In this course we will consider a variety of
contemporary, mostly North American, texts (popular music, novels, poetry
collections, films) by writers and filmmakers working from different cultural
contexts (i.e., white Southern, Native American, diasporic Indian, Chicana,
white Canadian, Japanese American, Kanaka Maoli) that explore romantic love. We also will read some essays that approach
love from a theoretical (often queer feminist) or historical perspective. Our premise in the class will be that there
is nothing natural or inevitable about romantic love—that it is a culturally
produced ideology that is integral to the operation of our society and the
various institutions that sustain it. In
addition, then, to coming to a historical understanding and definition of
romantic love and what differentiates it from other kinds of love, through
analyzing representations of romantic love, we will take up questions and
concerns such as the following ones: How
and why are ideologies of romantic love necessary to the functioning of our
society in economic and political as well as social terms? How does the concept
of romantic love support not only dominant understandings of gender and
sexuality, but also of race, class, and nation? What is the relationship
between romantic love and violence? Are the two necessarily opposed? Why and/or
why not? What happens when romantic love is decoupled from heterosexuality
and/or from marriage and the nuclear family?
How and when can romantic love serve as a refuge from social norms,
and/or as a source of social critique, political resistance, or even
revolution? What alternatives exist to
romantic love?
ASSIGNMENTS: A seminar
paper of 12-15 pages (worth approximately 55% of the final grade); a midterm
with a take-home essay component (20%); regular entries in a team journal
(10%); and 1-2 page papers, a class presentation, and other in-class activities
(15%). Attendance is mandatory; missed
classes will negatively impact your grade.
REQUIRED
TEXTS (tentative listing, to be ordered through Revolution Books):
Novels: Margaret Atwood, THE HANDMAID’S TALE; Dorothy
Allison, BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA; Lucha Corpi, BLACK WIDOW’S WARDROBE. Poetry:
Lois-Ann Yamanaka, SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE PAHALA THEATRE; Juliana Spahr, THIS
CONNECTION OF EVERYONE WITH LUNGS; Haunani-Kay Trask, LIGHT IN THE CREVICE
NEVER SEEN.
Films: Deepa Mehta (director), FIRE and HEAVEN ON EARTH;
Mira Nair, THE NAMESAKE; Niels Arden Oplev (director), THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON
TATTOO; Kimberly Peirce (director), BOYS DON’T CRY.
Additional
readings: fiction by Jhumpa
Lahiri (“The Third and Final Continent”); essays by Judith Butler,
Michel Foucault, Gayatri Gopinath, Judith Halberstam, Cherrie Moraga, Adrienne
Rich, Gayle Rubin, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.