WMST 381 - How Queer is That?

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

This course situates queer within a larger trajectory of diverse social movements. We track different deployments of queer in order to reconstruct its (contested) histories as critique, political intervention, and identity or anti-identity. Together, we critically engage the terms, practices, and debates associated with queer studies. We also devote special attention to links between queer studies and feminism, critical ethnic studies, disability justice, and other articulations of disruption, refusal, transformation, and insurgency. Some questions for you to keep in mind: What kinds of struggle (or trouble) does queer enable? What kind of interventions can queer make within the academy? How does queer activism depart from a gay and lesbian rights discourse? What promises does queer hold? What are its limitations, as either political orientation or mode of analysis? How are poverty, immigration, policing and massive incarceration, and health care queer issues? What might queer contribute to critiques of militarization, the prison industrial complex, empire, and capitalism? What is the future of queer? Students are invited to arrive at their own conceptualizations for a truly transformative queer politics. Hiram Perez.

Prerequisite(s): WMST 130 and relevant 200-level course desirable.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS