Gender, Sexuality, and History (321-0-20)

Topic

LGBTQ Activism in the U.S.

Instructors

Eli Kean

Meeting Info

TBA: Mon, Wed 10:00AM - 12:30PM

Overview of class

LGBTQ Activism in the U.S.

This interdisciplinary course is designed to engage with scholarship, personal narratives, and other forms of media that address key topics in LGBTQ+ activist movements in the United States. Focusing on flashpoints in the history of LGBTQ+ rights and culture, students will leave this course with a concrete sense of the lives and contributions of queer and trans people within social justice movements. Students will have opportunities to connect their personal experiences with historical and contemporary social and political issues. Together, we will utilize a critical lens to analyze the formation and evolution of LGBTQ+ activism, with an eye toward present and future efforts for cultural and political change.

Learning Objectives

Course Objectives:
• Define and utilize basic terms and concepts central to LGBTQ studies, with an understanding of how language can reinforce or challenge social norms.
• Gain knowledge about the history and present of LGBTQ+ communities and activism in the United States. • Develop awareness of both coalitions and divisions within the LGBTQ+ activism, with particular attention to transgender communities and LGBTQ+ communities of color.
• Articulate the intersection between sexual and gender identities and other axes of difference such as race, class, disability, religion, and citizenship. Discover methods of engaging in activism and social change such as mutual aid, transformative justice, care work, and abolition.

Teaching Method

Class participation, discussion, presentations, readings, writing assignments

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Face to face: In person, in campus space