Sample Syllabus
WOM 201: Introduction to LGBTQ Studies
Course Description
This course will provide an introduction into Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Studies. Considering LBGTQ Studies as an interdisciplinary field using humanities text-based critical analysis, this course will focus on how the central concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity work within history, politics, literature, technology, art, music, philosophy, and literature. Throughout this course, students will work towards a deep understanding of the intersectional dynamics of privilege and oppression as they relate to LGBTQ individuals and culture by exploring the lived experiences of LGBTQ individuals and their partners/families.
Learning Objectives
●Critically read, discuss, analyze, and write about the assigned readings and central course themes. A key part of this process will be the application of course concepts to current cultural conversations and, potentially, students’ lived experiences.
●Build both a specific and general knowledge of the history and current dialogues regarding LGBTQ issues across multiple disciplines and across multiple forms of media concerning a variety of issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity (e.g., journal articles, online resources, textbook readings, film, and literature, and music)
●Understand the concepts of gender and sexuality [unpacking foundational social concepts that structure how we move in the world and understand ourselves] through the development of critical thinking and problem solving skills, which in turn are necessary skills for interacting with and responding to diverse groups of people, particularly in the LGBTQ community.
Requirements
Category / Percentage / Point ValueAdvocacy Project / 30 / 150
Photovoice Project / 15 / 75
Current Events Analysis Paper / 15 / 75
Discussion Facilitation / 5 / 25
Blog Posts / 20 / 100
Daily Grades / 5 / 25
Participation / 10 / 50
Total / 100 / 500
Advocacy Project & Self Assessment (4-5 pages)
30% (150 points)
Over the course of the semester, you will work with a small group to develop your own social justice project that addresses concerns of LGBTQ Community. Your project will be an intervention plan that can take place on a community, department, disciplinary, college, university, state, or national level. This plan can take many forms, and I encourage you to relate it to your major field of study. Examples of projects include but are not limited to the following: a multi-session lesson plan, a computer program, an original work of art, an analysis of trends in popular culture or literature, creation of a web resource, a concrete political action plan for a particular issue, a historical analysis of LGBTQ history, a reflection on and analysis of one’s work with a LGBTQ organization or publication, and an original work of queer theory.
You will present this project to the class during the final weeks of the class. In your presentation, you will identify why the issue is of importance to the LGBTQ Community, what intervention you would choose to address this issue, and the anticipated results of your actions.
You will also complete a 4-5 page essay in which you explain your intervention, demonstrate how it builds from at least three course texts, and assess its efficacy in accomplishing its goal. I encourage you to acknowledge the limits of your intervention and suggest avenues for further work in this area.
Photovoice: Understanding Social Privilege: Heterosexual and/or Cisgender Privilege (3-4 pages)
15% (75 points)
This assignment is designed to help you to develop insight into your experiences with privilege/oppression related to sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression. This is a creative, expressive activity which requires you to think and reflect on the concept of privilege. For this activity you will use a camera to represent your understanding of the term Heterosexual and/or Cisgender Privilege. You can check out a camera from the library or use a disposable camera if you do not own a camera. Think about the term Heterosexual and/or Cisgender Privilege and what it means to you. Take a picture that represents your understanding of the term. To contextualize the meaning of your picture, attach the picture with a 3-4 page description including the following:
- Describe your picture.
- What is happening in your picture?
- What does the picture tell us about your life?
- How does this picture demonstrate privilege?
- What does this picture tell us about those who do not experience the privilege not represented in your picture?
(Social Privilege: A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by certain people beyond the common advantage of all others; an exemption in many particular cases from certain burdens or liabilities. A person can enjoy certain privileges based on things like their race, ethnicity, ability, body size, sexual orientation, etc.)
Current Events Analysis Paper (4-5 pages)
15% (75 points)
In this assignment, you will write a 4-5 page paper on a specific topic related to current events in the context of the overall LGBTQ Rights Movement. In your paper, you will identify the historical and global context of the issue, what obstacles/barriers are in place in relation to forward movement, a critical analysis of how this issue has been covered by the media, and what gains have been made and what still needs to occur to create more equitable conditions for LGBTQ individuals.
Discussion Facilitation (1 class period)
5% (25 points)
At the beginning of the term, I will pass around a sign-up sheet on which you will select a particular day’s reading to facilitate class discussion. For this class period, you will have two discussion questions that you present to the class in order to open our examination of the text. I expect you to have done a little bit of background research into the text in order to establish a context for your questions. You will be in groups of two or three for this assignment, but each group member will formulate her/his own question.
Blog Posts (3 original; 3 comments on others’ posts; 3 private reflections)
20% (100 points)
Each student must post at least 3 original responses to an upcoming reading assignment, 3 follow-up responses to others’ responses, and 3 private reflections (read only by me). While these posts need not be polished pieces of writing, I do expect a certain amount critical thought. The idea here is raise issues about a particular reading or group of readings for the class and start to contextualize those readings in terms of previous class discussions before we discuss the texts in class.
The three private responses will be due at intervals throughout the term. These responses are a space for you to reflect on how your own attitudes and knowledge of LGBTQ studies has changed throughout the term. For these responses, you will respond to a specific prompt from me.
Responses will be graded out of ten, with a ten being equivalent to a check for completion. Each post will be no less than 200 words. Links and embedding video are encouraged! You can do one post per class meeting (one original and one response to a classmate’s post).
Quizzes
Part of Daily Grades Category (10 points each)
To ensure that everyone is keeping up the reading assignments, I will give quizzes at the beginning of class on a fairly regular basis. If you are reading the texts as we move throughout the semester, you should do fine. The quizzes will be pop-quizzes and will hence occur without warning. Also, if you are absent (non-excused) or more than five minutes late to class meeting which there was a quiz, you will receive a zero for that quiz.
Broad Schedule and List of Topics, Texts, and Readings (excerpts from or all)
General Textbooks and Anthologies:
- Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology by E. Patrick Johnson and Mae G. Henderson (Duke University Press Books)
- Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies by George E. Haggerty and Molly McGarry (Blackwell)
- Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the Seventeenth Century to Present by Lillian Faderman (Penguin Books)
- A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory by Nikki Sullivan (NYU Press)
- Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies by Deborah T. Meem, Michelle A. Gibson, and Jonathan F. Alexander (Sage)
- Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader by Michael Hames-Garcia and Ernesto Javier Martinez (Duke University Press Books)
- Gender Trouble by Judith Butler (Routledge)
- The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by by Henry Abelove, Michele AinaBarale, and David M. Halperin (Routledge)
- LGBT Studies and Queer Theory: New Conflicts, Collaborations, and Contested Terrain by Karen E. Lovaas, John P. Elia and Gust A. Yep (Routledge)
- Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory by Lynne Huffer (Columbia University Press)
- Outlooks: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities and Visual Culture by Peter Horne and Reina Lewis (Routledge)
- Professions of Desire: Lesbian and Gay Studies in Literature by George E. Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmerman (MLA Press)
- Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology by Patrick S. Cheng (Seabury Books)
- The Routledge Queer Studies Reader by Donald E. Hall and AnnamarieJagose (Routledge)
- Queer Studies: A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Anthology by Brett Beemyn and Michele Eliason (NYU Press)
- Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader by Robert J. Corber and Stephen Valocchi (Wiley-Blackwell)
- Queer Theory by Iain Morland, Annabelle Willox, Suzanna Danuta Walters and Patrick Califia (Palgrave Macmillan)
- A Queer World: The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Martin Duberman (NYU Press)
- Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman by Leslie Feinberg (Beacon Press)
- Transgender Studies Reader by Susan Stryker (Routledge)
- Transgender History by Susan Stryker (Seal Press)
- Transgender 101 by Nicholas M. Teich (Columbia University Press)
*For the purposes of the sample syllabus, I have use Finding Out (FO) as the central text book.
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Introductions, Terminology, Privilege, Oppression, and Intersectionality
●Invisible Knapsack Activity
●Hipster Racism:
●Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
●Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
The History of Sexuality Part I (Antiquity - WWII)
Critical/Secondary Texts
●Chapter 1: Before Identity: The Ancient World Through the 19th Century (FO)
●Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England by Sharon Marcus
●Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality by John Boswell
●Foundlings: Gay and Lesbian Historical Emotion Before Stonewall by Christopher Nealon
●Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence by Michael Rocke
●The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe by John Boswell
●Sexuality and Its Discontents: Meanings, Myths, and Modern Sexualities by Jeffrey Weeks
●Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Presentby Lillian Faderman
●Talk on the Wilde Side by Ed Cohen
●Transgender History by Susan Stryker
Creative/Primary Texts
●Blues music from Gladys Bentley and Ma Rainey
●Various poems by Langston Hughes
●Excerpts from the Kama Sutra focusing on homosexuality and tritiyaprakriti (third sex people)
●Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
●Various poems by Michael Field (Katherine Harris Bradley and Edith Emma Cooper)
●The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
●Various poems by Sappho
●Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
●Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe Hall
Science, Sexuality, Identity, and Medicine
Critical/Secondary Texts
●Chapter 2: Sexology: Constructing the Modern Homosexual (FO)
●Chapter 5: Nature, Nurture, and Identity (FO)
●American Hunks: The Muscular Male Body in Popular Culture, 1860-1970 by David L. Chapman and Brett Josef Grubisic
●The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 by Michel Foucault
●The Lives of Transgender People by GennyBeemyn and Susan Rankin
●Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud by Thomas Laqueur,
●Sexual Orientation and Mental Health: Examining Identity and Development in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People by Allen M. Omoto and Howard S. Kurtzman
●Excerpts from Transgender Studies Reader by Susan Stryker
Creative/Primary Texts
●PsychopathiaSexualisby Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing
● Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis
●The Third Sex by Edward Carpenter
The History of Sexuality Part II (WWII - Women’s Liberation Movement)
Critical/Secondary Texts
●Chapter 3: Toward Liberation (FO)
●Chapter 10: Lesbian Pulp Novels and Gay Physique Pictorials (FO)
●Chapter 9: Homosexed Art and Literature (FO)
●A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America by Leila J. Rupp
●Gay America: Struggle for Equality by LinasAlsena
●Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman
●The Transgender Studies Readerby Susan Stryker
Creative/Primary Texts
●Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback by Susan Stryker
●Poems and prose by Adrienne Rich
●Zami and non-fiction prose by AudreLorde
●The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies by Vito Russo
●Desert Hearts by Donna Deitch
●Milk by Gus Van Sant
The LGBTQ Rights Movement and Current Events
Critical/Secondary Texts
●Chapter 4: Stonewall and Beyond (FO)
●Chapter 13: Film and Television (FO)
●Fear Of A Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory by Michael Warner
●How To Be Gay by David M. Halperin
●Left Out: The Politics of Exclusion by Martin B. Duberman
●Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology by Patrick S. Cheng
●Sport, Sexualities and Queer/Theory by Jayne Caudwell
Creative/Primary Texts
●Angels in America by Tony Kushner
●Beautiful Thing by Hettie Macdonald
●Butch Is a Noun by S. Bear Bergman
●Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
●Contra/Diction: New Queer Male Fiction by Brett Josef Grubisic
●Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” Campaign
●The Future is Queer: A Science Fiction Anthology by Richard Labonté and Lawrence Schimel
●Gay Art: A Historic Collection by Felix Lance Falkon and Thomas Waugh
●Girls, Visions, and Everything by Sarah Schulman
●The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman
●The L Word
●Left Hand of Darkenessby Ursula K. LeGuin
●Lust Unearthed: Vintage Gay Graphics From the DuBek Collection by Thomas Waugh
●Modern Family
●Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme by Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman
●The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert by Stephan Elliott
●The Rice Queen Diaries: A Memoir by Daniel Gawthrop
●Steampowered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories by JoSelleVanderhooft
●Queer As Folk
●Valencia by Michelle Tea
●Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block
Domestic and International LGBTQ Legal Issues
Critical/Secondary Texts
●Chapter 6: Inclusion and Equality (FO)
●Chapter 12: Censorship and Moral Panic (FO)
●The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience by Louis-Georges Tin (Translated by MarekRedburn)
●“Freedom and the Racialization of Intimacy: Lawrence v. Texas and the Emergence of Queer Liberalism” by David L. Eng
●In a Queer Country: Gay & Lesbian Studies in the Canadian Context by Terry Goldie
●A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples
●Lifting the Ban on Gays in the Civil Service: Federal Policy toward Gay and Lesbian Employees since the Cold War by Gregory B. Lewis
●Postcolonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections by John C. Hawley.
●“Same-Sex Marriage and the Right of Privacy, in Yale Law Journal” by William M. Hohengarten
●“Sex in Public” by Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner
● Transgender Family Law: A Guide to Effective Advocacy
●The Williams Institute (LGBTQ law at UCLA)
●“Whitewashing Gay History: Liberals Applaud Themselves for Championing Gay Marriage But There are Ghosts at the Weddings” by Frank Rich
●Queer theory in education by William F. Pinar
Creative/Primary Texts
●Bully by Lee Hirsch
●But I’m a Cheerleader by Jamie Babbit
●Children’s Books that are often challenged because of LGBTQ content (Ex. Heather Has Two Mommies is a children's book written by Lesléa Newman with Diana Souza and And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell, Justin Richardson, and Henry Cole)
●Desilicious: Sexy. Subversive. South Asian. by Masala Trois Collective
●Dog Years by Dennis Denisoff
Marginalized Populations and Multiple Identities within the LGBTQ Community
*Note that this topic should be addressed throughout the course and then focused on in this portion
Critical/Secondary Texts
●Chapter 7: Queer Diversities (FO)
●Chapter 15: The Politics of Location: Alternative Media and the Search for Queer Space (FO)
●Chapter 8: Intersectionalities (FO)
●Chapter 14: Queers and the Internet (FO)
●Chapter 11: Queer Transgressive Aesthetics (FO)
●Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability by Robert McRuer
●“Fat Girls and Size Queens: Alternative Publications and the Visualizing of Fat and Queer Eroto-politics in Contemporary American Culture” by Stefanie Snider
●Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein
●In a Queer Time and Placeby Judith Halberstam
●In-between Bodies: Sexual Difference, Race and Sexuality by Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo
●“The Transgender Athlete” by Pablo S. Torre and David Epstein
●LGBT Identity and Online New Media by Christopher Pullen and Margaret Cooper
Creative/Primary Texts
●Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity by Chloë Brushwood Rose and Anna Camilleri
●Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men by Essex Hemphill
●BklynBoihood (
●The Collection: Short Fiction From The Transgender Vanguard by Tom Léger and Riley MacLeod
●Crunk Feminist Collective (
●First Person Queer: Who We Are (So Far) by Richard Labonté and Lawrence Schimel
●Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman
●Hedwig and the Angry Inch by John Cameron Mitchell
●Ma Vie En Rose by Alain Berliner
●Macho Sluts: A Little Sister's Classic by Patrick Califia
●Paris is Burning by Jennie Livingston
●Queer girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media by Susan Driver
●Sister Spit: Writing, Rants and Reminiscence from the Road by Michelle Tea
●Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature by Qwo-Li Driskill, Daniel Heath Justice, Deborah Miranda and Lisa Tatonetti
●Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg