Topics in Latina and Latino Text and Representation (393-0-3)
Topic
Queer Latinx Cultures: Aesthetics, Archives, & Per
Instructors
Adriana Silvestre
Meeting Info
555 Clark B01: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
This course is organized around the reading of books and journals exploring the interconnectedness of cultures, aesthetics, and archives. The course considers how our understandings of cultures are based on the racialization of minoritized communities. We start by an acknowledgment that Latinx sexualities are complex and not fixed. We will read texts from queer and trans scholars in Latinx studies as well as engage with visual culture, performances, archives, and music. Throughout we will explore a variety of cultures such as Drag Balls, Tea Parties, Queer Punks, Queer Femmes, Art, and Pop-Culture. Students will become familiar with important scholarship in the growing field of Latinx queer studies and will develop a stronger critical analytic on how race, class, sexuality, and gender inform our understanding in the current political climate.
Learning Objectives
• Students will obtain a firm understanding of how sexuality is shaped by social contexts and structures of power.
• Students will learn how queer Latinx have used scholarship, art, and activism to express their perspectives on sexuality and address gender and sexual injustice in society and culture.
• Students learn and apply theoretical frameworks for understanding the working conditions and cultural reception of queer Latinx cultural work.
Class Materials (Required)
Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance
Leticia Alvarado Abject Performances: Aesthetic Strategies in Latino Cultural Production
Richard T. Rodriguez A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk & US Latinidad
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area