The Intimate State: The Politics of Gender, Sex, and Family in the U.S

Catalog description

This seminar examines the “intimate politics” of gender, sexuality, and race in modern American history, focusing on law and political conflict from Reconstruction to the present. Its central concern is how the “private” (the intimate) is constructed and regulated by state power—by government. Topics include laws regulating sex and marriage; social norms governing gender roles in both private and public life; the range of political perspectives (from feminist to conservative) on sex, sexuality, and family; the transition from slavery to freedom; gender, sexuality, and U.S. empire; and the relationship of gender, sexuality, and race to notions of nationhood and the role of the modern state. Some background in history recommended but not required.