Topics in Sociological Analysis (376-0-23)

Topic

Transnational Gender & Sexuality

Instructors

Tara Marie Gonsalves
Tara Gonsalves is a new Assistant Professor of Sociology. Gonsalves' research, which lies at the intersection of global and transnational studies, gender and sexuality, and the sociology of knowledge, examines how gender and sexuality categories are created and contested.

Meeting Info

Locy Hall 109: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

"Transnational Gender and Sexuality"

Since the 1980s, third wave feminists have critiqued fundamental assumptions of second-wave feminism and worked to incorporate perspectives and voices outside the "West." In more recent decades, a similar movement has happened among queer and trans theorists. In this course, we will engage this work, much of which has been published in the past decade and a half. Course readings, which will survey scholarship on gender/sexuality in many regions of the world, will draw our attention to the ways in which gender/sexuality are implicated in capitalist, imperial and post-colonial projects as well as how gender and sexuality operate outside the "West," both in practice and identity. Finally, we will consider the possibilities and limitations for studying gender/sexuality beyond our own societies. Critical approaches to gender and sexuality challenge conventional "born this way" narratives about gender and sexual identities as innate. This course will raise questions that will make us uncomfortable and, hopefully, transform our understandings of our own gendered and sexual identities and practices.

Class Materials (Required)

All materials for this course will be made available on Canvas - no purchase necessary.