ENG 775 S25: Queer Theory
Tuesdays 3:15-5:30p
Course Description:
This course will offer a broad overview of critical conversations in queer theory. It will serve as an overarching introduction to the field, and will trace genealogies of queer thought from the queer theory’s origins in the 1980s to its contemporary iterations, mapping the contours of the field. We will think about the queer theory both as offering ways of thinking about gender and sexuality, as well as as a historical formation. We will pay particular attention to the racial dynamics of queer theory’s field formation, taking seriously the limits of the field’s over-reliance on an unmarked whiteness. Some questions we will consider include: how do different moments in queer and trans* theory figure the relationship between gender and sexuality? What are the uses and the limits of a “subjectless” or non-identitarian line of queer theory? How is queerness–and the field of queer theory itself–racialized? What effect does US Empire have on configurations of queerness? How does our position in Hawai’i put pressure on or highlight some commonly held queer-theoretical beliefs?
This course will be of interests to students interested in queerness, gender, and sexuality who are working across historical periods and across geographical areas. This class will also serve as an introduction for students planning to take an area exam area in queer theory, and will offer a working knowledge of the field for professionalization purposes.
Assignments:
Brief (350-500 word) weekly written responses, oral presentation and class facilitation, journal issue or book review, seminar paper proposal, final seminar paper (15-20 pages)
Readings:
All readings will be made available digitally, via Laulima.
Students will be asked to read Audre Lorde’s Zami (1982) before the first day of class. The text will serve as an anchor for our theoretical readings throughout the semester.
Other readings will include:
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1 (1978)
Hortense Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book” (1987)
Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” (1991)
Judith Butler, “Preface” to Bodies that Matter (1993)
Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, “What does Queer Theory Teach us About X” (1995)
Cathy Cohen, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” (1997)
Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, “Sex in Public” (1998)
Lisa Duggan, “The New Homonormativity” (2002)
Gayatri Gopinath, “Bollywood Spectacles: Queer Disaporic Critique in the Aftermath of 9/11” (2005)
Martin F. Manalansan IV, “Queer Worldings: The Messy Art of Being Global in Manila and New York” (2015)
Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex” (1984)
Audre Lorde “The Uses of the Erotic”
Eve Kosofky Sedgwick, “Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl” (1991)
Leo Bersani, “Is the Rectum a Grave?” (1987)
David Valentine, “I went to bed with my own kind once” (2003)
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Axiomatic” from Epistemology of the Closet (1990)
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Queer and Now” (1993)
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Shame in the Cybernetic Fold”
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, A Dialogue on Love (selections)
Patrick Johnson, “’Quare’ Studies OR (Almost) Everything I Know About Queer Studies I Learned from my Grandmother,” (2001)
Roderick Ferguson, “Introduction” from Aberrations in Black (2004)
David Eng, J. Halberstam, José Muñoz, “Introduction: What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now” (2005)
José Muñoz, selections from Disidentifications (1999)
Sandy Stone, “Empire Strikes Back: A Post Transexual Manifesto” (1987)
Eva Hayward, “More Lessons from a Starfish” (2008)
Susan Stryker, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein” (1994)
Eli Clare, “Gawking, Gaping, Staring” (2003)
Riley Snorton, “Introduction” from Black on Both Sides (2017)
Jasbir Puar, “Introduction: Homonationalism and Biopolitics,” “The Sexuality of Terrorism” from Terrorist Assemblages (2008)
Jasbir Puar, “Disabled Diaspora, Rehabilitating State: The Queer Politics of Reproduction in Palestine/Israel” from The Right to Maim (2017)
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, “Indigenous Queer Normativity,” from As We Have Always Done (2017)
Melissa K. Nelson, “Getting Dirty: The Eco-Eroticism of Women in Indigenous Oral Literatures” (2017)
Deborah Miranda, “Extermination of the Joyas” (2010)
Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, selections from Remembering our Intimacies (2021)
Stephanie Nohelani Lani Teves, selections from Defiant Indigeneity (selections) (2018)
Kaʻiminaʻauoa Kahikina, “No Ka Māhui Aloha: Unsettling Homo/Heteronationalist Logics of Belonging” (2024)
Mel Chen and Dana Luciano, “Has the Queer Ever Been Human?” (2015)
Jordy Rosenberg, “The Molecularization of Sexuality” (2014)
Cameron Awkward-Rich, “Disabled Histories of Trans*” from The Terrible We (2022)
Donna Haraway, The Cyborg Manifesto (1985)
Lee Edelman, “The Future is Kid Stuff,” from No Future (2004)
José Munoz, selections from Cruising Utopia (2009)
Lauren Berlant, selections from Cruel Optimism (2011)
Joshua Whitehead, “Introduction” from Love After the End (2020)
Octavia Butler, Dawn (1987)
Student Learning Objectives
- Foundational knowledge of critical, scholarly conversations in queer theory, trans* theory, and queer of color critique
- Advanced skills in analyzing theoretical texts
- Strengthened skills in applying theoretical texts to contemporary cultural and political contexts
- Enhanced ability to craft a research paper, including developing a research question, formulating a compelling thesis, and choosing and analyzing sources to develop and strengthen your arguments.
- Enhanced ability to give oral presentations to students that clearly convey a body of information and analysis.