ENGS20

Queer theory provides a critical method that complements intersectional feminist approaches to literature and visual culture by analyzing the construction and regulation of gender and sexuality through social, legal, and medical norms of embodiment and identity. This course explores canonical queer critique in relation to the early history of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, an era in which the radical currency of the term "queer" links scholarly, activist, and artistic responses to the AIDS crisis and its homophobic cultural politics. Students also consider present-day LGBTQ+ scholarship, literature, and art to explore the insurgent visions and world-making projects that animate queer thought today. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course, or GSS 100.