WGSS 300 - Exploring Queer Lives

Credits: 4

The lives of LGBTQ people and others marginalized because of their sexuality and gender expression are explored through readings and discussions of theory and research across a range of disciplinary boundaries, and will include psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, political science, literary and cultural studies literatures - as well as those more accurately described as interdisciplinary. We will discuss: (1) the ways that other identity categories and sites of stratification (such as race, class, age, ability, etc.) are integral to an understanding of sexuality and gender expression; (2) the ways an interdisciplinary social science can help us analyze and influence the conflicts currently surrounding the lives of LGBTQ people (e.g., gay rights, marriage, parenting, sex, health, immigration, etc.); (3) the histories of the LGBTQ movements in the U.S. and internationally and how the historical context of the LGBTQ movements continue to influence LGBTQ individuals, culture and politics; and (4) the personal, theoretical and political differences of the sexual liberation, gay liberation, radical feminism, LGBT civil rights and ‘queer’ movements, and the ways these various understandings of sexuality and gender differently impact on self- and community-understanding of LGBTQ people.