ENG272/001
Introduction to Literature, Culture and Literature:
Queer Pasts, Queer Presents
Instructor: Dr. Derrick Higginbotham
Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1.30 – 2.45pm
Location: SAKAMAKI, B101
Email: deh2@hawaii.edu
Office Hours: TBD
Location: 618 KUY
Course Description:
A surprising number of contemporary queer playwrights and filmmakers turn to narratives from the distant past in order to think about the present. This course will try to answer the question of why that is so. What kind of resource is the past when thinking about gender and sexuality? What does it mean to imagine that the past is never over? In what ways is the past different from the present, especially in terms of thinking about the cultural politics of gender and sexuality? This course will let us create answers to these types of questions, even as we will be attuned to the distinctive historical contexts for these artworks as well as their distinctive formal features. Our archive for this class will be a series of artworks in pairs: Christopher Marlowe’s dramatic tragedy Edward II (1592) with Derek’s Jarman’s film Edward II (1991); the morality play Everyman (c. 1496) and Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins comic drama, Everybody (2018); Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599-1601) and James Ijames Pulitzer winning comedy, Fat Ham (2023); as well as the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th century) and David Lowrey’s film translation of that poem in The Green Knight (2021).
Queerness in this course will be theorized in different ways: at times, it will evoke the cultures of sexual and gender minorities; at other moments, it will capture those who are betwixt and between other identity categories, whether defined by race, class, or gender. Throughout, we also will read selected essays from queer theory/trans studies by writers like Michel Foucault, Carolyn Dinshaw, Jack Halberstam, and Kadji Amin to build an understanding of this method of reading cultural materials. In other words, we will debate the queerness that inheres in mining the premodern past in the present to frame a cultural politics of the future.
This course will be face-to-face.
Book List (They are available at the campus bookstore):
Marlowe, Christopher. Edward II Martin Wiggins and Robert Lindsey, eds. London: Methuen Drama, 2014.
Jarman, Derek (dir.) Edward II, 1994.
Jacobs-Jenkins, Brandon. Everybody. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2018: https://www.dramatists.com/
Everyman. Clifford Davidson, Martin W. Walsh, and Ton J. Broos, eds. Middle English Texts Series. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007. PDF Version will be provided.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, eds. New York: Arden Editions, 2016.
Ijames, James. Fat Ham. New York: Theater Communications Group, 2023.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. James Winny, editor and translator. Broadview Press, 1995.
Lowrey, David (dir.) The Green Knight, 2021.
I will provide PDFs of all secondary readings.
Student Learning Outcomes:
In this course, students will:
- Practice reading literary texts critically and appreciate how genre and other formal features shape content
- Improve skills in close reading of texts, both literary and historical
- Strengthen their understanding of queer/trans studies
- Develop their skills as writers when crafting an arguments
- Fortify their skills in presenting their idea orally
- Gain an understanding of literature’s potential and limits as a source for cultural history
- Improve their skills in incorporating and documenting secondary scholarship
Methods of Assessment:
10% Participation
15% Final Exam
20% Presentation Assignment: a presentation on one of the class texts
20% Dictionary Assignment: a collective class dictionary we create of theoretical and literary terms born of our readings and discussion
35% Final Project: a final research paper