Grayson Hunt

Explores concepts of gender and sexuality, race, class, religion, and nation; as well as skills in theory, history, and research methods relevant to LGBTQ studies. The course will also survey the making of modern understandings of sexual and LGBTQ identities in the last one hundred years and the implications of this history for broader understandings of gender and sexuality.

Description

This course will introduce students to the burgeoning field of Transgender Studies and examine how contemporary feminisms understand the relationship between women and gender equality. If transgender means to cross-over or change one’s gender as it was assigned at birth, how does it work alongside or against feminisms that depend on a stable category of woman for their political efficacy? What makes feminisms trans-inclusive? We will examine a range of theories provoked by these questions, including liberal feminisms, postmodern feminism, black feminisms, queer theories, and trans feminisms in order to explore which feminisms can serve the experiential, material, and political realities of transgender and gender non-conforming people.

Tentative Reading List

• TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Duke University Press
• Snorton, C Riley. Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017
• Stryker, Susan. Transgender History. Berkeley. Seal Press, 2008
• Stryker, Susan and Aren Aizura, Eds. Transgender Studies Reader 2. New York: Routledge, 2013
• Serano, Julia. Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements more Inclusive. Berkeley: Seal Press, 2013

Tentative Grading Scheme

• Participation: 20
• Peer-review: 10
• Group presentations: 10
• Writing assignments: 20
• Revision and resubmission of written work: 10
• Final research project: 30
• Total Points: 100