2007–2008 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Courses
The City of Feeling: Sexuality and Space
Level: Open
Semester: Year
Female couples in nineteenth-century New England were said to live in “Boston marriages”; Whitman aspired to a “city of friends”; Proust anatomized “the cities of the plain”; Baldwin’s all-American boy fled to Paris to have his fears confirmed by Giovanni’s love. Contemporary lesbian and gay scholars describe the development of urban communities as crucial to the history of modern lesbian and gay cultures and politics. Contemporary queer geographers have begun to map what they are calling “queer space,” which is most often either urban or understood in relation to the urban. In this course, we will be tracing the interdependent development of modern understandings of homosexualities and of cities, within the framework of a wide-ranging discussion of modern histories of sexuality, the city, gender, and space. At the intersection of queer studies and urban studies—with Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities) and Samuel Delany (Times Square Red, Times Square Blue) as presiding godmother and godfather—this course will bring together classic works on the cultures of cities, lesbian/gay/queer urban histories and community studies, new analyses of “place” in urban studies and of “queer space” in geography and cultural studies, novels, and films. From Paris and Berlin to Buffalo and Wyoming, we will be considering understandings of “the country” and “the suburbs” as they help to define “the city”; great cities, global cities, industrial cities, simulated cities; public and private space; the street and domestic life; anonymity and home.
Virginia Woolf in the Twentieth Century
Semester: Fall
“On or about December, 1910,” Virginia Woolf observed, “human character changed. . . . All human relations shifted—those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature.” In her novels, essays, reviews, biographies, and polemics, as well as in her diaries, letters, and memoirs, Woolf charted, and fostered, the cultural and political forces behind those changes as they developed across the century. Over the course of that century, Woolf’s image also changed, from that of the “invalid lady of Bloomsbury,” a modern, a madwoman, and perhaps a genius, to that of a monster, a feminist, a socialist, and a lesbian. She became an icon. While focusing on the development of her writing, we will also consider her life and its interpretation, her politics and their implications, and the use of her art and image by others as points of reference for new work of their own. Her family, friends, lovers, and critics will all appear. We will also be reading her precursors, her peers, and those who took up her work and image in the decades after her death, in fiction, theatre, and film. This course will serve as an introduction to twentieth-century fiction, feminist literary study, lesbian/gay/queer studies, the study of sexuality, and the study of politics in literature. Conference projects might focus on one other writer, a range of other writers, or one of these approaches to literary analysis.
Sophomores and above.
Pretty, Witty, and Gay
Semester: Spring
Are you ready to review your cultural map? As Gertrude Stein once said, “Literature—creative literature—unconnected with sex is inconceivable. But not literary sex, because sex is a part of something of which the other parts are not sex at all.” More recently, Fran Leibowitz observed, “If you removed all of the homosexuals and homosexual influence from what is generally regarded as American culture you would be pretty much left with Let’s Make a Deal.” We do not have to limit ourselves to America, however. The only question is where to begin: in the pantheon, in prison, or “in the family”; in London, Paris, Berlin, or New York; with the “friends of Dorothy” or “the twilight women”? There are novels, plays, poems, essays, songs, films, and critics to be read and read about, listened to or watched. There are dark hints, delicate suggestions, “positive images,” “negative images,” and sympathy-grabbing melodramas to be reviewed. There are high culture and high camp tragedies and comedies, the good, the bad, and the awful to be enjoyed and assessed. How has modern culture thought about sexuality and art, love and literature? How might we think again? Conference work might be focused on a particular artist, set of texts, or genre or some aspect of the historical background of the materials we will be considering.
Sophomores and above.
Courses in Related Disciplines
From Mammies to Matriarchs: The Image of the African American Woman in Film, from Birth of a Nation to Current Cinema
Level: Open
Semester: Fall
The representation of African American women in American film will be examined historically and with reference to the relationship between existing feminist theory, representation, black feminist thought, as well as within the political and social context of race and class. The course will also challenge the viewer to critically examine the existing nature of media, imagery, and entertainment in relation to the sexual, racial, and class oppression of African American women. There will also be a required group production component.
Quantitative/Qualitative Research Methods in Health Psychology and Public Health
Level: Intermediate,Advanced
Semester: Year
How can psychology help to affect public health? How do we move from an individually oriented science to design and implement change in the realm of social health? In this course, we will examine research issues in the psychological study of health and illness. The course emphasizes theoretical perspectives in epidemiology and in the psychology of health, illness prevention, stress, and coping with illness. The fall semester will highlight quantitative research methods (e.g., survey, case-control studies, experimental design), while the spring semester will focus on qualitative research methods (e.g., focus group methodologies, individual interviewing). Our primary goal will be to use our expanding knowledge to design and implement a research project focused on health psychology or public health. Readings and class discussion in the latter half of the course will involve sharing information about studies in progress and receiving feedback and suggestions from class members.
Previous course work in statistics is helpful, but not required. Previous course work in psychology or social sciences is required.
Sexuality Across the Life Span
Level: Open
Semester: Spring
The study of human sexuality is inherently an interdisciplinary undertaking: anthropologists to zoologists all add something to our understanding of sexual behaviors and the meanings we attach to these behaviors across cultural and sociohistorical boundaries. What does psychology add to the study of the construction of sexual identity and desire? How do race and gender come together in the production of sexual behavior and meaning? In this seminar, we will study sexualities in social contexts across the life span, from infancy and early childhood to old age. Within each period of life, we will examine biological, social, and psychological factors that inform the experience of sexuality for individuals. We will also examine broader societal aspects of sexuality, including sexual health and sexual abuse. Students are encouraged to do fieldwork or community service as a part of conference work in this seminar.
The Psychology of Race and Ethnicity
Level: Open,Lecture
Semester: Fall
What is race? Is it “real”? What does such a question mean in face of four hundred years of American history and a continuing legacy of racial discrimination and prejudice? Race as a “scientific” biological concept holds little currency; yet as a political and psychological construct, race holds much power in American society. This lecture explores the effects of the construction of race, ethnicity, and social class on the individual and how these constructs implicitly and explicitly inform psychological inquiry. We will examine the social construction of race and development of racial/ethnic identity in childhood and adolescence, as well as gendered and sexual aspects of race/ethnicity. In the latter half of the course, we will move toward a broader understanding of psychological aspects of prejudice, ethnic conflict, and immigration and how these themes are expressed within the U.S. and abroad.
Thinking Gender: Inequalities and Identities
Level: Open
Semester: Spring
Gender is simultaneously a central form of organization within social institutions and an integral component of self-identity and social interaction. Gender is often easiest to see as an aspect of interaction, of how others see us and how we see ourselves. The embeddedness of gender in institutions, the intersection of gender with race and class, and resulting patterns of social inequality are less immediately perceivable, yet have been a central focus of sociological study of gender. In this course, we will study theories of gender from sociology, women’s studies, and queer and transgender studies, and we will compare various approaches to defining and studying gender identities and inequalities. Some of the topics we will examine include gender norms and expectations, dominant and alternative gender identities, labor markets, occupations, and domestic work; the legal system and gender discrimination; and the history of and possibilities for social change.