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CS92PROD
Junior Colloquium: Critical Queer Studies


AMST 201
Spring 2018
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: FGSS 201
Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory
Course Cluster: Disability Studies, Queer Studies

This junior colloquium will give you a solid theoretical foundation in the field of queer studies. Although "queer" is a contested term, it describes--at least potentially--sexualities and genders that fall outside normative constellations. However, as queer studies has been institutionalized in the academy, in popular culture, and in contemporary political movements, many argue that today, "queer" has lost its political charge. This course, a reading-intensive seminar, will give you the opportunity to explore this history and these debates. We will start with some of the foundational works in queer theory and then move to tensions and unlikely correspondences between queer theory and critical race theory, trans studies, queer anthropology, Marxism, feminist theory, and disability studies. Rather than understanding queer studies as a singular or bounded school of thought, we will continuously problematize queer studies as a field and a mode of analysis, asking, What kinds of bodies or desires does queer describe? What are the politics of queer? What are the promises of queer theory, and what are its perils? What is the future of queer?

This course is excellent preparation for a queer studies concentration in American studies. Students should expect to end the semester confident of their ability to read queer theory, critique it, and imagine the uses to which queer theory might be put.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS AMST
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (AMST)(CSCT)(FGSS)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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