Gender & Queer Studies

This course serves as an introduction to Gender, Queer and Feminist Studies. It surveys the history of feminism, and then explores the rise and trajectories of gender studies and queer studies. The course engages with the ways in which gender, sexuality, race, class, ability/disability, and other facets of identity intersect with each other. Students will consider the implications of activism as well as the academic development of these disciplines, and they will engage with the ways that the readings touch upon their own lives.

What has been the role of religion in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBQT) politics? This course challenges the dominant picture of entrenched opposition between queer lives and religious traditions, and it investigates the complexity and variety of queer and religious engagement during the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. This course covers the historical emergence of sexual and gender identity communities in the United States and the attendant formations of established religious teachings as backdrop and critical context for both opposing and supportive religious involvement LGBT politics. The course examines anti-queer religious responses but also spends significant time covering queer-inclusive religious advocacy, including liberal religious involvement in gay liberation, the formation of queer inclusive churches and synagogues and new spiritual communities such as the Radical Faeries, and religious involvement in political causes from AIDS/HIV activism, hate crimes legislation, and same-sex marriage.

This course explores "queer" as an open question rather than a stable set of identities, asking: what kinds of bodies, desires, histories, and politics does queer describe? Students consider the complexity of queer identities and investigate the social and historical processes of identity construction. The class asks, with insights from queer theory: What governs the formation of legible social identities? What dynamics of erasure and illegibility accompany these formations? This course takes up these questions with attention to "queer self-fashioning," asking: How have "queer" identities and communities defined themselves--and been defined--in and through clothing and style? While clothing and fashion might seem to typify personal and a-political work, our inquiry explores the politics of self-fashioning: How is the fashioned body governed by laws, policies, and social norms? How has style played an important role in collective movements of dissent and social change? Students also explore these questions through a guided, hands-on project: each student will sew a wearable garment as a process of tactile meditation on the material, time, labor, and creativity involved in queer self-fashioning.

What does it mean to study sexuality? Does one’s sexual identity change over time? The course first covers some critical readings from feminist, queer, and scientific perspectives in relation to sexuality. Then, armed with these tools, students address key topics in the field around science and sexology, histories of sexuality, reproductive politics, queer theory and pedagogy, health, hook-up culture, body modification, sexual harassment and #MeToo, and global issues in sexuality.

In this course students examine the differences between traditional scholarship and a feminist approach to knowing. Participants engage in an independent research project of their choosing, sharing process and findings with other members throughout the semester. Completion of the class includes participation in the Lewis & Clark Undergraduate Gender Studies Conference in March of each year.