WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2020-2021       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Critical Queer Studies: Junior Colloquium

AMST 201
Spring 2021
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: FGSS 201
Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate, 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. Yet, as queer studies has been institutionalized in the academy, in popular culture, and in contemporary political movements, has "queer" has lost its political charge?

This course, a reading-intensive seminar, will give you the opportunity to explore the history and debates within the field of queer studies. We will start with some of the foundations, and then move to tensions and correspondences between queer theory and critical race theory, trans studies, anthropology, Marxism, feminist theory, and disability studies. Rather than understanding queer studies as a singular 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 failures? 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: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(CSCT)(FGSS)
Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above

Last Updated on DEC-04-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459