WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2020-2021       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Queer Necropolitics

CHUM 356
Fall 2020 not offered
Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate, Queer Studies

Since the 1980s AIDS epidemic, the politics of death have been central to queer conceptualizations of identity, selfhood, and community. Queer writers reflecting upon the early AIDS years often express a sense of ambivalence about their own survival in the midst of their friends and family dying with impunity. At the same time, queer studies scholars have argued that the AIDS epidemic literalized long-existing forms of symbolic death experienced by queer people. Indeed, the idea that "social death" is a precondition for queer identity has been taken up by many scholars across fields, especially at sites of intersectionality between sexuality, race, and class.

In this course, we will explore the concept of necropolitics as it pertains to queer communities and ideologies. We will examine sites of literal queer death, through the history of the AIDS epidemic, the emergence of hate crime statutes, incidences of transphobic/homophobic violence, and the disproportionate incarceration of queer people of color. We will also examine sites of symbolic queer death, through the discourses of citizenship and belonging, criminalization, civil rights and exclusions. Concepts covered will include: Michel Foucault's work on biopolitics, Sarah Schulman's idea of homophobia as a pleasure system, Jose Esteban Munoz's work on queer futurity, Lee Edelman's work on queerness as the Freudian death drive, Judith Butler's work on the value of queer lives, Jasbir Puar's work on homonationalism and debility, and the burgeoning field of queer (in)humanism.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA CHUM
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: None

Last Updated on OCT-08-2024
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