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Trans Method

GSWS 350.301
instructor(s):
MW 2-3:30

What are the subjects of trans studies? What are the disciplinary and theoretical tools necessary to do trans studies? What does "trans" as a category afford us in looking at texts, people, systems, objects? To what extent is trans an identity? What might it mean to think of it as a methodology? This course aims to introduce students to "trans" as an analytic by drawing from queer studies, feminism, critical race theory, disability studies, environmental humanities, literary studies, and postcolonial critique, centering trans ways of thinking on scales from the body to the nation. As a relatively "new" field, trans studies contributes to feminist and queer theory but is uniquely engaged with social and health sciences, trans activist movements, and trans cultural production. In particular, Trans Method aims to extend trans beyond self-identified trans bodies and beyond the United States to consider the affordances of a global, polyscalar trans politics.

         

fulfills requirements