Syllabus 2016

Queer America

Professor Jen Jack Gieseking                                                                      American Studies 409
Trinity College :: Spring 2016                                                                  Room MC205 :: M 1.15-4
Office Hours :: W 11:30-2:30 & by appt

Drawing on interdisciplinary work regarding lgbtq geographies, histories, and cultures, we will use various key spaces and scales of lgbtq spaces as a lens and site in this research seminar. Through classic and cutting-edge work in geography, literature, sociology, anthropology, history, and political economy, we will examine sites from bars and community centers to neighborhoods and cruising grounds, from cities and rural Walmarts to websites and social media, and even the nation itself. Students will become knowledgeable about the projects of queer theory and identity, and use these approaches to grapple with and challenge the seemingly normal histories and spaces of American society. In other words, how do lgbtq spaces, histories, and cultures afford a different reading of America is and could be? Students will draw upon primary and secondary sources to draft an original research paper on a topic they develop over the course of the semester.

REQUIRED TEXTS

• Bechdel, Alison. 2007. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. New York: Mariner Books.
• Chauncey, George. 2005. Why Marriage: The History Shaping Today’s Debate Over Gay Equality. New York: Basic Books.
• Coyote, Ivan E. 2010. Missed Her. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
• All other readings will be provided in the course packet or as handouts.

STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC INTEGRITY & ACADEMIC ACCOMODATIONS

Students of Trinity College are held to the Student Integrity Contract, which can be found in full in the Student Handbook. Your work will be graded according to the rubric designed by your instructor. Cheating and plagiarizing will be dealt with according to university guidelines. Respect and responsibility are core to your life as a Trinity student—enjoy applying, developing, and honing them in our time in this course. If you have a documented disability and have been approved for academic accommodations, or would like to be approved for accommodations, speak directly to me during hours over the first two weeks of the semester and/or contact Lori Clapis, Disability Coordinator, at Lori.Clapis@trincoll.edu.

TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE

1/25  An Introduction to the Course

• Hayden, Dolores. 1997. “Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and Politics of Space.” In The People, Place, and Space Reader, eds. Gieseking, Mangold, Katz, Low, Saegert, 82-86. New York: Routledge.
• Burgett, Bruce. 2007. “Sex.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies, eds. Burgett and Hendler, 217-221. New York: NYU Press.
• Halberstam, Judith Jack. 2007. “Gender.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies, eds. Burgett and Hendler, 116-120. New York: NYU Press.
• Somerville, Siobhan B. 2007. “Queer.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies, eds. Burgett and Hendler, 187-191. New York: NYU Press.

1/30   Kate Bornstein speaking at Real Art Ways

2/1    Getting Grounded in LGBTQ Geographies & Queer Theories

• Chauncey, George. 2005. Selections from Why Marriage: The History Shaping Today’s Debate Over Gay Equality, 1-58, 87-136. New York: Basic Books.
• Eng, David L., Judith Halberstam, and José Esteban Muñoz. 2005. “What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now?” Social Text 23 (3/4): 1–17.
• Somerville, Siobhan B. 2006. “Scientific Racism.” In Queer Studies: A LGBTQ Anthology, eds. Beemyn and Eliason, 241-255. New York: NYU Press.
• Gieseking, Jen Jack. 2013. “A Queer Geographer’s Life as an Introduction to Queer Theory, Space, and Time.” In Queer Geographies: Beirut, Tijuana, Copenhagen, eds. Lau, Arsanios, Zúñiga-González, Kryger, 14–21. Roskilde, Denmark: Museet for Samtidskunst.

2/8    Here Comes / Goes the Gayborhood

• Hanhardt, Christina. 2013. “Butterflies, Whistles, and Fists: Safe Streets Patrols and Militant Gay Liberalism in the 1970s.” In Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence, 81-116. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Ghaziani, Amin. 2010. “There Goes the Gayborhood?” Contexts 9 (4): 64–66.
• Shurin, Aaron. 2010. “Map 10. Monarchs and Queens: Butterfly Habitats and Queer Public Spaces.” In Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, ed. Rebecca Solnit, 45-50. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Gieseking, Jen Jack. 2016 (forthcoming). “Crossing Over into Territories of the Body: Urban Territories, Borders, and Lesbian-Queer Bodies in New York City.” Area.

2/15  Urban/Rural

• Chauncey, George. 1996. “Privacy Could Only Be Had in Public.” In Stud: Architectures of Masculinity, ed. Joel Sanders, 224–67. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press.
• Moore, Mignon R. 2006. “Lipstick or Timberlands? Meanings of Gender Presentation in Black Lesbian Communities.” Signs 32 (1): 113–139.
• Knopp, Lawrence, and Michael Brown. 2003. “Queer Diffusions.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21 (4): 409–24.
• Gray, Mary L. 2007. “From Websites to Wal-Mart: Youth, Identity Work, and the Queering of Boundary Publics in Small Town, USA.” American Studies 48, no. 2: 5–15.

2/29  LGBTQ Places: Bars and Beaches, Cruising and the Streets

• Nestle, Joan. 1997. “Restrictions and Reclamation: Lesbian Bars and Beaches on the 1950s.” In Queers in Space: Communities, Public Places, Sites of Resistance, eds. Ingram, Bouthillette, Retter, 61–68. Seattle: Bay Press.
• Delany, Samuel R. 2001. “…Three, Two, One, Contact: Times Square Red.” In Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, 111-147. New York: NYU Press.
• Duggan, Áine. 2011. “‘Nobody Should Ever Feel the Way That I Felt’: A Portrait of Jay Toole and Queer Homelessness.” S&F Online 10 (1-2).
• FIERCE, Paper Tiger Television, and The Neutral Zone. 2007. Fenced Out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMrohHHdXd4&feature=youtube_gdata.

3/5    Queering Gender in Place

• Rich, Adrienne. 1980. Selections from “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs 5 (4): 631–60.
• Sedgwick, Eve. 1999 [1998]. “Axiomatic” in The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. During, 320-339. New York: Routledge.
• Stryker, Susan. 2008. “Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity.” Radical History Review, 100: 144–57.
• Nelson, Maggie. 2015. Selections from The Argonauts. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 1-39.

3/21  In Our Own Words & Stories

• Lorde, Audre. 2002. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” In This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, eds. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, 106-110. Berkeley, CA: Third Woman Press.
• Bechdel, Alison. 2007. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. New York: Mariner Books.

3/28  Seeing Queer Life on Film [no class – Prof. Gieseking is away]

• Rees, Dee. 2011. Pariah. Drama. Focus Features.
• Davis, Kate. 2003. Southern Comfort. Documentary. Docurama.

Along with the above two films, watch with at least any one of the following:

• Livingston, Jennie. 1991. Paris Is Burning. Documentary. Miramax Films.
• Poirer, Paris. 1993. Last Call at Maud’s. Documentary, History. Stone Water.
• France, David. 2013. How to Survive a Plague. Documentary, History, News.
• Hubbard, Jim. 2012. United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. Documentary. United in Anger.
• Friedman, Jeffrey, Aldo Fabrizi, and Robert Epstein. 2001. The Celluloid Closet. Sony.

4/4    Homonationalism, at Home and Abroad

• D’Emilio, John. 1983. “Capitalism and Gay Identity.” In Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality, eds. Snitow, Stansell, Thompson, 100–113. New York: Monthly Review Press.
• Morgensen, Scott Lauria. 2010. “Settler Homonationalism: Theorizing Settler Colonialism within Queer Modernities.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 16 (1-2): 105–31.
• Spade, Dean. 2015. “Administrating Gender.” In Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, 73–93. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Billies, Michelle. 2016 (forthcoming). “Low Income LGBTGNC (Gender Nonconforming) Struggles Over Shelters as Public Space.” ACME: International Critical Geographies.

4/11  Queer Life Online and On the Map

• Brown, Michael, & Larry Knopp. 2008. “Queering the Map: Productive Tensions of Colliding Epistemologies.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 98 (1): 40–58.
• McGlotten, Shaka. 2016 (forthcoming). “Black Data.” In No Tea, No Shade: New Queer of Color Critique, ed. E.P. Johnson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Gieseking, Jen Jack. 2016 (forthcoming). “Size Matters to Lesbians Too: Queer Feminist Interventions into the Scale of Big Data.” Professional Geographer.

4/18  Bodies Objectified, Bodies Consumed

• Baker, Dan. 1997. “A History in Ads: The Growth of the Gay and Lesbian Market.” In Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, eds. Gluckman and Reed, 11–20. New York: Routledge.
• Manalansan IV, Martin F. 2005. “Race, Violence, and Neoliberal Spatial Politics in the Global City.” Social Text 23 (3/4): 141–155.
• Schulman, Sarah. 2012. “Introduction” and “Part I: Understanding the Past.” In The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, 1-52. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

4/25  Bodies of Desire, Bodies Desired

• Berlant, Lauren and Michael Warner. 1999 [1998]. “Sex in Public.” In The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. During, 354-367. New York: Routledge.
• Coyote, Ivan E. 2010. Selections from Missed Her. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
• Bornstein, Kate. 2013. Selections from A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology, and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She Is Today. New York: Beacon Press.

5/2    Presentations

5/17   Papers Due