Social Norms / Social Power: Queer Readings of "Difference" in America (FYS)
AMST 117F
Fall 2024
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
FGSS 117F |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Disability Studies, Queer Studies |
This American Studies FYS is an interdisciplinary exploration of the privileges and penalties associated with "the normal" in the United States. We'll be centrally concerned with the ways bodily difference and social identity interarticulate with "normalness," locating individuals within hierarchical power structures. What is "normativity," if not a statistical norm? How are regimes of normativity produced, reproduced, and challenged?
Our focus is on queer studies, which we will approach through an intersectional lens, paying careful attention to the ways race, ethnicity, indigeneity, class, disability, gender, and sexuality intersect in social terrains of power. We will unpack and explore key concepts in American studies, including settler colonialism, compulsory ablebodiness, heteronormativity, biopolitics, neoliberalism, and ideology, drawing on a range of genres and disciplines, including memoir, ethnography, film, and theory in disability studies, queer theory, critical race studies, Marxist feminism, Native American studies, and trans studies. Along the way, we will encounter problematics ranging from disability and the "normal" to the American Dream, the "wedding-industrial complex," sexual "deviance" and desire, racialized state violence, the privatization of the public space, and the politics of queer/LGBT activism.
As a First Year Seminar, this course is writing-intensive and is structured to give you ample practice in core writing, reading, and presentation skills needed at Wesleyan. This course is part of the Queer Studies and the Disability Studies Course Cluster, and it is cross-listed in FGSS. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Credit/Unsatisfactory |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 | | Special Attributes: FYS |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Readings TBD, potentially: Eli Clare, BRILLIANT IMPERFECTION: GRAPPLING WITH CURE; Patrisse Khan-Cullors, WHEN THEY CALL YOU A TERRORIST: A BLACK LIVES MATTER MEMOIR; Chrys Ingraham, WHITE WEDDINGS: ROMANCING HETEROSEXUALITY IN POPULAR CULTURE; Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, CARE WORK: DREAMING DISABILITY JUSTICE. Readings by Michel Foucault, Robert McRuer, Sami Schalk, C. Riley Snorton, Louis Althusser, Michael Warner, Lisa Duggan, Sara Ahmed, Julia Serrano, David Valentine, Jules Gill-Peterson, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Jenny L. Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Robin D. G. Kelley, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Dean Spade, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, adrienne maree brown.
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Examinations and Assignments:
In-class discussion, short reading papers, final portfolio. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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| Instructor(s): Weiss,Margot Times: .M.W... 02:50PM-04:10PM; Location: CAMS 1; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: X | JR major: X | | |
| Seats Available: 1 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: X | JR non-major: X | SO: X | FR: 15 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 3 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 3 |
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