 1996. Dir. Etang Inyang. RT: 16 minutes
Tongues Untied. 1989. Dir. Marlon Riggs. RT: 55 minutes
Readings:
Tue, March 15, 2011
· Mercer, Kobena. 1993. “Dark and Lovely Too: Black Gay Men in Independent Film.” Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Film and Video. 238-256.
· Riggs, Marlon T. 1991. “Black Macho Revisited: Reflections of a Snap! Queen.” Black Literature Forum. 389-394.
· Ferguson, Roderick. 2004. “Introduction: Queer of Color Critique, Historical Materialism and Canonical Sociology.” Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique. 1-29.
Thu, March 17, 2011
· Reading notes.
· Keeling, Kara. 2007. The Witch’s Flight: The Cinematic, the Black Femme, and the Image of Common Sense. (Selection: 40-44, 95-117)
· Hankin, Kelly. 2002. “Badass Supermama Meets Foxy Brown.” Girls in the Back Room: Looking at the Lesbian Bar. 81-113.
Recommended:
· Floyd, Kevin. 2009. The Reification of Desire: Toward a Queer Marxism. (Selection: 1-38.)
WEEK 9 (Literary Dissidence)
NO SCREENING March 20 & 21 since you have a whole novel to read for the next week!
Readings:
Tue, March 22, 2011
· Hwang, David. 1988. M. Butterfly.
Thurs, March 24, 2011
· Hagedorn, Jessica. 1990. Dogeaters
ASSIGNMENT #2 HANDED OUT IN SEMINAR
SPRING BREAK: March 29-April 03, 2011
WEEK 10 (Drag: Resistance or Complicity?)
Screening:
April 3 & 4, 2011
Paris is Burning. 1990. Dir. Jennie Livingston. RT: 71 minutes
The White to be Angry. 1999. Dir. Vaginal Davis. RT: 18 minutes
Paper Dolls. 2006. Dir. Tomer Heymann. RT: 80 minutes
RuPaul’s Drag Race: “MAC/Viva Glam Challenge.” 2009. RT: 40 minutes
Readings:
Tue, April 5, 2011
· Butler, Judith. 1993. “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion.” Bodies That Matter. 121-140.
· Harper, Brian Phillip. 1994. "'The Subversive Edge': Paris Is Burning, Social Critique, and the Limits of Subjective Agency." Diacritics. 90-103.
· Dean, Tim. 2000. “Transcending Gender.” Beyond Sexuality. 61-93.
ASSIGNMENT #2 DUE IN SEMINAR
Thu, April 7, 2011
· Muñoz, José Esteban. 1999. “‘The White to be Angry’: Vaginal Creme Davis’s Terrorist Drag.” Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. 93-115.
· Hargraves, Hunter. 2011. “You Better Work: The Commodification of HIV in RuPaul’s Drag Race.” (Manuscript version, forthcoming in Spectator, Fall 2011. Please do not circulate without permission of the author.
Recommended:
· Manalansan IV, Martin. 2000. “Diasporic Deviants/Divas: How Filipino Gay Transmigrants “Play with the World.” Queer Diasporas. 183-203.
WEEK 11 (Is “Queer” Secular?)
Screening:
April 10 & 11, 2011
A Jihad for Love. 2007. Dir. Parvez Sharma. RT: 81 minutes
Gevald. 2008. Dir. Netalie Braun. RT: 16 minutes
Readings:
Tue, April 12, 2011
· Warner, Michael. 2004. “Memoirs of a Pentecostal Boyhood.” Curiouser: On the Queerness of Children. 215-224.
· Warner, Michael. 2008. “Evangelicals & Evangelicalisms, Sex in A Secular Age: The Ruse of “Secular Humanism.” (From http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/author/warner/)
· Mahmood, Saba. 2009. “Religious Reason and Secular Affect: An Incommensurable Divide?” Critical Inquiry. 836-862.
Recommended:
· During, Simon. 2010. “Completing Secularism: The Mundane in the Neoliberal Era.” Varieties of Secularism in A Secular Age. 105-125.
· Warner, Michael. 2004. “Uncritical Reading.” Polemic: Critical or Uncritical. 13-38.
Thu, April 13, 2011
· Puar, Jasbir. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. (Selections: ix-xxviii, 1-36, 166-202.)
WEEK 12 (Queer Living, Assimilation, and Militancy)
Screening:
April 17 & 18, 2011
Watch DADT debate between Lt. Dan Choi and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore at http://kenyonfarrow.com/2010/10/23/unpacking-lt-dan-chois-tricky-race-class-tal-on-democracy-now/
Watch DADT debate at the U.S. House of Representatives at
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/297093-2
Readings:
Tue, April 19, 2011
· Sycamore, Mattilda Bernstein ed. 2008. That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Selections: 1-18, 29-46, 74-86, 92-99, 296-304.)
· Duggan, Lisa. 2009. “What’s Right With Utah.” The Nation.
· Farrow, Kennyon. 2010. “Unpacking Lt. Dan Choi’s Tricky Race & Class Talk on Democracy Now!”
· Recommendations from the “Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’” 2010. Published by the U.S. Department of Defense. 131-151.
Recommended:
· Patton, Cindy. 2002. “Stealth Bombers of Desire: The Globalization of ‘Alterity’ in Emerging Democracies.” Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism. 195-218.
Thu, April 20, 2011
· Povinelli, Elizabeth. 2006. The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality. (Selections: 1-26, 95-176.)
WEEK 13 (Interrogating the “Global” Queer)
Screening: April 24 & 25, 2011
Happy Together. 1997. Dir. Wong Kar-Wai. RT: 96 minutes
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone. 2006. Dir. Tsai Ming-Liang. RT: 115 minutes
Readings:
Tue, April 26, 2011
· Altman, Dennis. 1999. “Global Gaze/Global Gays.” GLQ. 417-436.
· Morton, Donald E. “Global (Sexual) Politics: Class Struggle and the Queer Left.” Postcolonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections. 207-238.
· Berry, Chris, and Fran Martin. 2003. “Syncretism and Synchronicity: Queer’n’Asian Cyberspace in 1990s Taiwan and Korea.” Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia. 87-114.
· Leung, Helen Hok-sze. “Queerscapes in Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema.” (Selections: 423-428, 435-439.)
Recommended:
· Wieringa, Saskia E. 2007. “‘If there is no feeling...’: The Dilemma between Silence and Coming Out in a Working-Class Butch/Femme Community in Jakarta.” Love and Globalization. 70-90.
· De Wald, Eric. 2001. “Theorizing the ‘Under-Theorized’.” Postcolonial and Queer Theories: Intersections and Essays. 173-196.
Thu, April 28, 2011
Class summary, final questions, and evaluations
WEEKS 14 & 15
Reading Period/Abstract prep: NO CLASS SCHEDULED AT THE MOMENT.
FINAL PAPERS DUE IN MY BOX AT 155 GEORGE STREET ON MAY 12