Queer is a module about queer literature, culture, and history. Beginning with the influential case of the Wilde trial in the final years of the Victorian period, the Queer is a module about queer literature, culture, and history.
Beginning with the influential case of the Wilde trial in the final years of the Victorian period, the module traces some of the main strands of queer culture throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As well as reading a selection of classic works of gay and lesbian fiction, students will also engage with journalism, letters, essays, memoir, visual art, documentary, film drama, and queer theory. Drawing on these varied sources, we will explore the modern cultural history of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and gender-diverse people. Topics addressed include: the shifting status of same-sex desire in western culture; homosexuality in the nineteenth century; gay rights in the twentieth century; gay and lesbian fiction and memoir; constructions of gender and sexuality within medical and psychiatric discourse; intersectionality; black lesbian feminism; discourse, knowledge, and power; the Stonewall uprising and its precursors; the AIDS epidemic; the New Queer Cinema; transgender identity and activism; queer theory; LGBTQ Hollywood and world cinema; and contemporary queer culture. The module takes a comparative, interdisciplinary approach in order to show how the topics addressed have been taken up in different mediums and in varying cultural and historical contexts. While much of our focus will be on historical examples, consideration will be given throughout to how the texts on the syllabus illuminate present-day issues and debates.
This module aims to foster students’ critical thinking and cultural awareness by inviting them to explore the modern cultural history of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and gender-diverse people. Through close engagement with the work of a diverse group of twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers, filmmakers, and theorists, students will reflect on what queer texts can teach us about society, history, politics, culture, race, gender, and sexuality. Students will acquire or deepen their knowledge of a range of texts, from established classics such as Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis (1897) and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928) to queer theory and cinema in the twenty-first century.
After successful completion of the module, students should be able to demonstrate:
1. a thorough understanding of a number of key works of queer literature, cinema, and theory and of the themes they explore;
2. a critical understanding of a number of key moments from queer history and of the issues they raise;
3. knowledge of and an ability to evaluate the social and political significance of queer history and culture;
4. the ability to approach their own historical moment from a perspective informed by their study of queer history and culture; and
5. the knowledge and skills required to engage in intellectual debates around all of the above.
Module content note:
Topics may include sexual assault, suicide, violence, torture (physical and mental), pornographic content, death or dying, miscarriages/abortion, racism and racial slurs, sexism and misogyny, classism, hateful language (e.g., Islamophobia, antisemitism), transphobia and trans misogyny, and homophobia and heterosexism. Please contact the module supervisor if you have any questions.
Indicative syllabus (this may be subject to change)
(1) The Wilde Trial
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis and Other Writings (London: Penguin, 2013).
(2) The Advent of Queer Fiction
Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (London: Penguin, 2015).
(3) Queer Fiction in the United States
James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room (London: Penguin, 2007).
(4) The Stonewall Uprising
Greta Schiller, and Robert Rosenberg, dirs. Before Stonewall (Before Stonewall, Inc., 1984).
Kate Davis, and David Heilbroner, dirs. Stonewall Uprising (PBS American Experience, 2010).
(5) Power, Knowledge, and Discourse
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley (London: Penguin, 1998).
(6) The AIDS Epidemic
David Weissman, and Bill Weber, dirs. We Were Here (Weissman Projects, 2011).
David France, dir. How to Survive a Plague (Public Square Films, 2012).
(7) Queer Utopias and Dystopias
Joanna Russ, The Female Man (London: Gollancz, 2010).
(8) Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Class
Cheryl Dunye, dir. The Watermelon Woman (First Run Features, 1996).
Barry Jenkins, dir. Moonlight (A24, 2016).
(9) Transgender Identity and Activism
Juliet Jacques, Trans: A Memoir (London: Verso, 2015).
(10) Gender Abolitionism
Laboria Cuboniks, The Xenofeminist Manifesto (London: Verso, 2018).