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Theories of Gender/Sexuality

ENGL 096.401
instructor(s):
MW 6-7:30

This course introduces to students to key texts and debates in feminist, queer, and transgender theory. We will consider the long history of feminist politics and criticism, with a particular focus on rifts that emerged along lines of class, color, and sexual and gender identity in the last decades of the twentieth century. The second half of the class will be organized around contemporary topics and debates: reproductive rights; pornography, sex work, and free speech; the metrosexual; women and globalization; gay marriage; "race", HIV, and science; and transgender activism. Readings to include: Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Michel Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Catherine MacKinnon, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, bell hooks, Michael Warner, Gayatri Spivak, Cherrie Moraga, Susan Stryker, and others. We will also watch some films and look at some popular texts (journalism, advertisements, music, zines, etc.) Three five-page papers and a final exam.

fulfills requirements