Idea Transcript
Topics in Political Theory:
Queer Theory Political Science 370 | Spring 2014 | Monday 5:35-8:35 pm Rutgers University | Hickman 113 Instructor: J. Ricky Price | Office Hours: TBD
This course explores debates among contemporary queer theorists and their relationship to politics. Specifically, we will look at issues of homonationalism, pinkwashing, incarceration, violence and inequity through the work of thinkers such as Jasbir Puar, Lisa Duggan, Dean Spade, and Sara Shulman, and Judith Butler, among others. Fundamentally, this class questions the stability of identity categories and looks at how queer people are caught within the processes of nationalism, globalization, neoliberalism, and history. We looks at urgent political issues facing queer people as a way to think generatively about the potential solutions, strategies, and sites of struggle offered by theorists and activists. Course Objectives: → To identify major themes in contemporary queer theory. → To develop a critical analysis of the study of sexuality and gender identity and their relationship to politics. → To understand the ways in which sexuality and gender identity intersect with other categories such as race, class, nationality, and (dis)ability status. → To engage with theory and politics praxis through weekly readings on contemporary politic topics. → To present theoretical ideas and concepts from the reading cogently to the class. → To reflect critically and analytically on the readings and discussions through the mid-term paper and the final research paper.
Course Assessment: Attendance/Participation (15%) Reflection Essays (5% each, 20% total) Presentation (15%) Midterm Paper (20%) Final Paper (30%)
Attendance / Participation (15%): Attendance and participation are crucial components to successfully grappling with the texts and developing critical and analytic insight within queer theory. Students are expected to attend each session barring an emergency. If you expect to miss a class please use the University reporting website [https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/] to indicate the date and reason for your absence. An e-mail will be automatically sent to me. Failure to report absences or missing more than one class will negatively impact your grade. Missing 3 classes will result in an automatic failure of the course.
Reflection Essays (5% each, 20% total): The class will be divided into three groups for the purposes of writing reflection essays. Each group will be assigned four dates on which they must submit a 500 word reflection on one or more of the week’s readings. The groups will alternate every week and submit their essays no later than 8 PM each Sunday before a class meeting. These essays will help to motivate our discussion and give each student an opportunity to raise questions informally about the text. These essays will be shared with the class and I highly encourage discussion leaders to draw on them to develop their presentations (more information on presentation below). Successful reflection essays will draw out the major themes of one or more of the readings for that week, provide connections between the assigned week’s readings and the rest of the syllabus, and pose questions for the class. These essays should not exceed 500 words. I will provide information as the semester begins as to how we will share these essays with each other before class.
In-Class Presentations (15%): After the first week, students will sign up to present the central concepts to the class in our meetings. Depending on the size of the class you may pair with one or two other students. Your presentation should provide a brief synopsis of the readings, their interpretation of the texts, and pose a handful of questions to initiate class discussion. I encourage students to highlight ideas, thoughts, and questions brought up in the reflection essays, in addition to providing their own thoughts about the text at hand. Students should feel free to use videos, photos, music, and other multimedia objects to get at the central ideas for the week and to provoke discussion. The initial presentation should last 15-20 minutes, leading to a broader discussion.
Midterm Paper (20%): Students will be required to write a 5-7 page paper based on two of the readings covered in the class. The prompts for this paper will be given out as the due date approaches, but in general a successful paper will present a bold and compelling argument based in textual evidence, properly formatted and cited. The midterm paper will be due Monday March 10th at the beginning of class.
Final Research Paper (30%): The final assignment for the course will be a research paper of 10-12 pages. For this paper you may use texts from the syllabus, but you will also be required to engage in research beyond class. The idea here is to engage in a contemporary site of political struggle and then begin to theorize about the problem at hand. We will work extensively in-class on developing a research question and developing a process to answer that question. More details about the final paper will be given throughout the semester. The final paper is due Monday May 12 at 5:00 pm.
Required Texts: Duggan, Lisa. The Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Boston: Beacon, 2003. Schulman, Sarah. Israel/Palestine and the Queer International. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2012. All other readings will be provided electronically.
Course Schedule: Weeks 1-3: Foundations Week 1: January 27th Introduction → What is Queer Theory?
Week 2: February 3rd Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York UP, 1996. Chapter 7: Queer pp. 72-100 → Butler, Judith “Critically Queer.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1, no. 1 (November 1, 1993): 17–32. → Feinberg, Leslie. Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue. Boston, MA: Beacon, 1998. Chapter 2: Allow Me to Introduce Myself pp. 15-35 →
Week 3: February 10th Recognition vs. Redistribution: The Butler Fraser Debates → Fraser, Nancy. “From Redistribution to Recognition?” In Justice Interruptus: → → →
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Critical Reflections on the ‘Postsocialist’ Condition. New York: Routledge, 1997. 11-39. Butler, Judith.“Merely Cultural.” Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn-Winter, 1997), 265-277. Fraser, Nancy. “Heterosexism, Misrecognition, and Capitalism: A Response to Judith Butler.” Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn-Winter, 1997), 279-289. Fraser, Nancy. "How Feminism Became Capitalism's Handmaiden - and How to Reclaim It." The Guardian. 13 Oct. 2013. [available online: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/14/feminism-capitalisthandmaiden-neoliberal] Bhandar, Brenna, and Denise Ferreria Da Silva. "White Feminist Fatigue Syndrome: A Reply to Nancy Fraser." Critical Legal Thinking. 21 Oct. 2013.. [available online: http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/10/21/white-feministfatigue-syndrome/]
Weeks 4-7: Nations, Bodies, and Borders Week 4: February 17th → Warner, Michael. "Chapter 6: Something Queer about the Nation-State." Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone, 2002. 209-24. → Cohen, Cathy J. "Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?" Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. Ed. E. Patrick Johnson and Mae Henderson. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2005. 21-51 → Reddy, Chandan. "Chapter 4: Moving Beyond a Freedom with Violence: The Politics of Gay Marriage in the Era of Racial Transformation." Freedom with Violence: Race, Sexuality, and the US State. Durham: Duke UP, 2011.
Week 5: February 24th → Eithne Luibhéid. "Queer/Migration: An Unruly Body of Scholarship." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 14.2 (2008): 169-190. → Toby Beauchamp. "The Substance of Borders: Transgender Politics, Mobility, and US State Regulation of Testosterone." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 19.1 (2013): 57-78. → Luibhéid, Eithne. "Chapter 1: Entry Denied: A History of US Immigration Control."Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2002. 1-30.
Week 6: March 3rd → Somerville, Siobhan B. "Chapter 1: Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body." Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture. Durham, [NC: Duke UP, 2000. 15-38. → Vernon A. Rosario. "Quantum Sex: Intersex and the Molecular Deconstruction of Sex." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 15.2 (2009): 267-284. → Butler, Judith. "Chapter 3: Doing Justice to Someone: Sex Reassignment and Allegories of Transexuality." Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004. 5774.
Week 7: March 10th Midterm Due Spade, Dean. "Preface and Introduction." Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. Brooklyn, NY: South End, 2011. 7-48. → Nair, Yasmin. "How to Make Prisons Disappear: Queer Immigrants, the Shackles of Love, and the Invisibility of the Prison Industrial Complex." Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. Ed. Nat Smith and Eric A. Stanley. Oakland, CA: AK, 2011. 123-40. →
Week 8: March 17th – SPRING BREAK
Weeks 9-11: Infectious Equality Week 9: March 31st → Potts, Michelle C. "Regulatory Sites: Management, Confinement, and HIV/AIDS."Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. Ed. Nat Smith and Eric A. Stanley. Oakland, CA: AK, 2011. 99-112. → Julian Gill-Peterson. "Haunting the Queer Spaces of Aids: Remembering ACT UP/New York and an Ethics for an Endemic." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 19.3 (2013): 279-300. → Treichler, Paula A. "How to Have Theory in an Epidemic: The Evolution of AIDS, Treatment, and Activism." How to Have Theory in an Epidemic: Cultural Chronicles of AIDS. Durham: Duke UP, 1999. 278-314.
Week 10: April 7th Sontag, Susan, Illness as Metaphor And; AIDS and Its Metaphors. London: Penguin, 1991. Selections TBD. → Epstein, Steven. "Chapter 7: The Critique of Pure Science." Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California, 1996. 23565. → Altman, Dennis. "Legitimation through Disaster: AIDS and the Gay Movement." AIDS: The Burdens of History. Ed. Elizabeth Fee and Daniel M. Fox. Berkeley: University of California, 1988. 301-15. →
Week 11: April 14th →
Duggan, Lisa. The Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Boston: Beacon, 2003. [Book to Purchase]
Weeks 12-14: Towards a Queer International Week 12: April 21st →
Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer times. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. Selections TBD
Week 13: April 28th →
Schulman, Sarah. Israel/Palestine and the Queer International. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2012. First Half [Book to Purchase]
Week 14: May 5th Schulman, Sarah. Israel/Palestine and the Queer International. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2012. Second Half [Book to Purchase] → Butler, Judith, and Athena Athanasiou. "Chapter 7: Recognition and Survival, or Surviving Recognition." Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. Cambridge: Polity, 2013. 75-91. →
Final Paper Due May 12th @ 5 pm.