5-College LGBT Courses
Spring 2009
Mount Holyoke College
Gender/Sexuality/Latin America
GNDST 333-12, HIST 387-01, LATAM 387-01
Instructor: Sarah Sarzynski
Meets: M 3:15 - 5:05 p.m.
This course introduces students to the emerging historiography on gender and sexuality in Latin America. We examine themes of changing gender roles and shifting constructions of masculinity, femininity and honor in Latin America, with particular attention to issues of sexuality, sexual preference, sexual constraints, and sexual transgressions. The course also focuses on how class and race intersect with gender in the construction of identities, social roles, and sexual relations. Readings include works on the colonial period and the 19th century, but most of the course will focus on these issues in the context of the 20th century.
Smith College
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States, 1945-2003
SWG 205
Instructor: Daniel Rivers
Meets: TTH 10:30-11:50 p.m.
This course offers an overview of LGBT culture and history in the United States from 1945 to 2003. We will use a variety of historical and literary sources, including films and sound clips, to examine changes in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered lives and experiences during the last half of the twentieth century. The course will encourage the students to think about intersections of race, sexuality, and class, and how these categories have affected sexual minority communities. The course will also explore the legal and cultural impact sexual minority communities have had in the United States. Prerequisite SWG 150 or permission of the instructor.
The Cultural Work of Memoir
SWG 260-01-LEC
Instructor: Susan Van Dyne
Meets: MW 2:40-4 p.m.
This course will explore how queer subjectivity intersects with gender, ethnicity, race, and class. How do individuals from groups marked as socially subordinate or non-normative use life-writing to claim a right to write? The course uses life-writing narratives, published in the U.S. over roughly the last 30 years, to explore the relationships between politicized identities, communities, and social movements. Students also practice writing autobiographically. Prerequisites: SWG 150, and a literature course.
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Queer America: Alternative Sexualities and Genders in U.S. Literature and Film
WOST 297G
Instructor: Mitch Boucher
Meets: TTH 11:15-12:30 p.m.
In this course we will look at key moments in twentieth-century GLBTQ history in the United States. Through literature (autobiography, poetry, novels), theory, film, and historical studies, we will discuss the various ways in which gender and sexuality have been conceptualized in particular historical moments and the changing communities that have grown out of these time periods. Some issues we will explore include gender and sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance, gay and lesbian bar cultures, pulp fiction, and the AIDS crisis. We will also look at the history of political activism in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities and the relationship of GLBT activism to other social movements such as second wave feminism, the civil rights movement, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. This course is open to students for whom the topic might be new, as well as to those with experience or familiarity with the subject matter.
Queer U.S. Culture and Contemporary Issues
WOST 397Q
Instructor: Mitch Boucher
Meets: TTH 1-2:15 p.m.
This course will begin with an introduction to queer theory, looking at the cultural context from which it emerged, its central tenets, and the activist strategies that have been connected to it. We will look at the theoretical debates within queer theory, particularly around issues of race, class, gender, and nation. Then we will use the anti-normative theoretical perspective proposed by queer theory to think about its usefulness for contemporary cultural and political issues such as GLBT marriage, queer representations in TV and film, immigration, sexuality and the military, and globalization. You will be encouraged to collect and bring to class newspaper articles, advertisements, and any other representations of queer issues that you can find within contemporary contexts.
Queer Writing
ENGL 297TT
Instructors: Sara Jaffe and Nadia Cannon
Meets: T 4-6:30 p.m.
This course will allow students—both queer-identified and not—to use writing to express queer experiences and identities. We will write and read fiction, poetry, and critical texts that explore and interrogate the meaning of queerness, working together to develop an expansive, dynamic definition of what "queer writing" can be.
