Sexualities in Society

Catalog description

How have issues like same-sex sexuality, reproductive control, sex work, pornography, and non-marital sex shaped the United States? How has the social construction of race, ethnicity, class, gender, citizenship, and family contributed to experiences and expectations of sexuality in the United States? Drawing on feminist scholarship, queer theory, LGBTQ+ studies, history, law, and sociology, this course will examine the history of how sexualities have been regulated in the United States from the colonial era to the present. We will examine the changing sexual habits and beliefs in the United States and the historical impact of laws and other regulatory mechanisms as they formed, surveilled, regulated, and criminalized various sexualities in the United States, as well as the history of resistance to these regulations. Offered: Spring.