Spring 2008
Contesting the Sexual
LGBTS/WS M115.1 Topics in Study of Sexual and Gender Orientation
Instructor: Linda van Leuven
Wednesday 4:00-6:50
Theories of the sexual abound. These theories are intertwined with institutional and interactional rules regarding sexualized expression. At the heart of all of this are competing notions of what counts as "sexual," and what counts as "appropriate." These contested understandings impact how we think, research, and live. In this course we will look at grand philosophies and everyday practices--the multiple ways that the sexual is constructed, theorized, challenged, and played through embodied/lived experience. In particular, we will look at "Somatics and Sexuality," conscious sexuality, relational sexuality--how by shifting our orientation to gender and the sexual we can move into queer and open spaces.
Out of the Closet, Into the Vaults: LGBT Film and the Outfest Collection
LGBTS/WS M115.2 Special Topics in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies
Instructor: Maria San Filippo
Tuesday 1:00-4:00
270 Powell, Screening Room 1
The Outfest Legacy Collection, the world’s largest publicly accessible collection of LGBT moving images, is housed right here at the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Delving into this treasure trove of films made by, for, and about LGBT people, we will discover the diverse ways in which LGBT filmmakers have forged alternative channels through which to represent themselves. Topics to be addressed include LGBT activism in/as film, documenting personal and community histories, appropriating and revising mainstream images, and queer aesthetics/sensibilities. Screenings will include narrative and experimental features, documentaries, short films, news footage, public service announcements, and clip compilations. In addition to analyzing and theorizing LGBT film, we will become intrepid explorers of the Legacy Collection through the Archive Research & Study Center, and will also have the opportunity to attend LA-area Outfest screenings and to hear from in-class speakers
Chicana Lesbian Literature
LGBTS/Chicano/WS M133
Instructor: Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Tuesday / Thursday 2:00-3:50
Exploration of intersection of radical First and Third World feminist politics, lesbian sexuality and its relationship to Chicana identity, representation of lesbianism in Chicana literature, meaning of familia in Chicana lesbian lives, and impact of Chicana lesbian theory on Chicana/Chicano studies.
LGBT Institutions and Organizations
LGBTS 187.1 Special Topics in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies
Instructor: Michael Fleming
Monday 2:00-4:50
Prerequisite: One previous course in LGBT Studies
Study of LGBT institutions and organizations and of the challenges they face. The course combines readings and classroom discussions with a service learning component, which places students in a local lgbt organization for several hours each week.
Queer of Color Critique: Queer Activism and Social Justice
LGBTS 187.2 Special Topics in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies
Instructor: Fatima El-Tayeb
Wednesday 1:00-3:50
Queer theory was born out of the interaction, and tension, between activism and theory, its groundbreaking deconstruction of naturalized understandings of (sexual) identity inspired as much by French poststructuralist and feminist theories as by black power, gay liberation, and women of color feminism. With the academic implementation of queer studies, however, these activist roots have moved further and further to the background. In this class, we will retrace the links of queer theory to social justice movements and explore the consequences of the increased distance to these origins as well as attempts to reconnect to them. Subjects will include: queers of color and the gay mainstream, gender and postcolonial theory, feminism, gay marriage, and the war on terror.
Sex in the Tropics
LGBTS 187.3 Special Topics in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies
Instructor: Frances Negrón-Muntaner
Thursday 2:00-4:50
In most of the world, to say the Caribbean is to say sex. “Sex in the Tropics” is an interdisciplinary course that focuses on how specific sexualized discourses and practices have had a major impact on the region's history, politics, economy, and global relations. Through the study of literary and critical texts from and/or about Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Martinique, among other countries, this course will examine the uses of sexuality in the process of conquest and enslavement; the deployment of anti-gay policies as a means to crush dissent; the development of sexual tourist economies; the role of literature and music in creating alternative discourses about sexuality; and the link between sexuality, power and freedom.
Queer Scandinavia
Scand 177
Instructor: Jenny Björklund
Tuesday / Thursday 12:30-1:45
This course focuses on queer themes in Scandinavian literature, mainly from the 19th and 20th century. Scandinavian countries have had a more progressive view on homosexuality than most other countries, and Scandinavian writers portrayed homosexuality in an explicit and radical way as early as the turn of the 19th century. Furthermore, several queer characters are to be found in Scandinavian literature from the 19th century. A course on queer themes in Scandinavian literature can therefore contribute with new perspectives on queer studies in general. The course also provides an introduction to key theoretical works within the field of Gay and Lesbian Studies and Queer studies, as well as presenting an historical view of how homosexuality has been perceived in the Western world over the years.
