The Pink Book, 2007-08
Courses of Interest to Students in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies
Fall 2007 UNDERGRADUATE COURSES DIFFICULT DIALOGUES: RELIGION AND SEXUALITY (Unique #34900) English 314J/Religious Studies 316K/ WGS 301 Tues 2-5 WEL 2.312 Instructor: Dr. Ann Cvetkovich (cvet@mail.utexas.edu) As one of four Difficult Dialogues Forum Seminars sponsored by UT's Connexus program and a grant from the Ford Foundation, this seminar seeks to explore the tensions and conflicts between sexuality and religion in contemporary public life. How do these two dimensions of experience and identity, often cast as deeply personal matters of choice and/or belief, play themselves out in public? One goal of the course is for students to learn to discuss these issues with respect for differences in religious beliefs and sexual identities. We will explore these general issues through attention to particular controversies and case studies. The course content will draw significantly from the input of a group of eight participating faculty from across the campus, who will develop topics and readings based on their areas of expertise. These might include: sex education in schools; abortion and reproductive rights; homosexuality, gay marriage, and the church; the Virgin of Guadalupe role as a national and feminist icon; the veil and women's sexuality in Muslim cultures; the use of performance and theater, such as the work of Anna Deavere Smith, to foster public debate and dialogue. INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES IN THE FINE ARTS Fine Arts 350 / WGS 345 TTh 11:00 - 12:30 DFA 2.204 Instructor: Dr. Ann Reynolds (reyna@mail.utexas.edu) This course will provide an introduction to women’s and gender studies in relation to visual, performance, theatrical, and musical culture by focusing on two genres or modes that have been of central interest to feminists in the United States and Europe: melodrama and documentary. We will begin by reading one of the foundational examples of U.S. melodrama, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among The Lowly, followed by a number of essays and works of art that have addressed this book and its impact on the relationship between race and gender in the United States and elsewhere. In the second part of the course, we will look at James Agee and Walker Evans’s 1941 documentary study of Southern sharecroppers Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. This text
and its accompanying images address the boundary between documentary and autobiographical representation. We will then consider a number of artists and scholars who have made these boundaries or limits central to their work as feminists. Finally, we will consider two films which deal with the same subject, the murder of Brandon Teena, through the two genres of documentary or melodrama in order to draw some conclusions about the relationships between these two genres and their effectiveness as feminist tools. GAYS AND LESBIANS IN AMERICAN SOCIETY WGS 345/WGS 393/Social Work 360K and SW 393U Wed 8.30 -11.30 SSW 2.140 Instructor: Dr. Shane Whalley (
swhalley@mail.utexas.edu) No description available. GAY AND LESBIAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE (will be offered in both Fall 2007 and Spring 2008) English 314V TTH 12:30 – 2:00 PAR 6 Instructor: Timothy Turner (timturner@mail.utexas.edu) This class will explore gay and lesbian literature and culture in the social, cultural, and political circumstances in which they emerge, but also consider how they influence or transform these circumstances. Readings will survey a wide variety of genres touching upon a number of topics, including the history of (homo)sexuality; race, gender, class, ethnicity, religion and sexuality; AIDS narratives; gay and lesbian political rights movements; and the emergence of identity politics and queer consciousness. Most of the reading material will come from the 20th century, and the course will examine representations of GLBTQ identity in both so-called “high” and popular culture. Students will especially be encouraged to explore the nature of self-representation as it pertains both to the creation of literary texts (and other art forms) as well as the formation of gay and lesbian identities in social, cultural, and political contexts. Along the way, students will also be introduced to some of the basic skills of literary and cultural study, including close textual analysis; class discussion; informal writing; researching, writing, and revising papers; and working in groups on peer review and class presentations. Since we will be working in a computer classroom, some familiarity with basic computing is assumed. Students should also be advised that they will be asked to attend and write about at least one GLBTQ event outside of class. * * *
GRADUATE COURSES FEMINISM AND REPRESENTATION: THE 1970s Art History 386P Fridays 10-1 ART 3.432 Instructor: Dr. Ann Reynolds (reyna@mail.utexas.edu) (Unique #20580)
This seminar will function both as a historical survey of some of the major feminist texts and works of the 1970s, and as a methods course for students interested in working on U.S. cultural production during the 1960s and 70s in relation to feminist issues and exhibition practices. The seminar will focus on three topics important to feminists during the decade -- theories of sexuality, eroticism and feminine sensibility; feminism’s relation to Marxism; and the development of a “feminist criticism” -- and three of the “master texts” being reread during the 1970s: the writings of Freud, Marx and Engels, and Simone de Beauvoir. This structure is appropriate because so much feminist critique and art emerged out of the reading collectives which initially defined the feminist community both inside and outside the art world. In each section, we will discuss a variety of responses to the “master” texts, and then consider these responses in relation to parallel or dependent debates within the art world specifically and the field of visual culture generally. Although this course is designed to cover a range of issues, the limited focus and selection of texts means that it will not be an exhaustive survey. SEXUALITIES AND U.S. CINEMA Radio-Television-Film 385K/WGS 393. Wed 2-5pm; screening on Monday 5-7:30. Instructor: Dr. Janet Staiger (jstaiger@uts.cc.utexas.edu) This course will consider the history of the representation of sexualities in U.S. cinema. It will look at what was on the mainstream screen, the exploitation and "underground" cinemas, and what wasn't there but what some have thought might be present through the "internal shadows of exclusion." We will cover early censorship and pornography, the race issues of the teens and twenties (for African Americans and Asians), homosexual subtexts, formulaic representations of sexuality and coupling, post-war sexual liberation politics and its effects, the intellectualization and mass distribution of porn, and continuing issues of representing sexualities. The focus will not be on representations of sex and gender but on licit and illicit sexualities although the former will invariably be part of the latter. The focus will be on the social and political context, the text, and its reception.
HOMOEROTICS OF EMPIRE English 397M MW 5-6.30 MEZ 1.104 Instructor: Dr. Neville Hoad (nhoad@mail.utexas.edu) No description available. * * *
Spring 2008 UNDERGRADUATE COURSES GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND MIGRATION English 370W/ WGS 345 Instructor: Dr. Ann Cvetkovich (cvet@mail.utexas.edu) The history and culture of the United States and the larger Americas have been profoundly shaped by migrations, including colonization by European peoples, the African diaspora forced by slavery, the shifting and unstable border between the U.S. and Mexico, the arrival through Ellis Island of Eastern and Southern Europeans, the long and multiple histories of immigrants from Asia, the movement of gays and lesbians to urban centers, and the arrival of refugees from war and genocide. Although migration is sometimes represented as a threat to the integrity of the nation, it is, in fact, at the center of it. We will explore the impact of this history by reading contemporary literature, mostly by women, with particular attention to how migration is shaped by gender and sexuality. We will consider how literature, with its attention to the relation between personal and historical experience, provides an especially valuable document of migration and intervenes in public discourse about it. The course will also provide students with an opportunity to reflect critically on the their own national identities as residents, and in some cases, citizens of the U.S. - what does it mean, and what can it mean, to be “American”? * * *
GRADUATE COURSES THEORY IN ACTION A workshop for graduate students GRS 390J / WGS 393 Led by Dr. Lisa Moore (llmore@mail.utexas.edu) Who am I and what is my work in the world? What do I most want to learn? This semester, we will explore these fundamental questions, so often shoved to the back of our minds by the demands of graduate school. This class will be very different from the usual graduate seminar. A commitment to process, as well as to the class itself as an intellectual, political and affective community, is the major requirement. To be successful in this class, students must plan to attend every class meeting, complete all assignments on time, and show up ready to be honest, think hard, and speak from their deepest truths. Through a series of listening, writing and performance workshops, students will develop a community engagement project that connects their reasons for being in the academy
with their deepest values. Class assignments include planning a "Classroom as Community" Event in which the class visits the site of your project to encounter the theory and practice, the teaching and learning, that happens there. The semester will culminate in a "Theory in Action Community Symposium" at the Center for African and African-American Studies. There will be an exhibition of our projects in at the Center that day as well as a public performance/conference about our work during which community members involved or affected by these projects will be invited to speak. This course is affiliated with The Austin Project and with the LGBTQ/Sexualities Research Cluster of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. An Associate Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies, Lisa Moore is a member of The Austin Project sponsored by the Center for African and African-American Studies at UT-Austin. There several short writing assignments but there are no textbooks for this course. The only readings will be those brought in by students for weeks 2-3.
GENEALOGIES OF BLACK LESBIAN, TRANS, AND GAY STUDIES: EROTICS/POLITICS/POETICS Anthropology 391/WGS 393 Instructor: Dr. Jafari Allen (jsallen@mail.utexas.edu) No description available. * * *
Partial LGBTQ-Content/Queer-Friendly Courses UNDERGRADUATE COURSES RHETORIC AROUND CAMPUS (FALL 2007/SPRING 2008) RHE 309K (Unique 46045) TTH 11-1230 FAC 10 Instructor: Megan Little (megan.little@mail.utexas.edu) Students have been known to complain that rhetoric has nothing to do with “the real world” or with their own lives and environments. In this class, we’ll challenge this assumption by seeking out, studying, and participating in student activist groups on campus. In the first unit, we explore an issue together to start learning the skills of rhetorical analysis. We examine recent debates concerning the use of student fees to fund the Gender and Sexuality Center (GSC). We will read selections from a course packet and a handbook on rhetorical analysis. We will also meet with and interview representatives of the GSC and Safe Space, and from all these activities, write a formal 4 to 6 page analytical paper. In the second unit, students will be broken into groups and assigned to activist groups. The instructor will provide materials that describe what these groups do. Then, working individually and in groups, students will conduct their own library research to gain more background on the history, issues, and debates related to these groups. Students will also begin to attend a few meetings or functions and interview
activist group members. From these activities, each group member will produce one formal 4 to 6 page analytical paper. Groups will be tasked with coordinating their paper topics so that, together, they form a comprehensive packet that examines debates surrounding the organization from multiple perspectives. In the final unit, students continue working with their activist organization, this time, collaborating on a persuasive document to be used by the organization. In addition to this collaborative document, students will produce a group report for the class and a reflective essay of 3 to 5 pages. CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S FICTION (FALL 2007) African and Af-Am Studies 374F/English 376M MWF 1-2 PAR 208 Instructor: Matt Richardson (mattrichardson@mail.utexas.edu) In this course, we will examine the novels, films and poetry of African American women produced from the 1970s to the present. We will focus on issues of memory and its relation to past violence and violations suffered under systems of racism, misogyny and homophobia. How do our memories shape who we are? How do they construct our relationships with other people? What role should individual accounts have in collecting the history of a people? What does trauma have to do with identity formation? In this course, we will use the work of history and psychoanalytic, cultural, queer and feminist theories to assist our exploration of these questions and issues. BLACK PUBLIC CULTURE (FALL 2007) Instructor: Dr. Jafari Allen (jsallen@mail.utexas.edu) No description available. SOCIOLOGY OF GENDER (FALL 2007) Sociology 333K/WGS 322 Instructor: Dr. Christine Williams (clw@la.utexas.edu) The course is designed to assist the student in developing an understanding of the social organization of gender. We will examine current differences between males and females in American society in terms of both their public (work, politics) and private (marriage, parenting, sexuality) roles. We will explain the origins of these gender differences through an investigation of the contributions of biology, socialization, and cultural ideology. SOCIOLOGY OF SEXUALITIES (FALL 2007) Sociology 340G/WGS 322 TTH 3.30 - 5 OR TTH 5 – 6.30 (two sections) Instructor: Dr. Gonzalez-Lopez This undergraduate course examines the ways in which U.S. society has promoted specific beliefs and practices with regard to sexual desire, behavior, and identity. This course explores these three dimensions of sexuality from different sociological perspectives that are sensitive to diversity including but not limited to gender, race/ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation. The course will analyze why and how
different social groups in the U.S. experience sexuality not in isolation, but rather within specific contexts including family, culture, religion, media, sports, law, and society, in general. U.S. WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY TO 1865 (FALL 2007) History 317L/WGS 301 Instructor: Dr. Carolyn Eastman (ceastman@mail.utexas.edu) This lecture course will examine changes in the history of women, sexuality, and gender from the first colonial settlements through the Civil War. Drawing on a range of sources, including women's and men_s political, imaginative, and private writings as well as the work of historians, we will explore the changing relation of gender and sexuality to families, economics, politics, religions, and culture. We will pay special attention to the ways that changes in gender roles and attitudes toward sexuality altered the lives of both men and women in these years.
CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY (FALL 2007) Geography 336 TTH 11 -12.30 CBA 4.340 Instructor: Dr. Rich Heyman (heyman@mail.utexas.edu) Recent theoretical developments in cultural geography: landscape, culture area, and environmental perception. Will include a unit on sexuality/queer space. ASIAN AMERICANS, CULTURAL STUDIES, AND THE LAW (FALL 2007) Asian American Studies (course # TBD; undergraduate upper-division) Instructor: Virginia Marie Raymond (virginiaraymond@mail.utexas.edu) This course will introduce students to critical race theory, critical race feminism, and cultural studies as we study how diverse Asian American communities have encountered, responded to, and used the U.S. legal system in three to five case studies. Possible case studies in Fall 2007 include 1) the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007 (S.310, Akaka); 2) A 2006 legal challenge to the representation of Hinduism and Indian history in California state-adopted public school 6th-grade textbooks; 3) the USCambodian Repatriation Agreement of 2002, of Cambodian Americans who came to the U.S. as refugees; 4) the Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000; and 5) The “Miss Saigon” controversy. This course will not provide an overview of Asian American legal history in the U.S., or a journey through all the “major” cases. It will be of particular interest to students of ethnic studies, women and gender studies, race, queer studies, cultural studies, and the law. The first part of the course will be a introduction to critical race feminism, critical race theory and cultural studies. Students will read several key essays, respond to four of the essays with short (1-2) page papers, and discuss the readings in class. Second, we will learn and practice elementary legal research skills. These class sessions will take place in the law library. The rest of the course will be devoted to student research and writing projects about works of cultural production that are related to the case studies. Topics are
wide open: a student might choose to study a short story, mass market film, documentary, song, poetry, website, a blog, judicial decision or set of judicial decisions, legal brief, statutes, treaty, bumper sticker, figurine, painting, museum exhibit, opera, march or rally, TV show, magazine article, radio program, or cartoon, as it relates to one of the case studies. Each student will choose an individual topic of her own interest and also work collectively with classmates researching the same case study. All students will share their work, as it evolves, with the class, culminating in final, semi-formal oral presentations. We will practice giving and receiving specific and constructive critique.
GRADUATE COURSES NATION, EMPIRE, AND SEXUALITY (FALL 2007) History 389/WGS 393 Instructor: Dr. Kimberly Alidio (kalidio@mail.utexas.edu) This course examines the close encounters and contact zones that marked American continental and overseas expansionism from the early nineteenth-century to the present. We will focus on histories and theories of sexuality as these theories pertain to the raise of United States national identity and empire, and to U.S. relations to other territories, nations, and empires. Students interested in any aspect of colonialism, foreign relations, race, immigration and diaspora studies, and gender and sexuality, are welcome. Students may count this class as either research or reading. Papers for research credit should be based around interpretation of appropriate primary source material. BLACK FEMINIST THEORY (FALL 2007) WGS 393/English 389P MW 9.30 -11.00 MEZ 1.104 Instructor: Matt Richardson (mattrichardson@mail.utexas.edu) Black feminist theory constitutes a distinctive body of politics and thought by black women scholars and activists in the U.S., Africa, and in other parts of the African diaspora. This framework will enable us to examine the continuities between black women’s theorizing in diverse locations, as well as exploring how different histories, geographies and genealogies lead to divergent perspectives. Themes explored will include the racial dimensions of biological racism and comparative anatomy, slavery, colonialism, diaspora consciousness, multiple genders and sexualities in Black cultures and communities, and class difference and inequities of power within Black communities. The class will be conducted using interdisciplinary perspectives including history, sociology, literature and film. We will read from a variety of Black feminist writers, thinkers and scholars including but not limited to: Barbara Smith, Patricia Hill Collins, Patricia Williams, Hortense Spillers, Audre Lorde, Cheryl Harris, Wahneema Lubiano, Cathy Cohen, Carol Boyce Davis, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie,Toni
Morrison, Barbara Christian and Sharon Holland. CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF MASCULINITY/SELF AND EMOTION: MASCULINITIES (FALL 2007) WGS 393/Anthropology 391 TH 900 -1200 EPS 1.130KA Instructor: Dr. Ward Keeler (ward.keeler@mail.utexas.edu) The course will focus on the sociological and anthropological study of masculinity. The first few weeks' readings will provide a general introduction to recent theoretical and empirical work, mostly by sociologists. Two books will demonstrate historical approaches, one on late medieval, the other on early modern and nineteenth century understandings of masculinity. The rest of the readings will consist of more focused ethnographies, including Herzfeld's Poetics of Manhood, two acclaimed studies of gay masculinity, as well as work on Nicaragua, Japan, Islamic masculinities, and South Asia, among others. BLACK FEMINISMS: THEORY AND PRACRICE: “Combahee River Colloquium on Black Feminisms and Interstitial Analysis.” (FALL 2007) Instructor: Dr. Jafari Allen (jsallen@mail.utexas.edu) No description available.
ORAL HISTORY, TESTIMONY AND MEMOIR (SPRING 2008) Instructor: Dr. Ann Cvetkovich (cvet@mail.utexas.edu) No description available.
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In addition, Lindsey Schell of UT Libraries specializes in LGBTQ Studies and is available for research consultations with students and faculty. Her contact information: Lindsey E. Schell Bibliographer for English Literature, Women's and Gender Studies and Youth Literature University of Texas Libraries The University of Texas at Austin PCL 3.317| Mail Code S5482 | PO Box P Austin, Texas 78713-8916 Phone: 512-495-4119 | Fax: 512 495-4397 schell@mail.utexas.edu| www.lib.utexas.edu