Five-College Queer and Sexuality Studies Courses
Fall 2013
These courses count toward the Five-College Certificate in Queer and Sexuality Studies (available at all Five Colleges).
Amherst College
LGBT Perspectives in Popular Music
WAGS 121/MUSI 121
Instructor: Morris
Meets: T Th 2:30-3:50 p.m.
LGBT Perspectives in Popular Music is an introduction to the ways that LGBT people and members of other sexual minorities have participated in popular music as composers, performers, and crucial audiences. In this historical survey of the recorded repertory of (mostly) American popular song, students will acquaint themselves with music in a wide range of vernacular styles and explore the social, political, and aesthetic contexts within which they have appeared. Representative figures in this respect include blues singers like Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday; composers of standards and musicals, such as Cole Porter or Stephen Sondheim; and Post-Stonewall musicians from Alix Dobkin to Rufus Wainwright. The course is designed to be welcoming to non-majors, and knowledge of musical notation and technical vocabulary is not required to enroll.
Anthropology of Sexuality
WAGS 210
Instructor: Sahar Sadjadi
Meets: T Th 2:30-3:50 p.m.
This course draws on anthropological literature to study the socio-cultural making of human sexuality and its variations, including theories of sexuality as a domain of human experience. It seeks to critically examine some of the most intimate and often taken-for-granted aspects of human life and locate sexual acts, desires and relations in particular historical and cultural contexts. The course offers analytical tools to understand and evaluate different methods and approaches to the study of human sexuality. We will examine the relation of sex to kinship/family, to reproduction and to romance. As we read about the bodily experience of sexual pleasure, we will explore how sexual taboos, norms and morality develop in various cultures and why sex acquires explosive political dimensions during certain historical periods. The course will explore the gendered and racial dimensions of human sexual experience in the context of class, nation and empire. How do class divisions produce different sexual culture? What economies of sex are involved in sex work, marriage and immigration? What has been the role of sexuality in projects of nation building and in colonial encounters? When, where and how did sexuality become a matter of identity? In addition to a focus on contemporary ethnographic studies of sexuality in various parts of the world, we will read theoretical and historical texts that have been influential in shaping the anthropological approaches to sexuality. We will also briefly address scientific theories of sexuality.
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Hampshire College
Intro. to Queer Studies
CSI 182
Instructor: Stephen Dillon
Meets: MW 9-10:20 a.m.
Introduction to Queer Studies explores the emergence and development of the field of queer studies since the 1990s. In order to do so, the course examines the relationship between queer studies and fields like postcolonial studies, gay and lesbian studies, transgender studies, disability studies, and critical race studies. Students will come away with a broad understanding of the field, particularly foundational debates, key words, theories, and concepts. As part of their research, students will explore alternative genealogies of queer studies that exceed the academy. Some questions that guide the course include: How have art, film, activism, and literature influenced the field? What people and events are critical to queer studies that may be ignored or forgotten? In this way, students will come away understanding the contours of the field, but they will also work to reimagine the field and its history.
Race, Nation, and Sexuality
CSI 247
Instructor: Stephen Dillon
Meets: T Th 9-10:20 a.m.
This course takes a transnational approach to the study of race and sexuality by exploring the centrality of the modern nation-state to our conceptions of identity, subjectivity, race, sexuality, and gender. To that end, the course focuses on transnational and postcolonial work in queer studies, feminist studies, and the history of sexuality. Because the course takes a global approach to the study of race and sexuality, students will work to make connections across time and space in class discussions, research projects, and the course blog. Topics will include: Migration and immigration; slavery; colonialism and imperialism; science and biology; citizenship and belonging.
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Mount Holyoke College
Slanted Subjects: Queer Theories and Literature in Latin America
GNDST 333X/SPAN 350
Instructor: T. Daly
Meets W 1:15-4:05 p.m.
This class will interrogate the limits and possibilities of talking about a slanted or queer subject position with the context of Latin American literature. Looking at texts from the Caribbean, Central America and South America, we will explore the construction of a queer subjectivity through literature, film and visual art. We will pay careful attention to the intersections of class, race, gender, and sexuality to speak of queerness not only as a sexual orientation, but also as a decolonial intervention. Readings will draw from philosophy as well as literature. In Spanish.
Thinking Through the Body: Messy Feminisms, Queer Transfections, Cross-Species Connections
GNDST 333Z
Instructor: Christian Gundermann
Meets: TBA
The brain sends an impulse, the body executes it? Science examines, matter is inert? Men look, women are displayed? People train, dogs and horses obey? The sperm is mobile, the egg lays waiting? Spirit (leaders) infuse(s), nature (the masses) receive(s)? "Thinking through the body," challenges these assumptions that some feminists see as coming from the stranglehold of masculinist Reason. Transfections are different ways of reaching into each other the esthetics, epistemologies, and politics of which we will explore. The sex wars, the AIDS crisis, the neo-baroque, translation theory, eating habits, and zoontologies are just some of the contexts explored primarily through film, literature, and theory.
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Smith College
Sex and Gender in American Society
SOC 229
Instructor: Nancy Whittier
Meets: T Th 9:00-10:20 a.m.
An examination of the ways in which the social system creates, maintains, and reproduces gender dichotomies with specific attention to the significance of gender in interaction, culture, and a number of institutional contexts, including work, politics, families and sexuality.
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University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Social Issues Workshop: Transgender Oppression
EDUC 392I
Instructor: Kerrita Mayfield
Meets: September 11, 5:30-8:00 p.m. plus weekend of November 2-3, 2013 9AM-5PM
This course addresses the dynamics of transgender oppression in personal and institutional levels.
Social Issues Workshop: Heterosexism
EDUC 392L
Instructor: Kerrita Mayfield
Meets: September 11, 5:30-8:00 p.m., plus weekend of October 5-6, 2013 9AM-5PM
Workshop addresses the dynamics of heterosexism on personal and institutional levels.
U.S. LGBT History
HISTORY 397LG
Instructor: Julio Capo
Meets: T Th 2:30-3:45PM
This course explores the queer American experience in the twentieth century, including how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals influenced the social, cultural, economic, and political landscape in the United States. This class will also introduce students to histories of same-sex desires and behaviors in early America and in other historical contexts. We will explore the historical construction of the heterosexual/homosexual binary and how concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality shifted over time. The course emphasizes how queer individuals became social and political agents during the last century, paying particular attention to how sexuality and gender historically intersected with constructions of race, ethnicity, and class. Students will explore the legitimization of these communities as political minorities by observing a series of pivotal events in American history. This includes changing sexual mores in the 1920s, the exclusion of homosexuals from the armed forces, the persecution of homosexuals during the Cold War, the emergence of distinct queer subcultures, the Stonewall Riot and the gay liberation movement, the politicization of homosexuality following the Anita Bryant campaign, the emergence of HIV/AIDS, and the ongoing battle to legalize same-sex marriage. We will also dissect contemporary events and politics and offer historical analyses of representations of the queer experience in popular culture. Students will be exposed to primary sources that will complement their weekly readings. Over the course of the semester, students will provide critical responses to the material and ultimately garner a solid foundation of modern American social, cultural, and political history.
Psychology of the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Experience
PSYCH 391ZZ
Instructor: John Bickford
Meets: M W F 11:15-12:05PM
Students in this course will explore psychological theory and research pertaining to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Topics include sexual orientation, sexual identity development, stigma management, heterosexism & homonegativity, gender roles, same-sex relationships, LGB families, LGB diversity, and LGB mental health.
Sexuality and Society
SOCIOL 387
Instructor: Amy Schalet
Meets: T Th 11:15-12:30PM
The many ways in which social factors shape sexuality. Focus on cultural diversity, including such factors as race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity in organizing sexuality in both individuals and social groups. Also includes adolescent sexuality; the invention of heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality; the medicalization of sexuality; and social theories about how people become sexual.
Queer Japan in Literature and Culture
JAPANESE 391M/591M
Instructor: Stephen Miller
Meets: T 5-8PM
Queer Japan in Literature and Culture is an upper- and graduate-level seminar that will examine how non-normative sexualities—especially same-sex sexualities and erotic desires—have been expressed in Japanese literature and culture from the time of the Edo/Tokugawa period (1600-1868) up to and including contemporary times.
Sumer Courses at UMass
LGBT Social Science and Public Policy Issues
PUBP&ADM 697S/397S
Instructor: M.V. Lee Badgett
Meets: Session 1: May 20 - June 28
This course analyzes the use of social science research in public policy debates and court cases related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the U.S. and other countries. In particular, the course will focus on the role of social science research on debates about employment discrimination against LGBT people, LGBT parenting, the legal recognition of same-sex couples, and the process of social and policy change.
Psychology of the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Experience
PSYVH 391ZZ
Instructor: John Bickford
Meets: Session 2
Students in this course will expire psychological theory and research pertaining to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Topics include sexual orientation, sexual identity development, stigma management, heterosexism and homonegativity, gender roles, same-sex relationships, LGB families, LGB diversity, and LGB mental health.
Sexuality and Society
SOCIOL 387
Instructor: Sarah Miller
Meets: Session 2
The many ways in which social factors shape sexuality. Focus on cultural diversity, including such factors as race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity in organizing sexuality in both individuals and social groups. Recommended: 100-level Sociology course.
