Introduction to Sexuality Studies: Sexuality and the State
Introduction to Sexuality Studies: Sexuality and the State
Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies 206
Spring 2015
Professor Andrea FriedmanTA: Andia Augustin-Billy
123 Busch HallEads 015
935-4339;
Office Hours: Wednesday 1-3; or by appointmentOffice Hours: Tuesday 9-10
Course Description
This course provides an introduction to the scholarly study of sexuality by focusing on the ways that sexuality has been produced and regulated by the state and other social institutions. Taking a social constructionist perspective, we will examine how sexual ideas and practices are organized to “naturalize” understandings of individual identity, social relations, and institutional power. What assumptions lie behind our ideas of sexuality? How are bodies linked by the prevailing logic of sexuality? How does sexuality inform the way that we see bodies as gendered, raced, or able-bodied? And what would a world that encouraged sexual justice look like? These questions will be explored both theoretically and through historical and contemporary examples.
Required Texts
Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini, Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of
Religious Tolerance
Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy: A Novel
All other required readings are on Ares (Course Reserves) and can be accessed through our Blackboard page. I expect that you will have access to all readings during class so that you can refer to them during discussion. In most cases, the best way to do this is to print readings and bring them with you.
ELECTRONIC DEVICE POLICY: I STRONGLY PREFER THAT YOU NOT BRING TO CLASS ELECTRONIC DEVICES THAT CAN BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. My reasons for making this request are succinctly explained by Anne Curzan in “Why I’m Asking You Not to Use Laptops.” As she concludes, “if you need or strongly prefer a laptop for taking notes or accessing readings in class for any reason, please come talk with me, and I am happy to make that work. I’ll just ask you to commit to using the laptop only for class-related work.”
Class Requirements:
- Class participation. Class sessions will consist, in the main, of brief lectures and discussion of assigned readings. Participation in class (as an attentive and informed listener and a speaker who engages in respectful and productive dialogue) is a substantial part of your grade. If you have any concerns about your participation in discussion, please see me to discuss strategies and/or alternatives for demonstrating your engagement with course materials.
- As part of your participation grade, you will present a brief (5-10 minute) introduction to one of the class sessions. Further information forthcoming.
- There may also be in-class assignments (eg, participation in small discussion groups, reading summaries, free writes, others as neessary). These will be assessed as part of your participation grade.
- More than three absences (for whatever reason) will lower your class participation grade.
- Two 3-4 page reflection papers on assigned topics.
- Take-home midterm exam
- Take-home final exam
Your grade for the course will be assessed as follows:
Class participation15%
Reflection papers:15% each
Midterm25%
Final30%
ALL course requirements must be met to pass this course. For students who are taking the course pass/fail or credit/no credit, a passing grade is C-.
INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM
Washington University provides accommodations and/or services to students with documented disabilities. Students should seek appropriate documentation through the Disability Resource Center http://cornerstone.wustl.edu/disabilityresources.aspx, which will approve and arrange any accommodations. Please feel free to speak to me about your individual learning needs.
Language or behavior that makes other students feel unwelcome in this classroom will not be tolerated. Examples range from simply interrupting or ignoring others while they are talking to overt harassment or intimidation with reference to race, sex, gender identity, sexual identity, religion, ethnicity, nationality, ability, or political belief. Washington University’s Policy on Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment can be found at http://hr.wustl.edu/policies/Pages/DiscriminationAndDiscriminatoryHarassment.aspx
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
Plagiarism or other violations of academic integrity will result in a failing grade on the assignment, and may result in a failing grade for the course. Please review Washington University’s academic integrity policy at http://www.wustl.edu/policies/undergraduate-academic-integrity.html. A helpful guide to understanding plagiarism can be found at http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QPA_plagiarism.html.
NOTE: This syllabus is a work-in-progress, and may be altered during the course of the semester.
Course Schedule
INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
WEEK 1
T1/13Introduction
Th1/15Social Construction – An Overview
Read: Seidman, “Introduction to The Social Construction of Sexuality”; Katz,
“‘Homosexual’ & ‘Heterosexual’: Questioning the Terms”
WEEK 2
T1/20Sexuality and Intersectionality
Read: Collins, “Prisons for our Bodies, Closets for our Minds”; McCune,
“Introduction to Sexual Discretion”; Gossett, “Is it true what they say about colored pussy?”
Th1/22Safe Zones Training Session
WEEK 3
T 1/27Biopower
Read: Foucault, “Pantopticism” and “Right of Death and Power over Life”
Th1/29The Invention of “Sexuality”
Read: Foucault, “We ‘Other Victorians’” and “The Repressive Hypothesis”
WEEK 4
T2/3Feminist Framings
Read: MacKinnon, “Does Sexuality have a History?”; DuBois and Gordon,
“Seeking Ecstasy on the Battlefield”
Th2/5Radical Approaches
Read: Rubin, “Thinking Sex”
CASE STUDIES: SEXUALITY AND SOCIAL ORDER
MARRIAGE
WEEK 5
T2/10Marriage & Gender Order
Read: Cott, “Introduction to Public Vows”; Goldman, “Marriage and Love”
Th2/12Marriage & Racial Order
Read: Pascoe, “Configuring Race in the American West”; “Bill DeBlasio’s
Interracial Marriage”; Cobb, “Who’s Still Afraid of Interracial Marriage?”
WEEK 6
T2/17LGBT Marriage
Read: Spade and Wilse, “Marriage Will Never Set Us Free”; Windsor vs. United
States,Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion and Justice Scalia’s dissent
Th2/19Marriage and Commodity Capitalism
Read: Ingraham, White Weddings, excerpts; The Knot, “Gay Weddings”
REFLECTION PAPER DUE
BORDER CROSSINGS: EMPIRE, NATION, IMMIGRATION
WEEK 7
T2/24Race and Reproduction in the American Empire
Read: Briggs, “Demon Mothers in the Social Laboratory”
Th2/26View in class: La Operación
TAKE-HOME MIDTERM DUE
WEEK 8
T3/3Immigration and Violence
Read: Luibhéid, “Rape, Asylum, and the U.S. Border Patrol”; Alisa
Solomon, “Nightmare in Miami”; Grenier, “Landmark Decision on Asylum
Claims Recognizes Domestic Violence Victims”
Th3/5Immigration and Sexual Identity
Read: Canaday, “Who Is a Homosexual?” The Consolidation of Sexual
Identities in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Immigration Law”
WEEK 9SPRING BREAK
WEEK 10 Migration and Transformation
T3/17Read: Kincaid, Lucy. Please read the entire novel before this class.
Th3/19Kincaid, Lucy, cont’d.
THE FEMINIST SEX WARS
WEEK 11
T3/24The Violence/Exploitation Approach
Read: Dworkin, “Men Possessing Women” excerpt; Dines, “Pornland,” excerpt
View in class: Mackinnon on Sexual Trafficking
Th3/26The Sex Work/Sexual Empowerment Approach
Read: Petro, “Selling Sex: Women’s Participation in the Sex Industry”;
Erickson, “Out of Line”; Lopez, et al. “Who’re You Calling a Whore?”
Reisenwitz, “U.N. Human Rights Report”
WEEK 12
T3/31Read: Fung, “Looking for my Penis”; Miller-Young, “Interventions: The Deviant
and Defiant Art of Black Women Porn Directors”
Th4/2Which Side Are You On? Debating “Feminist” Sex
No Reading
REFLECTION PAPER DUE
FREEDOM DREAMS
WEEK 13The Problem with “Tolerance”
T4/7Read: Pelligrini, Love the Sin, pp. ix-73
Th4/9 Read: Pelligrini, Love the Sin, pp. 75-151
WEEK 14:
T4/14Rights and Wrongs
Read: Spade, “What’s Wrong with Trans Rights?”; Siebers, “A Sexual Culture for
Disabled People”
Th4/16Rethinking Consent
Read:Weiss, “Becoming a Practitioner: The Biopolitics of BDSM”; Fowles, “The
Fantasy of Acceptable ‘Non-Consent’
WEEK 15:
T4/21Sex and Empowerment
Read: Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic”; Easton and Hardy, Ethical Slut, excerpt
Th4/23Queer Theory and Sexual Democracy
Read: Delaney, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, excerpt; Warner, The
Trouble with Normal, excerpt
TAKE-HOME FINAL DUE MAY 5, 6 p.m.