Welcome to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center @ Tufts

Gender and/or Sexuality-Related Courses 

Professors: Submit Your Courses Here

Note that most of these courses range from having some relevance to LGBT or Queer issues/studies to completely focusing on LGBTQ topics. 
Please contact the professor for more information. 

If you are a student, faculty, or staff member interested or actively doing work in the field of queer studies and/or theory, please let us know by emailing us at lgbt@tufts.edu.

Current Courses

Fall 2009

ANTH 0027: HUMAN RIGHTS AND CULTURE

Instructor: Bishara                     Block: E + MW                       Time:

This gateway course examines anthropological debates about human rights. It introduces key anthropological methods, likeparticipant-observation, reflexivity, and cultural critique, and anthropological theories on topics like culture, the state, indigenous peoples, and globalization. We will analyze controversies about cultural relativism and universalism, approaches to both violent conflicts and the structural violence of poverty, and the relationship between anthropology and human rights. We also study ethnographies of human rights work that elucidate how advocates strive to produce reliable knowledge and circulate it to authorities and the public in reports, documentaries, and other media.

ANTH 0120: CULTURE AND INTIMACY IN SOUTH ASIA

Instructor: Pinto                      Block:                                   Time: MW 10:30-11:45

This course is an introduction to the cultures of contemporary of South Asia by way of inquiry into gender, power, and structures of personhood in everyday life.  We will approach the rich diversity of this region's social, cultural and religious forms by considering the production of and challenges to social hierarchies in intimate settings and interactions: in households, communities, religious models, and through forms of desire and their regulation. We will consider anthropological approaches to South Asia both for what they can tell us about cultures and structures of power in this region and for what they reveal about the symbolic place of South Asia in the larger world.  We will ask how genders are defined, how desire is mediated, what shapes emotional life, how what it means to be a person plays into everyday interactions and political life, and how legal structures delineate relationships within and across groups, paying  attention to the ways identity and difference are shaped. Topics include sexuality, women's rights, heteronormativity and challenge to it, kinship, violence, and the politics and symbolics of caste. With particular attention to the maintenance of and challenges to social and symbolic hierarchies, this course incorporates ethnographies, novels, and films about and from South Asia.

CHNS 0112: WOMEN, GENDER, MODERNITY

Instructor: Zhong                      Block: G+                              Time:

Discussion from a gendered perspective of issues confronting China and Chinese writers in the twentieth century. Focus on the May Fourth

period (1920s-30s), 1930s-40s, and the post-Mao period (late 1970s to present). How does modern Chinese history "overdetermine" literary

representations of men and women? How do men and women writers respond to sociocultural changes? Anxieties of male writers and the

recent debate over "real" men and "real" women.

DR 0093: PERFORMING AMERICAN IDENTITIES

Instructor: Ndounou                     Block:                                 Time:

An exploration of the images and identity politics of Americans presented on popular stages through written analysis of theatrical and critical texts from 1830’s to the present.  This course examines American identity from the earliest theatrical and visual constructions of racial, gendered, cultural, religious and national representations in American theatre by considering what it means to be an American.  This historical and contemporary exploration of American identity from the perspective of playwrights, critics, scholars and artists from various underrepresented communities includes but is not limited to: Women, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, Immigrant populations, and LGBT.  There are no prerequisites for this course.  No previous experience in theatre studies required. 

ED 0162: CLASS, RACE, GENDER HISTORY OF US EDUCATION

Instructor: Worrell                    Block: L+                      Time:

History of education in the United States as a struggle over access and control. Relation to class reproduction, social mobility, the maintenance

of and resistance to racial boundaries and gender issues, emphasizing the struggles of disempowered groups to gain access to schooling in

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

ENG 0046: GIRLS' BOOKS

Instructor: Flynn                        Block:                             Time:  

Introductory course on relationship between nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century novels, films and guides for girls and the changing

constructions of the female subject. Topics include domesticity, sexuality, ethnicity, fantasy, and censorship. Readings may include

works by Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Carolyn Keene, Louise Fitzhugh, Judy Blume, Katherine Paterson, Angela Johnson, Francesca Block, Carol Gilligan, and Michel Foucault.

ENG 0209: FILMS ABOUT LOVE, SEX, AND SOCIETY

Valdes Greenwood       Block: E+MW                                   Time:  

Many films deal with romantic relationships and the possibilities for happiness in them, raising questions about male and female social roles and about lovers both heterosexual and homosexual at odds with society or coming to terms with it. We will look at a selection of films, some older and black and white, some more recent, some English-language, some foreign-language (with subtitles); and we will talk about the issues they raise. Readings will be assigned on the films and on the broader issues. Students will be required to attend film screenings on specified evenings. We will do various types of writing, including formal analytical essays, film reviews, and informal response papers; and students' writing will be central.

HIST 0091: SEEKING GENDERED PERSPECTIVES: AFRICA FOUNDATION SEMINAR

Instructor: Penvenne       Block: 7+                                    Time:  

We begin by confirming that all people create, experience and interpret history as agents of change within the parameters
of social location. Among the most familiar criteria shaping social location are age, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, ethnicity, and
race. This course will wrestle with the overall problematic of experiencing and interpreting history, but will pay special attention to
women and men in Southern Africa. The course will partner small groups of students to read and report back to class on topics of historiography,
theory and methods. African historiography is now deep and complex. We will survey themes around gender, sexuality, labor, culture, urban society
and politics, and engage theoretical analyses of Southern Africa's recent past. Course materials include scholarly readings, documentary films,
photographs, literature, poetry, interviews and a range of digital, print and object primary sources. We will focus on web‐based archives such as Aluka’s “Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa” collection and Michigan State’s “African Activist Archive Project.” Both contain digital
images of ephemera and documents including pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, t‐shirts, photos, audio and video recordings.

JPN 0114: GENDER IN JAPANESE CULTURE

Instructor: Napier                       Block: F+TR                    Time:  

The role of femininity and masculinity in Japanese culture, from the writings of Muraskai Shikibu, creator of "The Tale of Genji" to the

heroines of contemporary Japanese animation (anime). Our sources will include , literature, film, essays, television series, manga (comics)

and anime. The role of women as a repository of tradition, the use of women in contemporary horror films, the rise and fall of the iconic salaryman, the crisis in contemporary masculinity, and issues in queer sexuality. Taught in English.

PHIL 0048: FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY

Instructor: Bauer                    Block: K+                          Time:

Investigation of the implications of a feminist point of view for philosophical inquiry and for various philosophical issues. Practical

ethical problems such as abortion, sexual harassment, and pornography, and theoretical issues such as the nature of equality and

gender difference will be discussed. Core course in the Women's Studies Program.

SOC 0030: SEX & GENDER IN SOCIETY

Instructor: Ostrander                   Block: D+                          Time:

Differences and inequalities between women's and men's social positions and personal experiences in the contemporary United States.

Intersections of gender, race, and class. Gender relations in the labor force, families, the state, and in sexual and emotional life. Violence and

sexual harassment. Men's and women's efforts toward personal and social change in gender relations.

SOC 0114: SOCIOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP

Instructor: Centner                  Block: G+                          Time: TuTh 10:30-11:45

Contexts, dynamics, and experiences of power that shape leaders. Leadership in schools, communities, politics, business, and other

settings. Impact on leadership of race and ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, age, citizenship, and territory. Characteristics of effective

leadership. Methods of engaging critically with leaders. Factors that make leadership subject to change.

WS 0073: INTRO TO QUEER STUDIES

Instructor: Burtner                      Block:                           Time:

Introduction to the interdisciplinary field of queer studies through an examination of key texts and practices. Course will interrogate notions

of normality; binary systems of sex, gender, and sexuality; and cultural representations of personhood, citizenship and family. It will examine

the application of queer theory in fields such as economics, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, and film studies. Of particular concern will be ways gender and sexuality intersect with race, ethnicity, nationality, and class.

Past Courses

Spring 2009

ENG 0177 - FEMINISM, LITERATURE, AND THEORY  

Professor: Rosenthal                 Block: 5+                        Time: M 1:20-4:20pm

Starting with Mary Wollstonecraft's early struggle to articulate feminism in Maria; Or The Wrongs of Woman (1798), we will read a range of imaginative literature from Wollstonecraft to the present in conjunction with contemporary theoretical writing to explore what feminism(s) is (are): how it has (over time and in different places) understood the oppression of women and the potential for women's empowerment; how it raises and tries to answer questions about biological difference and social construction, about identity and solidarity, about the very definition of "woman." We will look at both the Anglo- American tradition of liberal feminism developed from Wollstonecraft and challenges to its basic assumptions and categories by "French feminists", women of color, and non-Western writers and activists. Readings will include novels, poems, and theoretical texts by Judith Butler, Helene Cixous, Assia Djebar, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, bell hooks, Luce Irigaray, Nora Okja Keller, Audre Lorde, Chandra Mohanty, Cherrie Moraga, Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich, Jeanette Winterson, Monique Wittig, Virginia Woolf, and other thinkers about women, gender, and feminism.

HIST 0181 – EUROPEAN HISTORY RESEARCH SEMINAR: WOMEN, GENDER, AND FAMILY 1200-1800

Professor: Rankin                     Block: 7                       Time: W 1:30-4:00pm

This seminar examines the history of gender and family in Western Europe from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century. We will trace shifting ideas about the social, intellectual, economic, and religious roles of men and women in this time period. Main topics of investigation include the role of marital status in early modern social and economic life; gender roles in urban, rural, and courtly households; childbearing and childhood; female monarchs; women and education; witchcraft; the Protestant Reformation’s effects on marriage and family; and the family as a model for the early modern state. We also consider the social position of individuals outside of the 'normal' family unit, such as widows, orphans, monks, and nuns. Research paper required.

PS 0128 - GENDER, WORK, AND PEOPLE IN EAST ASIA  

Professor: Remick                    Block: E+ MW               Time: MW10:30am-11:45am

Gendered experiences of work in the East Asian economic “miracle.”  The states role in creating, challenging, or mitigating gender considerations in work, the centrality of women’s labor in development, and women’s work as an international relations issue.  Readings on factory, office, domestic and sex work.

REL 104 - FEMINIST THEOLOGIES  

Professor: Hutaff                       Block: H+ TR             Time: TR 1:30pm-2:45pm

“Feminism,” says theologian Judith Plaskow, “is a process of coming to affirm ourselves as women/persons - and seeing that affirmation mirrored in religious and social institutions.” This course will survey the impact which the growth of feminist consciousness during the last three decades has had on the religious commitments of women, as well as on traditional religious institutions, beliefs, and practices. We will explore new approaches and methods which recent feminist scholarship have brought to the study of ancient religious texts and other historical sources, and will assess how the inclusion of women’s perspectives is challenging, enlarging, and enriching the craft of theology itself. Also to be considered: the rise of new women’s rituals and alternative spiritualities, and the relationship of religious feminism to other struggles for human dignity and liberation. This course meets the Humanities distribution requirement.

WS 0073 - INTRODUCTION TO QUEER STUDIES  

Professor: Butner                      Block: 11+                 Time: T 6pm-9pm

Introduction to the interdisciplinary field of queer studies through an examination of key texts and practices. Course will interrogate notions of normality; binary systems of sex, gender, and sexuality; and cultural representations of personhood, citizenship, and family. It will examine the application of queer theory in fields such as economics, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, and film studies. Of particular concern will be ways gender and sexuality intersect with race, ethnicity, nationality, and class.

ANTH0 181 – ANTHROPOLOGY & FEMINISM

Professor: Burtner                     Block: E+ MW             Time: MW10:30am-11:45am

Implications of feminist perspectives for anthropological studies of ritual and symbolism, work and exchange, “development,” the environment, self and personhood, colonialism, apartheid, class, and sexuality.  Relationship between feminist anthropology, postmodernism, and experiments in anthropological fieldwork and writing.  Critiques of dominant forms of Western feminism by Third-World feminists.

PSY 0055 – HUMAN SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

Professor: Debold                     Block: D                       Time: MTR 10:30am-11:20am

A review of the psychology, physiology, and anatomy of sex with emphasis on human sexuality.  Topics include history embryogenesis and differentiation of sexual dimorphism, hormones and sexual behavior, cross-cultural studies of sexual behavior, heterosexual and homosexual scripts, contraception, sexual dysfunction, sex and the law, and pornography.

UEP 215 – LEGAL FRAMEWORKS OF SOCIAL POLICY

Professor: Rom                         Block: 11                     Time: T 6:30pm-9pm

Provides students with a legal foundation for understanding the connections between social policy and individual rights. Examines the legal tools available to ensure justice in America, including the U.S. Constitution, pivotal court decisions, and landmark legislation such as the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Course touches on issues of race, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, among other themes. Grad standing or consent required.

Fall 2008

Anthropology 120.01: Culture & Intimacy in South Asia: Sex, Power, and Society in South Asia
Instructor: Pinto
Block: E+ MW 10:30-11:45am
This course is an introduction to the anthropology of South Asia by way of inquiry into the structure and personhood of intimacy in the household, religious, and political life. Beginning with the notion that, within a region marked by its rich diversity, anthropological approaches to South Asia have long been obsessed with kinship and caste, we will consider both the content and politics of these foci. We will look at ethnographic studies for what the can tell us about cultures and structures of power in this region, for the material they offer in thinking about gender, identity, and personhood, and for what they reveal about the symbolic place of South Asia in the larger world. In asking what holds people together, how genders are defined, what shapes emotional life, and how legal and political structures delineate relationships within and across groups, genders, and generations, we will pay particular attention to ways identity and kinship, inheritance, reproduction, sexuality, death, and the politics and symbolics of caste. With particular attention to the maintenance of and challenges to social and symbolic hierarchies, this course incorporates ethnographies, novels, and films about and from South Asia.

History 1.01: Girlhood in the 1950s
Instructor: Drachman
Block: 8 R 1:30-4:00pm
This course will examine girlhood and coming of age in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Specifically, it will cover the era that begins in the post-World War II years with the emergence of the feminine mystique and ends in the 1960s with the rise of the second wave of feminism. The class will analyze the tension between image and reality, gender difference and equality, conformity and individuality. It will explore differences based on race, class, and ethnicity as well as similarities based on gender. It will focus on the paradox for girls of growing up in an era of optimism and opportunity, when little was expected of girls.

History 181.04: The Body and Sexuality in Pre-Modern Europe
Instructor: Rankin
Block: 7+ W 1:20-4:20pm
This course examines the varying ways in which the human body and sexuality were construed in medieval and early modern Europe. How do bodies change through history? Is sexuality a useful term to use when examining medieval and early modern Europe? How are the body and sexuality linked? What assumptions do we have to leave behind in order to understand the way people related to their bodies in the past? Topics covered include medical and cultural meanings of sex difference; the purified religious body; academic anatomy and the body; homosexuality; cross-dressing and sexual identity; sexual deviance; the monstrous body; and historiographical debates about the early modern body.

Sociology 30.01: Sex, Gender, and Society
Instructor:
Block: L+ TR 4:30-5:45pm
Differences and inequalities between women's and men's social positions and personal experiences in the contemporary United States. Intersections of gender, race, and class. Gender relations in the labor force, families, the state, and in sexual and emotional life. Violence and sexual harassment. Men's and women's efforts toward personal and social change in gender relations.

Women's Studies 93.01: Introduction to Queer Theory
Instructor: Yarbrough
Block:  12+ W 6-9pm
This course will introduce students to queer studies through an examination of key theoretical texts and exemplary practices.  We will be interested in a diverse set of attempts to upset, oppose, or subvert ideas and practices of normality and to displace the opposition between “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” as the main axis on which human sexuality is mapped.  First we will examine several sources of what became queer theory, including writing by Michel Foucault and Gayle Rubin.  We will then examine work by two of queer theory's foundational writers, Eve Sedgwick and Judith Butler.  The bulk of the course will be concerned with how queer theory is put into practice in fields such as economics, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, and film.  Texts here will include work by Juana Rodriguez, Martin Manalansan, John D’Emilio, and Isaac Julien.  We will pay particular attention to the way gender and sexuality intersect with race, ethnicity, nationality, and class. 

Course requirements include weekly participation in class discussion, weekly Blackboard reading responses, one short opinion paper, a midterm examination on key theoretical concepts, and a final paper or project. 

Spring 2008

History 99.03: History of Sexuality in America
Instructor: Lekus
Block: G+ MW 1:30–2:45pm
We will examine the history of sexuality in America from the colonial era to the present, paying particular attention to the changing definitions and practices of what Americans have considered "normal" and "deviant." Topics covered include birth control, abortion, and eugenics; race, ethnicity, and sex; sexually transmitted diseases; capitalism, migration, and urbanization; economics and geography; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender identities and communities. In doing so, we will explore the centrality of sexuality to U.S. history as a whole.

Anthropology 149-08: Gendered Lives: The Cultural Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Latin America
Instructor: Garcia
Block: 8 R 1:30-4:00pm
This seminar explores the ways in which the cultural construction of gender and sexuality structure the lives of Latin American men and women. In Latin America, ideas about what it means to be a man and a woman have powerful consequences. These ideas are challenged, turned upside down, negotiated, and accepted in a variety of ways that make up the cultural politics of gender in the Americas. A few of the specific case studies include the deployment of motherhood as a political tool of resistance in Argentina, the politics of masculinity in Mexico City, the history of the gay movement in Brazil, violence against women in Guatemala and Ciudad Juárez, and the indigenous women’s struggles in the Andes.

English 2: Differences
Instructor: multiple professors
Block: Multiple blocks
What does it mean to be "different"–politically, religiously, racially or ethnically, sexually, or by reason of class or disability–from the social "norm"? How do those in the social "norm" react when they encounter those who are different? If the social norm is white, Protestant, male, heterosexual, and middle class, how do writers in other categories imagine themselves in relation to this "norm"? What are the special problems and opportunities for writers who are "different"? These are some of the questions to be addressed in this course which is devoted, primarily, to increasing proficiency in writing.

English 2: Love and Sexuality
Instructor: multiple professors
Block: Multiple blocks
In addition to examining love and sexuality both separately and with regard to one another, we will look at related issues such as gender, sex roles, sex, homosexuality, heterosexuality, narcissism, sadism, masochism, affection, marriage, marriage alternatives, divorce, adultery, pornography, prostitution, incest, and violence. Course materials will include some of the following: essays, theoretical writings, fiction, mythology, oral traditions, popular culture, and advertising. Students' ideas, interests, and experience will help guide the class, and students' writing will be the center of it.

Women’s Studies 72: Introduction to Women’s Studies
Instructor: Johnson
Block: L+ TR 4:30-5:45pm
This course is a multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary examination of how cultural meanings given to gender in specific historical moments have shaped female existence across racial, class, ethnic and sexual lines. The readings that form this overview of the field for the most part discuss western women and are broad in scope. Perspectives and methodologies are drawn from a variety of disciplines within the humanities, social and natural sciences, including economics and sociology, biology, psychology, and literary studies.

Fall 2007

WS 0191 – 01  Introduction to Queer Studies, Fall 2006
Instructor:  Dona Yarbrough
Block:  12+
Time: W 6-9 p.m.
This course will introduce students to queer studies through an examination of key theoretical texts and exemplary practices.  We will be interested in a diverse set of attempts to upset, oppose, or subvert ideas and practices of normality and to displace the opposition between “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” as the main axis on which human sexuality is mapped.  First we will examine several sources of what became queer theory, including writing by Michel Foucault and Gayle Rubin.  We will then examine work by two of queer theory's foundational writers, Eve Sedgwick and Judith Butler.  The bulk of the course will be concerned with how queer theory is put into practice in fields such as economics, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, and film.  Texts here will include work by Juana Rodriguez, Martin Manalansan, John D’Emilio, and Isaac Julien.  We will pay particular attention to the way gender and sexuality intersect with race, ethnicity, nationality, and class. 

Course requirements include weekly participation in class discussion, weekly Blackboard reading responses, one short opinion paper, a midterm examination on key theoretical concepts, and a final paper or project. 

See last year's course evaluations for Intro to Queer Studies!

Spring 2007

CR104: Feminist Theologies
Instructor: Hutaff
Block: H+
Time: TR 1:30-2:20 p.m.
"Feminism," says theologian Judith Plaskow, "is a process of coming to affirm ourselves as women/persons - and seeing that affirmation mirrored in religious and social institutions."  This course will survey the impact which the growth of feminist/ womanist consciousness during the last decades has had on the religious commitments of women, as well as on traditional religious institutions, beliefs, and practices.  We will explore new approaches and methods which recent feminist scholarship has brought to the study of ancient religious text and other historical sources, and will assess how the inclusion of women's perspectives is challenging, enlarging, and enriching the craft of theology itself.  Also to be considered: the rise of new women's rituals and alternative spiritualities, and the relationship of religious feminism to other struggles for human dignity and liberation.

ENG 2.23-25: Films about Love, Sex and Society
Instructor: Karlins / Swafford / Valdes Greenwood
Block: H+ / F+ / G+
Time: TR 1:30-2:45 PM / TR 12:00-1:15 PM / MW 1:30-2:45 PM
Many films deal with romantic relationships and the possibilities for happiness in them, raising questions about male and female social roles and about lovers both heterosexual and homosexual at odds with society or coming to terms with it. We will look at a selection of films, some older and black and white, some more recent, some English-language, some foreign-language (with subtitles); and we will talk about the issues they raise. Readings will be assigned on the films and on the broader issues. Students will be required to attend film screenings on specified evenings. We will do various types of writing, including formal analytical essays, film reviews, and informal response papers; and students' writing will be central.

ENG 2.26-28: Love and Sexuality
Instructor: Flynn / Manzella / Woodbury
Block: C / L+ / C
Time: TWF 9:30-10:20 AM / TR 4:30-5:45 PM / TWF 9:30-10:20 AM
In addition to examining love and sexuality both separately and with regard to one another, we will look at related issues such as gender, sex roles, sex, homosexuality, heterosexuality, narcissism, sadism, masochism, affection, marriage, marriage alternatives, divorce, adultery, pornography, prostitution, incest, and violence. Course materials will include some of the following: essays, theoretical writings, fiction, mythology, oral traditions, popular culture, and advertising. Students' ideas, interests, and experience will help guide the class, and students' writing will be the center of it.

ENG 2.31: What is Queer?
Instructor: Shelden
Block: C
Time: TWF 9:30-10:20 AM
In this writing seminar, we will interrogate what is called "queer" by turning to a range of essays, fictions, films, and television programs. We will start by looking at gender identity, and will investigate theories about how we acquire our genders, and what we do with them once we have them. We will move toward a consideration of various modes of queer sexuality, including—among others—gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender sexualities. As we focus on students' essay-writing and research, our broad context will include issues of race, culture, normativity, transgression, power, desire, affection, marriage, and alternatives to marriage.

ENG 192.01: Sex in 19th Century Literature
Instructor: Jackson
Block: 11+
Time: T 6-9 p.m.
Was there sex in nineteenth-century American literature? Certainly no one would think that Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Evangeline are very sexy reading experiences. And certainly much nineteenth-century American literature seems to go out of its way to avoid the subject altogether. As Harriet Jacobs writes when she must recount her sexual history, “it pains me to tell you of it.” But did nineteenth-century American writers really avoid telling their readers what they knew about sex? Or did they tell more than we know? In this class, we will read a wide range of nineteenth-century literature with a view toward what stories, novels, autobiographies, lyric and narrative poems, popular broadsides, histories, songs, and political essays tell us about definitions and representations of sex in the U.S. in the nineteenth century. Discussions of women’s rights, emerging definitions of homosexuality, race relations, and notions of childhood will intersect (or arise from) with our focus on representations of sex. Readings will include selections from Brown, Brockden Brown, Cooper, Harper, Fern, Emerson, Longfellow, Child, Longfellow, Beecher, Stowe, Sedgwick, Fuller, Horton, Jacobs, Warner, Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, Marvel (Mitchell), Jackson (H.H.), Whitman, James, Dickinson, Dunbar, Higginson, and Hopkins.

HIS 39.04: Culture and Sexuality in Early Modern Europe: 1500-1800
Instructor: Abby Zanger
Block: G+
Time: M W 1:30-2:45
What happens when a long missing husband returns to a village, moves in with his wife, and turns out to be an imposter? Why did men wear wigs at the court of Louis XIV? When did sodomy become a crime? Why were the laws against homosexuality enacted differently against men and women, or people of different social classes? How did gender expectations and roles shape the lives of men, women, and children across the classes (nobility, the emerging bourgeois, and workers and peasants)? And how did sexuality and gender affect political culture? These are some of the questions we will explore in an interdisciplinary approach, reading theatre, novels, and images, along with philosophical, theological, and juridical pamphlets, treatises, and records to study early modern projections about and practices concerning sexuality. Topics to be studied include: sexuality and religion, medical ideas about sexuality, marriage conventions, dueling, manners and civility, sodomy laws, cross-dressing, sexuality in the convent, libertinage, and political bodies.

PS 104: Race, Sex, Class and Law
Instructor: Marilyn Glater
Block: H+
Time: T Th 1:30-2:45
Consideration of U.S. court decisions and related materials that address (or fail to address) issues of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. Topics include employment, welfare, marriage, privacy, families, reproduction, and expression.

PSY 55: Human Sexual Behavior
Instructor: Debold
Block: D
Time: M 9:30-10:20 a.m., TR 10:30-11:20 p.m.
Sex and sexuality are topics which are studied in many different ways. This course reflects that diversity by considering the biological, developmental, clinical and social aspects of sex and sexuality. Topics will include cross-cultural surveys of sexual behavior, sexual differentiation, sexual physiology, contraception, STDs, sexual dysfunction and therapy, sexual orientation, gender, and various legal issues that revolve around sexual topics. Prerequisites: Psychology 1 or junior or senior standing.

WS 72: Introduction to Women's Studies
Instructor: TBA
Block: K+
Time: MW 4:30-5:45 p.m.
This interdisciplinary course will draw on historical & contemp. materials (literature, film & articles) to examine the field of women’s studies. Readings will include selections from authors such as Chandra Mohanty, Jacqui Alexander, Judith Butler, Dianna Fuss, bell hooks, Cherrie Moraga, Jhumpa Lahiri and Dorothy Allison. Particular attention is given to the constructs of woman & gender as they pertain to race, class, ethnicity & sexuality in a global perspective. Additionally, in an attempt to trace the idea of woman, we will examine themes such as girlhood, femininity, labor and transnationalism.

Fall 2006

WS 191: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Dona Yarbrough
Block: 12+
Time:  W 6-9, Anderson 309
This course will introduce students to queer studies through an examination of key theoretical texts and exemplary practices. We will be interested in a diverse set of attempts to upset, oppose, or subvert ideas and practices of normality and displace the opposition between "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" as the main axis on which human sexuality is mapped. First we will examine several sources of what became queer theory, including writings by Michael Foucault and Gayle Rubin. We will then examine two of queer theory's foundational texts, Eve Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet and Judith Butler's Gender Trouble. Toward the end of the semester, we will begin to put theory to practice in the study of politics, fiction, and film by examining works and movements that are in some way or other enabled by or in dialogue with queer theory. Throughout the course, we will pay special attention to the ways in which queer studies has been critiqued, contested, and enriched by a variety of groups, including gays and lesbians, people of color, Marxists, feminists, and grassroots activists.

English 80: Hitchcock: Cinema, Gender, Ideology                                                                      
Instructor:  Lee Edelman 
Block:I+                                                                                                                                                                                 
Time: M W 3-4:15
More than a century after his birth, Alfred Hitchcock’s name is synonymous not only with cinematic suspense, but also with the appeal of film as a medium of popular entertainment. That popularity reflects our continuing fascination with the visual satisfactions the medium affords even as it testifies to our cultural investment in the narrative forms (thriller, suspense film, romantic melodrama) in which Hitchcock primarily worked. This course will explore the relation between Hitchcock’s achievement of cinematic “mastery” and his constant, almost obsessive attention to questions of gender, sexuality, and cultural authority–questions that always underpin the narrative suspense of his films. We will examine in detail how the act of seeing gets framed in Hitchcock’s films by being associated with practices of political and erotic surveillance and we will attend to his consequent inflection of “looking,” and therefore of cinematic spectatorship as well, in the direction of sexual perversions such as voyeurism, fetishism, sadism, and masochism. In this regard, we will consider the pleasures that Hitchcock’s style affords: Whose pleasure is it? To what does it respond? How does its insistent perversity affect our reading of Hitchcock’s popular appeal? To answer these questions we will read a number of theoretical accounts of Hitchcock’s cinema, including a number of recent interventions from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, feminism, and queer theory. Students should be prepared to explore and discuss the politics of sexuality as it intersects with the politics of reading and interpretation. Our energies will be devoted primarily, however, to studying and learning how to read closely some of the most complex, compelling, and stylish texts of Western cinema. These will include The 39 Steps, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Rope, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie.

HS 105: The History of Gender & Sexuality in the West                                                                                            Instructor: Abby Zanger                                                                                                                       
Block: F+                                                                                                                                                                                
Time: T Th F 12-1:1
This course studies the history of gender and sexuality from the ancient to the modern world. Topics include sexuality and the church, the emergence of gay and lesbian subcultures, the criminalization of sexual minorities, the fate of gays and lesbians under ultra-nationalist movements, shifting demographics around work gender, and family, the emergence of medical discourses of sex and gender, and the so-called sexual revolution. The course will culminate by placing into historical perspective recent events around the lifting of sodomy laws, the ordination of gay bishops, and the debate over same-sex marriage.

SC 30: Sex & Gender in Society                                                                                                                                  Instructor: Susan Ostrander                                                                                                                                                           Block: D+                                                                                                                                                                                  Time: T Th 10:30-11:45
Gender defines who we are. For sociologists, gender is also an organizational principle which structures all of society’s institutions and shapes division of labor, distribution of resources, and relations of power. Families, the labor market, sexual relationships and intimacy, cultural body images, politics, sexual violence, popular culture, religion, etc. are all gendered in these ways. Race, class, and sexual orientation intersect with gender and are essential to gender analysis. The major aim of this course is to understand (in sociological terms) the how and why of gendered social arrangements and gender inequalities. How is gender socially constructed in various institutional contexts, and how and why does it change? How do people in everyday life both create and challenge gender arrangements? What has been the impact of feminism on gender inequalities, and what have feminist scholars had to say in answer to these questions?                                                                                       The course looks at both women and men and how gender shapes their lives and experiences. While men often benefit from gendered arrangements on a societal level, benefits vary greatly by class, race, and sexual orientation. Many men pay high personal costs for social, economic and political forms of male privilege – just as women pay a price for gender inequality. Counts as a Women’s Studies core course.

Spring 2006

History 181HM: Sex in the City: London WWII to the Present
Instructor: Howard Malchow
Block: 6
Time:  T, 1:30-4:15
Sexual experience, regulation and liberation in London since the Second World War.   Issues will include the state control of prostitution and homosexuality (policing, legal prosecution and “permissive” legislation, from the Wolfenden Report of 1957 through the government’s response to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s), youth culture in the era of the pill, hippy free love, and rock festivals, the emergence of second-wave feminism, radical feminism and the development of the British version of gay liberation in the 1970s, and the backlash of cultural and political conservatism these provoked.  These issues will be closely tied to the lived experience of the capital, the forms of social life there and specific urban geographies that are associated with youth and sexual sub-cultures.    Sources include the mass media (the press, film, radio and TV), novels, memoirs, and scholarly and official publication.

Fall 2005

WS 191: Introduction to Queer Studies
Instructor: Dona Yarbrough
Block: J+
Time:  T, TH 4-5:15, Anderson 309
This course will introduce students to queer studies through an examination of key theoretical texts and exemplary practices.  We will be interested in a diverse set of attempts to upset, oppose, or subvert ideas and practices of normality and to displace the opposition between “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” as the main axis on which human sexuality is mapped.  First we will examine several sources of what became queer theory, including writing by Michel Foucault and Gayle Rubin.  We will then examine two of queer theory's foundational texts, Eve Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet and Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble.  Towards the end of the semester, we will begin to put theory to practice in the study of politics, fiction, and film by examining works and movements that are in some way or other enabled by or in dialogue with queer theory.  Throughout the course, we will pay special attention to the ways in which queer studies has been critiqued, contested, and enriched by a variety of groups, including gays and lesbians, people of color, Marxists, feminists, and grassroots activists.  Additional readings may include excerpts from The Trouble with Normal, The Material Queer, Postcolonial and Queer Theories, The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, Queer and Asian in America, and Disidentifications.  Course requirements include participation in class discussion, leading one in-class discussion on the weekly readings, a midterm examination on key theoretical concepts, and a final paper or project, part of which will be presented in class.

HST. 01AZ: Histories of the Body
Instructor: Abby Zanger
Block: R
Recent scholarship has argued that attitudes toward and perceptions of the body are socially, culturally, and historically constructed. If the body is not a stable, universal entity outside of history, it can be studied in terms of changing notions of biology, sexuality, gender and race, as well as in relation to the law, theology, and medicine. In this course, we shall undertake such as study by reading primary and secondary texts that examine bodies dissected, investigated, accused, tortured, imprisoned and executed. We will also consider the history of clothing, pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, and eugenics.

HST. 105: The History of Gender and Sexuality in the West
Instructor: Abby Zanger
Block: G+
This course studies the history of gender and sexuality from the ancient to the modern world. Topics include sexuality and the church, the emergence of gay and lesbian subcultures, the criminalization of sexual minorities, the fate of gays and lesbians under ultra-nationalist movements, shifting demographics around work gender, and family, the emergence of medical discourses of sex and gender, and the so-called sexual revolution. The course will culminate by placing into historical perspective recent events around the lifting of sodomy laws, the ordination of gay bishops, and the debate over same-sex marriage.

Drama 143: Gay and Lesbian Theatre and Film
Instructor: Laurence Senelick
Block: F+
Time: TR 12:00-1:15 PM, Sundays 7-11PM
Stage and media treatment of homosexuality throughout history, beginning with the classical Greek and Elizabethan stage, dealing with the Chinese and Japanese traditional drama, and proceeding to the present time. Subjects include stage transvestism, stereotypes of the effete dandy and predatory lesbian, underground vs. commercial film representations, the concept of camp, AIDS drama, and contemporary queer theory and performance. One extra session per week devoted to film screening.

Spring 2005

Anthropology 185C: Gender and Sexuality in East Asia
Instructor: Hillary Crane
T 6:45PM-9:15PM
In this seminar we will examine ideal types, symbols, norms, and proscriptions of gender and the variety of gendered roles lived by women and men in the cultures of East Asia. We will look at mythic tropes such as Mulan, resistance to norms of gender such as that of the silk factory workers, creative reconstructions of gender by those who don’ t fit the ordinary mould, such as that of physically disabled men -- all of these examples from China. We will study archetypes that have fired the Western imagination (such as the Geisha and the Samurai of Japan) and try to understand them within their own cultural contexts. We will also examine the variety of gendered roles available to (and sometimes thrust
upon) men and women, such as that of the shaman and the comfort woman in Korea. We will also explore feminisms throughout East Asia.

ENG 2K : What is Queer?
Block: M+ TR
Time: 5:30-6:45 PM
In this writing seminar, we will interrogate what is called "queer" by turning to a range of essays, fictions, films, and television programs. We will start by looking at gender identity, and will investigate theories about how we acquire our genders, and what we do with them once we have them. We will move toward a consideration of various modes of queer sexuality, including-among others-gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender sexualities. As we focus on students' essay-writing and research, our broad context will include issues of race, culture, normativity, transgression, power, desire, affection, marriage, and alternatives to marriage.

ENG 0080: Hitchcock: Cinema, Gender, Ideology
Block: K+ MW
Time: MW 4:00-5:15 PM
Instructor: Lee Edelman
More than a century after his birth, Alfred Hitchcock's name is synonymous not only with cinematic suspense, but also with the appeal of film as a medium of popular entertainment. That popularity reflects our continuing fascination with the visual satisfactions the medium affords even as it testifies to our cultural investment in the narrative forms (thriller, suspense film, romantic melodrama) in which Hitchcock primarily worked. This course will explore the relation between Hitchcock's achievement of cinematic "mastery" and his constant, almost obsessive attention to questions of gender, sexuality, and cultural authority-questions that always underpin the narrative suspense of his films. We will examine in detail how the act of seeing gets framed in Hitchcock's films by being associated with practices of political and erotic surveillance and we will attend to his consequent inflection of "looking," and therefore of cinematic spectatorship as well, in the direction of sexual perversions such as voyeurism, fetishism, sadism, and masochism. In this regard, we will consider the pleasures that Hitchcock's style affords: Whose pleasure is it? To what does it respond? How does its insistent perversity affect our reading of Hitchcock's popular appeal? To answer these questions we will read a number of theoretical accounts of Hitchcock's cinema, including a number of recent interventions from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, feminism, and queer theory. Students should be prepared to explore and discuss the politics of sexuality as it intersects with the politics of reading and interpretation. Our energies will be devoted primarily, however, to studying and learning how to read closely some of the most complex, compelling, and stylish texts of Western cinema. These will include The 39 Steps, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Rope, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie.

ENG 0118: Renaissance Drama: Over-the-Top Performance and Radical Play
Block: G+
Time: MW 1:30-2:45 PM
Instructor: Haber, J
The Renaissance is generally thought of as the greatest age of the drama in England: Shakespeare's plays are only the most well-known examples of the outpouring of theatrical activity that occurred during this period. In this course, we will read the always fascinating (and sometimes gruesome) plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries and successors, many of whom adopted more radical stances toward the major issues of their time. As we examine their presentations of various forms of power, their constructions of gender and sexuality, and their attitudes towards language and the theater, we will discover why many of these plays have been termed "oppositional drama" and "radical tragedy." We will begin by examining Christopher Marlowe's frontal assaults on contemporary orthodoxies, and we will consider the construction of sodomy in his plays. We will go on to explore the development of the drama of blood and revenge, which was introduced in The Spanish Tragedy, and which exploded in what has been called the "parody and black camp" of The Revenger's Tragedy. We will then explore the tensions which tear apart Ben Jonson's more conservative comedies. Finally, we will look at a selection of 17-century plays about women--The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, The Roaring Girl, The Changeling, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, and The Convent of Pleasure; we will discuss their varying attitudes toward female autonomy and desire, and consider why women became such central figures in the drama at this time. Throughout the course, we will think about these plays' investment in their own (sometimes quite extreme) theatricality, and we will attempt to do justice to their pervasive sense of play.

ENG 0192A: Environmental Justice & U.S. Literature
Block: D+
Time: TR 10:30-11:45 AM
Instructor: Ammons, E
1% of the U.S. population owns 38% of the nation's wealth. The U.S. consumes over 40% of the world's gasoline and more paper, steel, aluminum, energy, water, and meat per capita than any other society. Four additional planets would be needed if each of the Earth's inhabitants consumed at the level of the average American.
How does contemporary U.S. literature contribute to the environmental justice movement? What do writers have to say about environmental racism, ecofeminism, homophobia and the social construction of nature, U.S. environmental imperialism, and urban ecological concerns? What analyses and insights can we gain? What is the role of art in the struggle for social change? Our study will be multicultural, foregrounding authors from diverse racial locations-Asian American, African American, Native American, white American, and Latino/a; and an anti-racist analytical framework will be central. Literary texts will include Helena María Viramontes, Under the Feet of Jesus; William Haywood Henderson, Native; Gloria Naylor, Mama Day; Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange; Awiakta, Selu; and Simon Ortiz, Fight Back: For the Sake of the People, For the Sake of the Land. Also we will read poems by Audre Lorde, Janice Mirikitani, Robert Frost, Adrienne Rich, and Ishmael Reed; view several videos; and discuss selected essays in environmental justice theory. The goal of this course is empowerment for social change. How can each of us participate as a change agent in the struggle for environmental justice, locally and globally? How can our understanding of literature contribute? Group work, a field trip, one research paper, and active class discussion will be important parts of the course. Nonmajors as well as majors are welcome.

ENG 0192G: Feminism, Literature, Theory
Block: 12
Time: W 7:00-10:00 PM
Instructor: Rosenthal, L
What is feminism and why is it still interesting? What to make of the recent, tendentious label, "post-feminist," and what does it say about gender relations and feminist discourse in our own time? This course will explore feminist theory as it engages categories of representation, power, difference. Paying particular attention to the questions feminism has posed to literary texts, we will investigate feminism's relationship to psychoanalytic, marxist, literary, postcolonial, queer and critical race theory.

French 92 - 20th-Century French Women Writers (in English)
Block: D+
Instructor: Schub, Claire
Voices of women writers are always being articulated against a long tradition of male writers. If women writers share what Adrienne Rich has called "a common female culture," do they also share a common vision, preoccupations and a common language? Is there an écriture féminine? This course will examine these questions in the works of six contemporary French women writers of fiction and non-fiction. One oral presentation, one 4-5 page paper, 8-10 page final paper. No prerequisites.

French 192B - Sartre and Beauvoir
Block H+ (T, R)
Instructor: Solomon, Julie
In this course, we will study the work of two major figures of twentieth-century French literature and thought: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). We will read and compare two novels, a play, extracts from theoretical works, and finally two autobiographical works. The mise en regard of these texts will permit us to assess how philosophical, political, and gender issues are played out across time and in different genres. Active participation in class discussions is essential. One oral presentation, one short paper (5-6 pages) and one long paper (10-12 pages). Conducted in French. Prerequisites: French 31 and 32, or consent. May be counted toward the Interdisciplinary Major in Women's Studies.

HST. 03AZ: Culture and Sexuality in Early Modern Europe: 1500-1800
Block: K+
Time: M, W 4-5:15
Instructor: Zanger, A
What happens when a long missing husband returns to a village, moves in with his wife, and turns out to be an imposter? Why did men wear wigs at the court of Louis XIV? When did sodomy become a crime? Why were the laws against homosexuality enacted differently against men and women, or people of different social classes? How did gender expectations and roles shape the lives of men, women, and children across the classes (nobility, the emerging bourgeois, and workers and peasants)? And how did sexuality and gender affect political culture? These are some of the questions we will explore in an interdisciplinary approach, reading theatre, novels, and images, along with philosophical, theological, and juridical pamphlets, treatises, and records to study early modern projections about and practices concerning sexuality. Topics to be studied include: sexuality and the inquisition, the return of the errant husband, dueling, manners and civility, sodomy laws, cross-dressing, sexuality in the convent, libertinage, and political bodies.

PS 104: Race, Sex, Class, & Law
Block: H+
Time: TR 1:30-2:45
Instructor: Glater
Consideration of U.S. court decisions and related materials that address (or fail to address) issues of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. Topics include employment, welfare, marriage, privacy, families, reproduction, and expression.

WS 72: Introduction to Women's Studies
Block: K+
Time: MW 4-5:15
Instructor: Coleman
Historic and emergent developments in the field of women's studies, with emphasis on the impact of race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality in global perspective. Materials and methodologies are drawn from a variety of disciplines.

SOC 125: Social Organization of Sexual Behavior
Block: D+
Time: TR, 10:30-11:45
Instructor: Conklin
This course will examine patterns in the choice of sexual partners and the ways that individuals' choices are constrained by their social backgrounds and the social contexts in which they find themselves. We will study several sociological theories of sexual behavior and look at the methodological issues and the results of surveys and observational studies. We will investigate such deviant enterprises as prostitution, stripping, pornography, and sexual harassment. We will examine homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual identities; discrimination against homosexuals and gay subcultures. AIDS and sexual behavior will also be a focus of attention.

Fall 2004

HST. 105: The History of Gender and Sexuality in the West
Instructor:  Abby Zanger
Block K+ M+W only
This course studies the history of gender and sexuality from the ancient to the modern world. Topics include sexuality and the church, the emergence of gay and lesbian subcultures, the criminalization of sexual minorities, the fate of gays and lesbians under ultra-nationalist movements, shifting demographics around work gender, and family, the emergence of medical discourses of sex and gender, and the so-called sexual revolution. The course will culminate by placing into historical perspective recent events around the lifting of sodomy laws, the ordination of gay bishops, and the debate over same-sex marriage.

EXP-0047-F:  The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage
Instructor: Jeffrey Langstraat
Monday, 6:50-9:30 PM
In 2003-4 the issue of same-sex marriage exploded onto the national scene. Where did the issue come from? Why does it engender so much passion? In order to answer these questions, this course will explore the following issues: 1) the history of movement activity surrounding the issue; 2) arguments for and against the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples; 3) legal strategies pursued by supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage; 4) the political struggle within the state of Massachusetts; and 5) a brief comparison of the political struggles surrounding the issue in two countries that have already extended marriage to same-sex couples, Canada and the Netherlands.

Spring 2004

Anthropology 185C: Gender and Sexuality in East Asia
Instructor: Hillary Crane
T 6:45PM-9:15PM
In this seminar we will examine ideal types, symbols, norms, and proscriptions of gender and the variety of gendered roles lived by women and men in the cultures of East Asia. We will look at mythic tropes such as Mulan, resistance to norms of gender such as that of the silk factory workers, creative reconstructions of gender by those who don’ t fit the ordinary mould, such as that of physically disabled men -- all of these examples from China. We will study archetypes that have fired the Western imagination (such as the Geisha and the Samurai of Japan) and try to understand them within their own cultural contexts. We will also examine the variety of gendered roles available to (and sometimes thrust
upon) men and women, such as that of the shaman and the comfort woman in Korea. We will also explore feminisms throughout East Asia.
 

English 2HHH: Love and Sexuality
Instructor: Kristina Aikens
TWF 9:25-10:15am (C Block)
Student writing is the primary focus of this course, but our texts, discussions, and writing will center around issues of love and sexuality, both separately and in relation to each other. We may discuss such topics as heteronormativity, queer theory and sexualities, interracial relationships, and sado-masochism. Some specific texts may include the films All Over Me, My Beautiful Laundrette, Hedwig and the Angry Inch; the novel The Handmaid's Tale; music by Sleater-Kinney and Le Tigre, and comics by Ariel Schrag.
 

Sociology 125: Social Organization of Sexual Behavior
Instructor: John Conklin
TR 10:25AM-11:40AM (D+ Block)
Sociological theories of sexual behavior. Methodological issues and results of surveys and observational studies. Extramarital sex, prostitution, and pornography; sexual assault and harassment, sexual identities; homophobia and gay subcultures; AIDS epidemic. Prerequisites: junior standing and two sociology or psychology courses.
Readings include: Laud Humphreys' Tearoom Tarde; Martin Levine et al.'s In Changing Times: Gay Men and Lesbians Encounter AIDS/HIV; Robert NcNamara' Times Square Hustler, Michel et al's Sex in America; and Schwartz and Rutter's Gender of Sexuality.

Political Science 106: Civil Liberties
Professor: Marilyn Glater
TR 1:30PM-2:45PM
Civil Liberties is a course about constitutional rights, liberties and justice. The course addresses issues of privacy, equal protection under the law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. Sex-based rights and discrimination are addressed in the course. Interested students may elect to do the required termpaper on a topic related to sexual orientation and the law.
 

Psychology 55: Human Sexual Behavior
Instructor: Joseph F. DeBold
M 9:25AM-10:15AM and TR 10:25AM-11:15AM (D block)
Sex and sexuality are topics which are studied in many different ways.  This course reflects that diversity by considering the biological, developmental, clinical and social aspects of sex and sexuality.  Topics will include cross-cultural surveys of sexual behavior, sexual differ-entiation, sexual values, sexual physiology, contraception, sexual dysfunction and therapy.  Guest speakers may address the topics of sexual values, sexual orientation, and sex and the law.

WS 72: Introduction to Women's Studies
Instructor: Coleman, Lisa

Fall 2003

1. Courses Centered on LGBTQ Content/Issues

English 80: HITCHCOCK: CINEMA, GENDER, IDEOLOGY
Instructor: LEE EDELMAN, English Department
A hundred years after his birth, Alfred Hitchcock's name is synonymous not only with cinematic suspense, but also with the appeal of film as a medium of popular entertainment. That popularity reflects our continuing fascination with the visual satisfaction the medium affords even as it testifies to our cultural investment in the narrative forms (thriller, suspense film, romantic melodrama) in which Hitchcock primarily worked. This course will explore the relation between Hitchcock's achievement of cinematic "mastery" and his constant, almost obsessive attention to questions of gender, sexuality, and cultural authority--questions that always underpin the narratives of suspense in his films. We will examine in detail how the act of seeing gets framed in Hitchcock's films by being associated with practices of political and erotic surveillance and we will attend to his consequent inflection of "looking" and therefore of cinematic spectatorship as well, in the direction of sexual perversions such as voyeurism, fetishism, sadism, and masochism. In this regard, we will consider the pleasures that Hitchcock's style affords: Whose pleasure is it? To what does it respond? How does its insistent perversity affect our reading of Hitchcock's popular appeal? To answer these questions we will read a number of theoretical accounts of Hitchcock's cinema, including a number of recent interventions from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, feminism, and queer theory. Students should be prepared to explore and discuss the politics of sexuality as it intersects with the politics of reading and interpretation. Our energies will be devoted primarily, however, to studying and learning how to read closely some of the most complex, compelling, and stylish texts of Western cinema. These will include The 39 Steps, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Rope, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie.

Drama 143: Gay and Lesbian Theatre and Film
Intructor: Laurence Senelick, Drama Dept.
TR 1:30-3:30, screenings Sun. 7-11 p.m.
Stage and media treatment of homosexuality throughout history, beginning with the
classical Greek and Elizabethan stage, dealing with the Chinese and Japanese traditional drama, and proceeding to the present
time. Subjects include stage transvestism, stereotypes of the effete dandy and predatory lesbian, underground vs. commercial
film representations, the concept of camp, AIDS drama, and contemporary queer theory and performance. One extra session
per week devoted to film screening. 

History, Community, Politics: The Emergence of Sexual Minority Voices in the United States
Instructor: Robyn Ochs, ExCollege 
We will explore the emergence of sexual minority communities and sexual minority visibility in the United States, from the 1940s to the present. What is today's "gay agenda," and how has it changed over time? Is there one agenda, or are there multiple agendas, even within each identity category? We will explore issues such as same-sex marriage; debates about inclusion/exclusion of subgroups; the creation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered spaces; and cultural self-representation. Do gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people have common concerns or a unified voice?  Guest speakers, documentaries, short stories, poetry, legal documents, mission statements, newsletters, newspapers, and theoretical texts will frame our discussion. There will be focus on minoritized voices within sexual minority communities. Students are required to make at least two field trips during the semester, choosing among several options, which may include visiting bookstores, community group meetings, etc.

2. Courses that Include Sections on LGBTQ Content/Issues
CR 106: Contemporary Religious Thought
Instructor: Elizabeth Lemons, Department of Comparative Religions
F+ TR 11:50-1:05
This course offers an introduction to some key themes and figures in recent religious thought in the United States. It considers representative positions concerning the relationship of religion and public life and focusing on the topics of violence and sexuality. The course aims to show that religion is both a problem and a resource in American public life, and to foster students' capacity to analyze and discuss selected religious/political issues. Though this is an upper level course, there are no prerequisites. In the third part of the course, we analyze conservative, liberal, and progressive religious approaches to sexual ethics. Some assigned readings explicitly build on and/or respond to work in LGBTQ theory.

3. Courses that Have Some Relevance to LGBTQ Issues
HST. 03DM: 1968
Instructor: Daniel Mulholland, Department of History
Tues, 1:30-2:45 & Thurs., 1:30-3:45
1968 was a crucial year in the twentieth century. The post-war period was over. The long economic boom was at its last stage. And throughout the world there were momentous events. The US war in Viet Nam was the dominant theme in many places. The US was being torn apart by assassinations and demonstrations. In France and Germany traditional revolution seemed possible. The Soviet Union's counter-revolutionary face was made evident in Czechoslovakia. China was still in the throes of the "Culture Revolution". The Olympic games in Mexico were marked by massacre. Urban guerilla warfare was rife in Latin America. The "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll" of the "60's" were giving way to terrorism, counter-terrorism, insurgency and repression. Happy days came to an end as chickens were coming home to roost.