Mar 28, 2024  
2021-22 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2021-22 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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POL 314 - Queer and Gender Theory


4 Hour(s)
Queer is a protean term. It can be used as an adjective to mean simply strange or odd as in Louisa May Alcott’s observation in Little Women that “Girls are so queer you never know what they mean.” It can also be used as a noun meaning, roughly, homosexual as in William F. Buckley’s famous outburst to Gore Vidal, “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your Goddamn face.” Finally, queer can be used as a verb meaning to spoil or ruin as in the British idiomatic expression “queer the pitch.” Taking the delicious ambiguity of the term “queer” as our jumping off point, this course will consider “queer theory” and “queer politics” in all its valences. We will examine the history of the production of “queer” as a sexual and gender identity as well as some of the queer contemporary implications of this history. We will also consider a variety of theoretical interventions that attempt in various ways to “queer” politics and its fundamental concepts and categories including power, citizenship, the state, masculinity, femininity, and the public and the private.



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