COML 2290

Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

This course offers an introduction to the questions, topics, approaches, and theories that characterize the field of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Studies. Using an interdisciplinary approach (literature, history, anthropology, media, law, and science), we will explore categories such as sexual norms, human rights, power, feminism, queerness, gender/sex, censorship/ moral panic, and identity in Euro-American as well as in postcolonial and global terms. Through a variety of films, primary and secondary sources, you will formulate questions and provide answers to the relationship of these categories with organizing structures, including race, ethnicity, religion, family, marriage, reproduction, the economy, and the state. While we investigate how sexual identities in African, South American, and Asian contexts converge with or challenge Euro-American discourses, we will look at the tools LGBT studies offers for understanding power and culture. Course requirements include reading responses, blackboard discussions, and two short papers.

When Offered Fall.

Distribution Category (LA-AS)

• Understand the social and political history of dissident, resistant, and transgressive sexualities from the 19th to the 21th centuries.
• Learn a sophisticated vocabulary and effective communication skills to include writing and presentation on these subjects.
• Be able to define key analytic concepts in the study of non-normative sexualities.
• Identify and discuss some of the best current films and scholarship in the field and from around the world.
• Differentiate between and model multiple disciplinary approaches and methods based on your major.

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