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ENGLISH 383
Queer Theory
Mark Rifkin
TTh 2-3:15;BRYN 114
Office: MHRA 3129
Office Hours: T12-2(or by appointment)
Course Description:
What is “sexuality”? How does it intersect with other forms of identity and privilege, including gender, race, class, and nationality? How is it related to the production, maintenance, and negotiation of various kinds of social norms? How is “queer” investigation and critique related to “lesbian and gay” analysis and feminist theory? This course introduces students to some of the important figures, ideas, and debates within the interdisciplinary field of queer studies. It will address the ways sexuality, sexual identity, and normality have been conceptualized within recent scholarship, the connections between such work and earlier academic and activist formulations, and the complex intersection of sexuality with other social dynamics. Students will explore the internal logic and implications of different kinds of arguments and intellectual work often grouped together as queer while also considering the possibilities and limits of “queer” as an intellectual category.
Course Goals:
* Working on developing clear, compelling, precise, and evidenced arguments in discussion and written work.
* Working on finding your own voice, engaging with what we have discussed in class while still formulating an original argument that is your interpretation guided by your interests.
* Developing acuity as a critical thinker by attending to the particular questions raised by the readings and the contributions/interventions they articulate while also asking your own questions about the possibilities and limits of the analyses such arguments offer.
* Historicizing “sexuality” and understanding that concept as itself embedded in particular cultural logics and social structures.
* Exploring the degree to which “queer” designates its own kind of critical investigation or ways of knowing.
* Examining how sexuality and sexual identity are inseparably enmeshed with other kinds of identity and vectors of social experience, such as gender, race, class, and nationality.
* Learning how to think of discomfort as possibility, a sign of potential change and growth, rather than a problem – something to be resented or repressed.
* Learning to pay attention to your own responses, questions, confusion, and elation when reading as a way of thinking about both what interests you and how a given text works.
* Challenging your expectations and assumptions – about yourself, the texts we study, and the world in which we live.
Requirements and Grading:
*Attendance: You may miss two class meetings without penalty, but attendance is required at all other class meetings. Each additional absence will result in 1/3 of a grade off your final grade. Missing more than 6class meetings is grounds for failing the course. Save up your freebies for when you know you’ll need them. If you need to miss class due to an emergency beyond your two free days, you will need to submit some form of documentation.
* Preparation and Participation: You should read allof the assigned texts at least once before the corresponding class meeting and come to class ready to participate, and I expect everyone to speak in class. If a text is available on blackboard, you should print it out and bring it with you to class.
Part of being prepared is not simply having read but being ready to take part in discussion. This means that class members either should mark specific passages or take good notes as you’re reading that will allow you to point to particular moments in the text(s) that you would like to discuss. I may quiz you on the readings for the class, with or without prior notice, and these will be included as part of your preparation and participation grade, which will be 30% of your final grade.
Each student also will sign up for four days when you will be a discussant for the class. (Each one of these days should be for a separate author and for different authors than those about whom you’re writing prompts – so 8 authors total between discussant days and prompts.) While everyone should be participating, discussants in particular are responsible for the following:
- Coming in with questions, topics, and passages you would like to discuss.
- Keeping class discussion moving when it slows down.
- Reading through the prompts for that text and incorporating them into discussion.
- Responding to comments and questions from your classmates.
- Making connections to ideas, questions, and readings from previous weeks.
I will lower your preparation/participation for repeated lateness, leaving early without checking with me first, or consistent absence from the classroom during class-meetings (for whatever reason). If you’re in class and contributing regularly (especially on days you’re a discussant), you can receive an A fairly easily for this part of the class.
* Written Work:
* Papers -- You will be required during the semester to write three critical essays about materials from the course. They each should have a clear thesis presented in the introduction with quotations from relevant texts cited as evidence for your argument. The goal in each paper is to develop your own original argument, rather than to repeat what we already have discussed in class. By “original,” I mean attending to questions, issues, sections of the texts that we have not addressed. Ask yourself what interests you about the texts, and use that answer as a way of guiding you to your own interpretation.
*Prompts-- Each student willsign-up for 4 days for which you will do prompts. (These 4 authors should be different than the four for which you’re serving as a discussant – so 8 authors in total between discussant days and prompts.) Prompts should be 200-300 words of questions, observations, bits of analysis, and/or comparison to prior texts that we’ve read that help to begin our discussion, and they should be submitted to the class electronically (in the “Prompts” thread of the “Discussion” section on blackboard) by noon two daysbefore the class meeting when we will begin discussing the relevant text. Please name the messages in the following way: “[name] prompt [date].” While the prompt need not be organized as an argument, it should be proofread carefully, as should all written work for the course. If the prompt is handed in on-time at the appropriate length, the student automatically will receive 100% for the assignment. The prompts will be 20% of your grade. I will not accept prompts late; you simply will receive a zero. You will sign up for prompts at the beginning of the semester, but I will not be reminding you about the prompts for which you signed up. You are responsible for making sure you keep track of when your prompts are due.
* Grading: Your final grade will be based on the following percentages:preparation and participation– 30%; prompts – 20%; first paper – 10%; second paper – 20%; third paper – 20%.
* Policy on Late Papers: Papers and prompts will not be accepted late.
* Plagiarism and Academic Integrity: Plagiarism is presenting someone else's ideas or work as your own or submitting your work done for other classes as original work for this class. If you are using someone else's words, they must be quoted and cited. If you are drawing on someone else's thoughts or argument, you must cite him or her. All sources from the internet must be cited. If you have a question about how to cite someone else's work, consult the MLA Handbook or ask me. When in doubt, cite!!! All work for this class must be originally produced for this class unless you have received my express approval to do otherwise.
Failure to acknowledge sources is plagiarism, regardless of intention.
If you are found to have committed plagiarism of any kind, you will fail the course, and I will submit the matter to the college for disciplinary action.
Course Materials:
BOOKS have been ordered through Addam’s bookstore (on Tate St.). If you have a different edition of the text, please get a copy of the edition we are using for the course, or else you will not be able to follow along in class discussion or cite the appropriate page numbers when writing about the text. You should purchase copies of the following:
Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality: Vol. 1 – Vintage - 0679724699
Mae Henderson and E. Patrick Johnson (eds.), Black Queer Studies -- 0822336189
Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages -- 082234114X
David Valentine, Imagining Transgender -- 0822338696
Other readings will be provided on blackboard.
Writing Resources:
*The Writing Center:
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From the Writing Center website:
Monday-Thursday 9am-8pm
Friday 9am-3pm
Sunday 5pm-8pm
The purpose of the Writing Center is to enhance the confidence and competence of student writers by providing free, individual assistance at any stage of any writing project. Staff consultants are experienced writers and alert readers, prepared to offer feedback and suggestions on drafts of papers, help students find answers to their questions about writing, and provide one-on-one instruction as needed.
Now there are two ways to get help from The University Writing Center! In addition to our face-to-face sessions, we are also offering online writing sessions. You can sign up for an online session to talk about your writing or brainstorm ideas with one of our trained writing consultants. Feel free to drop in to the OWC or make an OWC appointment.
Schedule of Assignments:
Histories of Sexuality
1/11Introduction
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1-49
1/13Foucault, cont’d, 50-132
1/18Foucault, cont’d, 133-159
1/20Ann Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire (selections)
1/24Stoler, cont’d
1/27Will Roscoe, Changing Ones (selections)
2/1Marlon B. Ross, “Beyond the Closet as Race-less Paradigm” (in Black Queer Studies)
Lesbian(?)Feminist
2/3Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (selections)
2/8Butler, cont’d
- 1st essay due
2/10Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex”
2/15Linda Garber, Identity Poetics (selections); Lynda Hart, Between the Body and the Flesh(selections)
2/17Hart, cont’d
The Race for Queerness
2/22Cathy Cohen, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens” (in Black Queer Studies); Cherríe Moraga, “La Guerra”
2/24Roderick Fergusion, “Race-ing Homonormativity: Citizenship, Sociology, and Gay Identity” (in Black Queer Studies)
[2/28 – class cancelled]
3/3Martin Manlansan, “Race, Violence, and Neoliberal Spatial Politics in the Global City”
[Spring Break]
3/15Deborah Miranda, “Dildos, Hummingbirds, and Driving Her Crazy”; Qwo-Li Driskill, “Stolen From Our Bodies”
Trans(-)formations
3/17David Valentine, Imagining Transgender
[3/22 – class cancelled]
3/24Valentine, cont’d
- 2nd essay due
3/29Evan B. Towle and Lynn Marie Morgan, “Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the ‘Third Gender’ Concept”
[3/31– class cancelled]
4/5Shannon Price Minter, “Do Transsexuals Dream of Gay Rights?”; Dean Spade, “Compliance is Gendered”
Gone Global
4/7Jacqui M. Alexander, “Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen”
4/12Cindy Patton, “Stealth Bombers of Desire”
4/14Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages
4/19Puar, cont’d
4/21Puar, cont’d
- 3rd essay due