ENGL 3217-1: Film/Theory/Gender. This course is about modern leftist films and emphasizes independent dramatic films made outside the U.S. Selection of films might include, for example, The Cyclist (Iran), L’America (Italy/Albania), Before the Rain (Macedonia), Land and Freedom (Britain). We will be analyzing the construction of genders as socialized roles, as reactionary and coercive methods of social organization. Our primary interest will be the deployment of gender in relation to political and economic concepts, and to that end we will be analyzing the film image as an ideological construct. Instead of considering gender as the explanation for everything, this course will critique the concept of gender-as-explanation through readings in leftist theory by Eisenstein, Bourdieu, Debord, Foucault, Lukacs, etc. This course is designed for English/Humanities majors and assumes that you have completed English 2010, Introduction to Theory, or the equivalent in the Humanities major. Professor: Kibbey

ENGL 3796: Queer Theory. (Same as LGBT 3796.) Surveys theoretical, critical, and historical writings in the context of lesbian, bisexual, and gay literature. Examines relationships among aesthetic, cultural, and political agendas, and literary and visual texts of the 20th century. Prereq., sophomore standing. Professor: various

ENGL 3856: Queer Film. This class will examine approximately thirteen primary texts that reflect the various ideologies, politics, and aesthetics of “alternative sexualities” in the history of filmic representation. We will view an extremely wide and eclectic range of texts, from classic American films (e.g.: Gilda) and genre films (e.g.: The Hunger), to silent films (e.g.: Salome) and more or less contemporary foreign films (e.g.: In a Year of 13 Moons), to experimental films (e.g.: Barbara Hammer short films), and so on. We will discuss secondary readings that include theory, history, and criticism of both film studies and gay and lesbian studies. Students will be responsible for at least five assignments: an oral presentation, two papers, a midterm, and a final. Professor: Winokur.

ENGL 4038: Queer Modernism. The modernist historical moment (roughly 1890 to the end of World War II) was a period in which a radically new order of gender, sexuality, and class relations coincided with innovations in literary representation. In this course we will try to come to some understanding of the much debated term "modernism" by looking at a diversity of Anglo-American texts by men and women that explore-sometimes overtly and sometimes covertly-the topic of homosexuality. Beginning with the early sexologists, we will generate a series of problems and questions surrounding the issues of desire, camp, closets, cures, causes, and crimes, attempting to understand why these topics remain a source of cultural fascination. Against this backdrop we'll juxtapose some contemporary queer theory, using this as a springboard from which to examine a variety of modernist novels, from classic 'high modernist' texts (such as Mrs. Dalloway) to non-canonical literature (such as Mr. Fortune's Maggot). We will look closely at the relation between each author's textual innovations and his/her representation of sexual difference, asking the crucial question: is sexuality conceived as something that is natural, or is it understood to be a cultural construct? We will examine the various ways that the meaning of the body and desire shift and change in modernist texts, paying close attention to how these representations intersect with the categories of gender, race, class and national identity. Our discussions will consider the relation between form and content, as well as the text's cultural and historical contexts-particularly the lasting legacy of sexological constructions of homosexual identity. Professor: Garrity

ENGL 4277-1: Early Modern Women Writers (1500-1700). This course is designed to introduce you to a range of writings by women in the early modern period and to the range of cultural, political, and literary issues and traditions in which they participated. Literary critics and historians have recovered a vast body of writing by women in the early modern period in the past few decades and have thus challenged the long held idea that women were prevented from writing in the period. One of the issues we will consider in this course is what it meant for a woman to write in a period when doing so might be thought monstrous and could earn her the label, “hermaphrodite,” as it did Mary Wroth. Thus, throughout the course we will consider how women writers negotiated definitions of femininity and male literary traditions in order to write. We will also explore how women writers not only claimed literary and social authority, but also reconfigured it. Some other issues we will consider: How did women writers of "fictional" texts engage in the writing and rewriting of history? How did women participate in the production of new knowledges—scientific, legal, political, and economic--and in revolutionary political activities? What were women’s contributions to the discursive constructions and deconstructions of nation and empire, of gender, sexuality, and desire, of social status and race? We will consider not only how women represented their relationships to men but to other women as well, and we will consider how women negotiated and represented conflicts with other women over issues of religion, race, and social status. Professor: Forman

ENGL 4287 (1): Twentieth-century Anglo-American Lesbian Literature and Theory. This course tracks the lesbian in British and American literature, from her early appearance in the 19th-century as monster or invert, through her 20th-century appearance in fiction by self-identified lesbian authors. We will begin by interrogating the category of "the lesbian text," asking what exactly constitutes lesbian fiction by examining a variety of answers posited by literary critics. We will examine, among other things, the relationship between historical context and representational possibilities, the constraining or enabling impact of "community," the class and racial inflections of "lesbian" identity, and also the benefits and dangers-for a marginalized group-of being put into and reclaiming representational space. We will read a variety of texts-novels, short stories, literary analysis, historical documents, and cultural criticism. In doing so, our goals will be: (1) to introduce you to a body of literature and slice of women's history which may have been missing from the more dominant narrative offered to you in your education thus far; (2) to understand the complex interactions in our culture among the categories of sex, gender, race, class, and sexual orientation, and to explore the impact of these interactions on the question of identity; (3) to examine representations of lesbianism in British and American fiction, and to consider the relationship between these representations and their broader cultural and historical context. Professor: Garrity.

ENGL 5179 (1): African American Literature and Queer Theory. This course will examine the intersections between African American literary production and Queer Theory. "Queer Theory" is a contested discursive terrain within African American literary and cultural studies. Still, it has impacted the ways that scholars in these fields think through notions of sexuality, sex practices, difference and dissonance, among other categories. The earliest black feminist thinkers gleaned terminology from the larger feminist movement, but ultimately rooted their notions of feminism and womanism in black women's historical and communal experience. One of the primary objectives of this class is to understand how black queer (gays, lesbians, transgendered, transexual, bisexual and even heterosexual) artists, activists and critics have constructed queer theoretical paradigms that have originated in the intimate regions of their lives, and then translated these personal theoretical models into the more public, externalized domains of black experience. In other words, we will focus on how these individuals have used "indigenous" or "nativist" cultural forms to extrapolate and then define a black queer aesthetic that is part of a larger queer theoretical tradition, but particular to black experience. As we will see, this process of intersecting the personal with the public and political is a strategy inherent in African American, feminist, gay and lesbian and queer theoretical communities. We will read in a number of genres that include, among others, the novel, poetry, short essay, queer theory, history, African American literary theory and biomythography. We will also read across a historical trajectory that spans from the Antebellum Period to the late 20th Century. The class will be structured around six intersecting themes. These themes are: 1) The virtues and problematics of history, 2) Black feminist, womanist traditions and methodologies, 3) Racial uplift with an emphasis on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, 4) Theory in multiple forms: excavating and constructing black queer epistemology, 5) The queer theory canon and its proponents, and finally, 6) Myth-making and personal mythology. Professor: Woodard.

ETHN 3100: U.S. Multicultural Fiction: Creative Writing. The course will be a writing workshop for students who want to learn about creative writing. Students will think about the writing process and write their own opening chapter to a novella (a short novel). The point of the class is to explore prose writing through writing exercises. We will also read one or two short novels to study their structure and content. For example, Sula by Toni Morrison and Rain God by Arturo Islas are novels that ask us to address how to write about complex issues like race, racism, sex, sexism, homophobia and gay bashing. Islas was a gay Chicano from El Paso, Texas who died of AIDS in 1991. Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature and her novels show complex relationships between and among strong female characters. Writing exercises will be drawn from John Gardener, The Art of Fiction or a similar writing text. If you have any desire to write creatively or to explore the possibility, then join us. We’ll create a classroom atmosphere that offers constructive criticism. You’ll enjoy the writing process that we practice in this class.

ETHN 3010: Queer Ethnic Studies. The course will explore the social construction of racialized queer sexuality. Therefore, the manner in which race and sexuality collide to construct non-heteronormative bodies and cultures will be investigated. We will study the category of “deviance” and how deviant behavior in the 19th century has become a politicized queer identity in the 21st century. We will also challenge the manner in which “deviance” becomes privileged rather than erotica when examining queer sexualities. Since the majority of historical and theoretical studies on queer sexuality ignore race, we will interrogate a sampling of studies with that in mind. Historical and cultural documents will allow also us to examine representations of sexual “deviants” and track ideologies about queer sexualities as well as interrogate theories. Students will write research papers on a topic that is pertinent to queer studies. Professor: Perez.

FILM 3013: Women and Film. This course explores the representation of women in film, the role of women in the filmmaking process, and the contributions made by women as critics and scholars of the cinema. Its orientation is therefore both historical and theoretical. Organized chronologically, the course examines how women have been addressed and "constructed" as spectators in and through cinema over the last 100 years, the relationship between cinema and social history, how films express ideology, and how feminist film scholarship has changed over the last twenty five years. The course focuses on American and international narrative, documentary, and experimental films from the teens to the present day directed by women or about women.

GRMN/FILM 3504: Women and German Film. Why does violence play such an important role in the work of feminist, queer, and transgender directors? What is liberating for these directors about the destruction of bodies and identities? This course will answer these questions and offer an introduction to the field of feminism and film studies with special attention to German cinema after 1970. We will treat both films about women and transgender figures and films made by women and transgendered directors. You will learn to think and write about films, film theory, and feminist theory. We will discuss films by Vertov, Deren, Fassbinder, Pasolini, Ottinger, and Scheirl - and texts by Sacher-Masoch, Brecht, Benjamin, Irigaray, Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, and Kuzniar. Professor: Greaney.

GRMN 4503-3: Divas: Cultures and Theories of Stardom. Not every female star is a diva. A singer or an actress who is well-behaved ­ on stage or in "real" life ­ cannot attain the status of a diva: a performer whose art has to be fascinating or even divine and whose life must be equally compelling. The life of the diva itself becomes a form of art that is often synchronized with the image created within her songs, plays or films. This course will address the figure of the diva in a global perspective as an artistic, cultural, and historical construction that engages key issues in cultural and media theory. The course's divas and objects of study will be drawn from a wide range of cultures and include Judy Garland, Zarah Leander, Carmen Miranda, Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, La Lupe, Olga Guillot and Hildegard Knef. Basic questions to be addressed are: How did these stars of the past shape themselves into divas on stage as well as in their lives? How do their followers in the early 21st century (such as Nina Hagen, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez) continue this tradition? How has the globalization of the media changed the figure of the diva? In what way are these figures marked by race and class? Why is it that no male counterpart of the diva exists? Finally, how can one take account of the diva’s privileged position in racial, gendered, and sexual subcultures? The course will present and analyze the biographies, or constructions of biographies, and the performances, mainly songs, of the above-mentioned divas from Anglo- and Latin-America and Western Europe. We will also address key issues in cultural studies, feminism, and media theory that come into play when discussing divas. Special attention will be paid to the relation between life and art (or text and context) of these divas. Professor: Laferl.

LING 2400. Language and Gender. This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of language and gender as we examine organizations of language, gender, and sexuality from a crosscultural perspective. Three general analytic stances in the new scholarship on language and gender will be addressed: the investigation of how cultural paradigms of gender relations are perpetuated through language; the study of innovative uses of language to challenge or subvert these dominant paradigms; and the examination of how women and men use language to construct social identities and communities. Themes to be addressed include: differences between "men's talk" and "women's talk"; linguistic constructions of masculinity and femininity; ritual insult, slang, and gossip; sexism in language; how children learn gender through language; language and sexual harassment; the interaction of gender with race, ethnicity, and class; gender in cyberspace; gay, lesbian, and transgender uses of language; and gender and bilingualism. Professor: Hall.

PSCI 4291 (3). Sex Discrimination: Federal and State Law. Examines continuity and change in legal treatment of sex and gender. Using the case method, focuses on family law, education equity, employment law, and gender-related criminal law. Same as WMST 4291. Prereq., PSCI 1101. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: cultural and gender diversity. Professor: Rucki.

SOCY 1006, WMST 1006: Social Construction of Sexuality. This course will employ a queer feminist perspective of the social constructionist paradigm to critically engage with essentialist and biological determinist perspectives, dominant in Western society, regarding sexual identity and sexual expression. Contemporary sexual identity, desire, behavior, health, research, and expert advice will be viewed in part as outcomes and techniques of social control. We will explore the construction of heterosexuality, femininity, and masculinity as they impact our cultural and individual understandings of sexuality. Throughout the course we will be examining and analyzing our own and others’ sexualities in a sociological perspective of larger trends and social influences. We will also discuss the sexual basis and consequences of the stratification system in place in this society currently with an emphasis on identifying erotic injustice and oppression. Professor: Walden.

SOCY 1016, WMST 1016: Sex, Gender, and Society. Examines status and power differences between the sexes at individual and societal levels. Emphasizes historical context of gender roles and status, and reviews major theories of gender stratification. Professor: Hubbard.

THTR 6081: Seminar in American Theatre: Lesbians and Gays. Studies the portrayal of lesbians and gays in mainstream American theatre during the 20th century, as well as the contributions of gay and lesbian theatre artists during the same period. Professor: Coleman.

WMST 2600: Gender, Race, and Class in Contemporary U.S. Society. Introduces the main forms of domination in U.S. society around gender, class, and race relations. Examines intersections of the relations and influences in institutions and everyday life. Particular attention is given to women of color perspectives and resistance to domination. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: contemporary societies. Professor: various.

WRTG 3020: Topics in Writing: Queer Rhetorics. In this course, the first and foremost goal is to improve our writing skills; how we embrace that goal is another story. Queer Rhetorics will be a collaborative effort where we use workshops, dialectical journals, personal essays, and argumentative writing in a variety of contexts. Starting with an introduction to Queer Theory, we will explore a number of “texts” that include the written text, film, audio-recordings, drama, visual art, music, and television, first to examine notions of “queer” and later to analyze, question, and explode the discourse of queer, the binary of straight/queer, and politics of power embedded in any college course, even Queer Rhetorics. Using your suggestions, I have organized a syllabus that will cover the goals of the third-year writing program as well as suit your own academic, political, and personal interests. It is my desire that this course moves beyond using Queer Theory as an analytical tool or lens to better understand the world, to what it should be—a course that is safe and encouraging for those who identify as queer, as well as those who do not, a course that questions itself, and a course that is shaped around the politics of queer. The assignments, the texts, the goals, and the space of the classroom will be “queered,” or not quite “straight.” On a final note, this course will should deepen your skills and imbue confidence in academic writing.