Gender and Sexuality

Catalog description

This course offers students an interdisciplinary overview of the complex topics of gender and sexuality. Employing various theoretical and disciplinary perspectives including feminist and queer theory, historical and sociological perspectives, visual culture, and post-colonial discourse, this course gives students a broad understanding of key historical and contemporary issues in the arena of gender and sexuality. This course engages the following themes: gender and sexual identities; the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, race, and class; discourses of heteronormitivity & homonormativity; the body, body politics, and bodily violence; contemporary movements for gender and sexual justice; racial, gender and sexual politics; performances and representations of gender and sexuality; health and medicalization; global LGBTA human rights issues; the (re)production of gender and sexual difference; labors of gender and sexuality; and the relationship between gender, sexuality and the State. Students in this course will develop a keen understanding of how these themes operate in the discourse of gender and sexuality. Throughout this course students will examine a variety of diverse texts 'theoretical, historical ethnographic, literary, visual, and sonic' to gain a comprehensive introduction to the topic of gender and sexuality. This graduate seminar emphasizes discussion, writing, and research.