COMP 244
The Experience of Sexuality: Gender & Sexuality in 20th-century American Memoirs Spring 2013
Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed ENGL 208 / WGSS 204
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

Focusing on first-person accounts of LGBTQ sexualities, this course examines how changing social and political realities have affected sexual desires and identities, and how individuals represent their experiences of these historical and conceptual shifts. How do these representations of sexuality challenge prevailing ideas about desire and identity? How do they navigate the gender limitations imposed by our language? How do other social identifications, such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, shape these experiences of sexuality? We will read memoirs, autobiographies, and personal essays that reflect a range of LGBTQ identities and experiences, including works by Martin Duberman, Audre Lorde, Leslie Feinberg, Alison Bechdel, Reinaldo Arenas, Kate Bornstein, Gloria Anzaldùa, Samuel Delany, David Wojnarowicz, and Michelle Tea. These narratives will be accompanied by a variety of queer and feminist theories of sexuality, some of which interrogate the historical and conceptual limitations of “experience” and “identity.” This course fulfills the requirements of the Exploring Diversity Initiative in that it investigates institutions of power and privilege as they have impacted LGBTQ communities, emphasizes empathetic understanding of gender and sexual diversity, and focuses on critical theorization of intersecting differences and identities.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 20
Expected: 15
Class#: 3467
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: intensive reading; active class participation; two 5-page papers and final 10-page paper
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis; not available for the Gaudino option
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: WGSS majors
Distributions: Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under WGSS; meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ENGL or COMP
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
COMP 244 Division I ENGL 208 Division I WGSS 204 Division II

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