Global Perspectives in LGBTQ+ History

Catalog description

This course surveys the history of queer sexualities in a global context. To take a global perspective of LGBT or queer sexualities is a daunting task, asking us to grapple with challenges of nationality, indigeneity, religion, colonialism, and post-colonial resistance, just to name a few. Question arise even as you set out - how do you define LGBT and/or Queer? Similarly, when do you start to look, and what do you look for? This course aims to destabilize familiar sexual categories and identities by exploring how 'queer' manifests in other parts of the world. The course is not comprehensive either chronologically or geographically. Instead, this class employs case studies, some nationally bounded while others look to a region or draw on a shared identity. Within each case, material will offer a variety of perspectives often across time. Cases will also highlight specific questions such as legal rights, violence, and sex work. Special care will be taken to attend to the experience of marginalized people, indigenous communities, trans folk, women, and migrants. This course is open to all students. Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/history/