WGS 200 Inst Queer/Transgender Studies

Although Queer and Transgender Studies have only recently begun being institutionalized within the academy, they emerged as distinct fields in the late 1990s. Almost twenty years later, Sandy Stone cautions that the institutionalization of these fields could be the impetus to depoliticize the LGBTQPIA+ movement through the necessity to follow the guidelines of the academy. In this course, we will take Stone’s caution seriously as we critically read, analyze, and write about the texts that are forming the "trans" and "queer" canons. We will read articles from Sandy Stone, Susan Stryker, Cathy Cohen, C. Riley Snorton, Eli Clare, and many other prominent scholars within queer and trans studies who think about how non-normative articulations of gender and sexuality intersect with race, class, ability, region, etc. We will also consider how queer and trans studies diverge as independent fields of thought, as well as how they complement each other, through close readings of these works. (African Americans’, Appalachians’, and Women's Perspective.)