Sexuality and Queer Studies

Sexuality and Queer Studies

WMGS 6b,

Spring 2014; [room]

(T-F 12:30-1:50pm)

Professor: Anahi Russo Garrido

Office: Rabb Graduate Center, 108

Office Hours: T: 2pm-3:00pm and F: 10:30- 12:15pm or by appointment

Phone: 781-736-3047

Email:

Course description

This course explores cross-cultural and historical perspectives on sexual meanings, experiences, representations, and activist movements in the United States, and beyond. Our interdisciplinary focus will question the theories and changing meanings of sexual and gender identities and practices and their dynamics with gender, race, sex and class. Through a diverse set of course readings, open small-group dialogue as well as hands-on learning projects, each course participant will further develop a critical consciousness on sexuality and queer studies. Students will complete the course with a more complex understanding of the historical and cultural embeddedness of sexual identities, practices and communities.

Course Requirements

Prerequisites:This course has no prerequisites. It is only open to undergraduate students.

Disabilities:

“If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately.”

Academic Integrity:

“You are expected to be familiar with and to follow the University’s policies on academic integrity (see ). Faculty may refer any suspected instances of alleged dishonesty to the Office of Student Development and Conduct. Instances of academic dishonesty may result in sanctions including but not limited to, failing grades being issued, educational programs, and other consequences.”

Course Materials:

Most readings will be posted on Moodle. Some hyperlinks are included in the syllabus. Journal articles are proceeded by ** on the syllabus. Students will be responsible to find these articles on the Brandeis Libraries Website.

Participation Policy

Sustained, astute and critically engaged class participation is crucial for a successful and productive classroom atmosphere. Your participation largely depends upon completing the reading assignments. Therefore you must come to class having done all assigned readings. We must create together an atmosphere where we can all express our opinions and learn from each other. Success depends on all of us.

You must attend all class sessions. Your participation grade will be affected after three absences.

For additional information, please refer to the participation policy chart distributed in class.

Assignments

All assignments must be submitted the day they are due. After two days, your grade will be affected and you will begin losing 2% per day on your final grade.

Class participation 10%

Please read the participation policy.

Take the Reel Film FestivalReport 2 pages 10%

Complete a report on the film Mosquita y Mari (2012) that will be presented at Brandeis, as part of Take the Reel film festival on March 13, at 6pm. You must first summarize the film. Secondly, you must discuss how the event related to one notion explored in-class or in the readings. If your schedule does not permit attending the event please notify me in advance to provide an alternative assignment.Due on March 21.

Book Review 3 to 5 pages 20%

Read Tang, Denise Tse-Chang.2011.Conditional Spaces: Hong Kong Lesbian Desires and Everyday Life. Hong Kong University Press. [available on-line at Brandeis Libraries].Include asummary on the main points of your reading (What is the argument of the book? What are the main questions? What are the main themes?). Discuss the writing style of the book. In the second part, provide your views on the book. You should focus on the strengths as much as weaknesses of the monograph. Does the author provide interesting analysis? What are some of the most important contributions the book makes? Why is this book important? Due on Feb. 4

TwoTake-Home Exams 40%total

A take-home exam will be distributed in class on February 14. You will hand in your typed double spaced, (12’ font Times New Romans) responses on February 28. The exam will cover class materials, discussions and lectures from January 14 to February 14. The second exam will cover the rest of class materials. It will be distributed on April 1 and collected on April 11. Exams will be composed of 2 to 3 open questions that can be answered through a short essay. The whole length of all responses for one exam will be of 3 to 5 pages.

Paper Proposal and Bibliography 20%

1. Write a brief paper proposal (1 page). Your proposal should contain + a question you would like to explore + A brief summary on the topic you would like to explore.
2. Complete a bibliography that will include ten sources on the topic of your paper. More information will be distributed in class on this assignment.

Due on the last day of class

Course Plan:

Introduction, Overview of Course and Expectations

January 14

What motivates you to take Sexuality and Queer studies?

January 17

-Blackwood, Evelyn and Saskia Wieringa. “Introduction” Female Desires: Same-sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures”

Histories and Memories

January 21

-Stein, Arlene. 1997. “Sisters and Queers: The Decentering of Lesbian Feminism” In The Gender and Sexuality Reader. Roger N. Lancaster and Micaela di Leonardo (ed).New York: Routledge.

-Lorde, Audre. 1982.Zami: A New Spelling of my Name. (excerpt)

- Moraga, Cherrie.(2007). “Poetry of Heroism: A Tribute to Audre Lorde and Pat Parker.” A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness.

In class excerpt of the film: Passionate Politics: The Life and Work of Charlotte Bunch. A Joyce Warshow film. Produced and Directed by Tami Gold (2011).

January 24

-Castiglia, Christopher and Christopher Reed. 2011. “Introduction” If Memory Serves: Gay Men, AIDS and the Promise of the Queer Past. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.

-Schulman, Michael. 2013. “Generation LGBTQIA”. NY times January 9, 2013.

[Begin reading for Feb 4]

January 28

-Stryker, Susan. 2008. “A hundred years of transgender history.” in Transgender History. Seal Press.

**Stryker, Susan. 2008. “Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity.”Radical History Review. 100: 145-157.

January 31

-Eng, David L. and Alice Y. Hom. 1998. “Introduction Q & A: Notes on a Queer Asian America”. Temple u Press.

-D'Emilio, John. [1983] 1997. "Capitalism and Gay Identity" In The Gender/ Sexuality Reader. Di Leonardo, Micaela and Roger N. Lancaster (eds.). New York: Routledge.

February 4

Tang, Denise Tse-Chang.2011. Conditional Spaces: Hong Kong Lesbian Desires and Everyday Life. Hong Kong University Press. [available on-line at Brandeis Libraries]

-Submit book report

Modern Inventions

February 7

Katz, Jonathan Ned. 2007. The Invention of Heterosexuality. University of Chicago Press. p. 1-33

February 11

Foucault, Michel. (1978). “The History of Sexuality” In Rivkin Julie and Michael Ryan. 2004. Literary theory: An Anthology. Malden, Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell Publishing.

February 14

Somerville, Siobhan.2000. “Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body”

-Take-Home Exam Distributed

February 17-21 No class

Queer Practices, Theories and Performances

February 25

-Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution.” In Rivkin Julie and Michael Ryan. 2004. Literary theory: An Anthology. Malden, Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell Publishing

-Faderman, Lilian. 1992. “The Return of Butch and Femme: A Phenomenon in Lesbian Sexuality of the 1980s and 1990s.”

In class clips from the film A Persistent Desire by Lenn Keller (in production)

February 28

Munoz, Jose Esteban. 1999. Disidentifications: Queer of Color and the Performance of Politics. (excerpt)

-Take-Home Exam 1 Due

March 4

-Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Queer and Now” In the Routledge Queer Studies Reader

- Angelides, Steven. “The Queer Intervention”. In the Routledge Queer Studies Reader

-Moore, Darnell L. and Wade Davis. 2012. “Tongues Untied: On ‘Coming Out,’ Anderson Cooper and Frank Ocean.”

March 7

**Cohen, Cathy. 1997. “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” GLQ 3: 437-465.

-Moraga, Cherrie. 1993. “Queer Aztlán: The Reformation of Chicano Tribe”.

March 11

**McRuer, Robert.2003. “As Good as it Gets: Queer Theory and Critical Disability.” GLQ. 9 (1-2):79-105.

March 13—Take the Reel Film Festival, 6pm.Attend and write your report.

Sexualization, Racialization, Normalization

March 14

Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”

March 18

Berlant, Laurent and Michael Warner.“Sex in Public.”

March 21

**Murphy, P. Kevin, Jason Ruiz and David Serlin.2008.”Introduction”. Queer Futures: A special Issue of Radical HistoryReview. 100.

-Puar, Jasbir. 2007. “The sexuality of terrorism” In Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times.

-Submit Film Report

March 25

-Johnson, Patrick E. “Quare” Studies, or “(Almost) Everything I Know about Queer Studies I Learned from my Grandmother” In the Routledge Queer Studies Reader.

-Parreñas Shimizu, Celine (2007). The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/ American Women on Screen and Scene. Duke University Press. (excerpt)

- Diaz, Junot. 1995.“How to Date a Brown Girl (black girl, white girl, or halfie).”

March 28

**Alamilla Boyd, Nan.2008. “Sex and Tourism: The Economic Implications of the Gay Marriage Movement”. Radical HistoryReview. 100. 223-250.

-Moraga, Cherrie. 2011. “Still Loving in the (Still)War Years/2009. On Keeping Queer Queer”. In A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness. Duke University Press.

April 1

**Przybylo, Ela.2011. “Crisis and Safety: The Asexual in Sexu Society”Sexualities.14 (4): 444-461.

-Michael Kimmel. 2008. “Hooking up” Guyland: The Perilous World where Boys Become Men

-Take-Home Exam Distributed

Sex, Violence and Trauma

April 4

Kimmel, Michael. “Predatory Sex and Party Rape” Guyland: The Perilous World where Boys Become Men.

April 8

Knoll, Andalusia. “Under the International Sportlight , Mexican Government Asks for “Friendly Solution” After Perpetrating Sexual Torture” Truthout . April 3, 2013.

Amnesty international. 2007.“Background on Bárbara Italia Méndez’s Case”

State and Sexual torture in Mexico.

April 11

Dorothy Roberts, excerpt from “Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the

Meaning of Liberty.

-Take-Home Exam 2 Due

April 15-22—No class

April 25

Cvetkovich, Ann. “AIDS Activism and Public Feelings: Documenting Act Up’s Lesbians”.

April 29

The end?

Bibliography and Project Proposal Due

Any changes to the reading schedule will be communicated in class prior to the reading.