GS/WMST 6123.3.0 – Critical Sexualities
For a downloadable version, please click here [PDF document – CS course outline 2013].
CRITICAL SEXUALITIES
GS/WMST 6123 3.0
York University
GRADUATE PROGRAMME IN WOMEN’S STUDIES
Course Director: Sheila L. Cavanagh
Office: 322 Founders
Office Hours: By Appointment
E-mail: Sheila@yorku.ca
Classroom: 201 Founders
Time: 2:30-5:30, Wednesdays, Sept. 11-Nov. 27, 2013.
Course Description:
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the critical study of gender and sexuality with a focus on queer theory. Using an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective, we further consider the impact of psychoanalytic theories on queer theory and upon the field of transgender studies.
The range and sequence of readings is designed to first orient students to the emergence of sexology in the late nineteenth century and to the writings of Sigmund Freud in particular. We will then read Michel Foucault’s (1978) History of Sexuality: Volume One. This work challenges Freud’s repressive hypothesis as it pertains to human sexuality in eighteenth century Victorian culture. We then consider how the history of sexuality in the west is, also, a history of empire and colonization and, finally, a history of the modern gendered body. Feminist psychoanalytic theories will also be used to critique foundational ideas about sex and gender in psychoanalysis and in modern histories of sexuality. Using the example of childhood sexuality, and its queer manifestations, we will consider how ideas about childhood sexual innocence have been productive and instrumental to the policing of families, citizens and nations in western, industrialized advanced capitalist nations.
We will then read key works by Judith Butler to orient ourselves to her theory of gender performativity. Special attention will be devoted to her theory of gender melancholia, to her discussion of ‘excitable speech acts,’ and to her conception of the ‘lesbian phallus.’ Following this, we will read transgender theories of the body, gender, identity, and embodiment along with the critiques of gender performativity integral to these works. Special attention will be devoted to the psychoanalytic work of Oren Gozlen and Patricia Gherovici.
The final section of the course will focus on critical race theory and postcolonial critiques of queer theory in the West. Sexuality figures prominently in the building of empires, in histories of colonization, in globalization, migration, militarism and sex tourism. Focusing on a range of postcolonial writings, we will consider how what Edward Said (1978) calls Orientalism operates in contemporary cultures. We will also focus on the Queer Diaspora and consider how bodies are racialized and sexualized concurrently. Lee Edelman’s (2004) analytic of white reproductive futurism will also be used to understand the deployment of race, gender and sexuality in heteronormative and imperial projects. We conclude the course with psychoanalytic reflections on the psychic life of race in white, western imperial fantasy-formations.
Evaluation:
Presentation: 25%
Participation: 25%
Essay: 50%
Required Texts
Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Judith (Jack) Halberstam. 2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press.
Sigmund Freud. 1962 [1905] On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Penguin Books.
Recommended Texts
NOTE: If you are new to queer theory read:
Nikki Sullivan. 2003. A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory New York: New York University Press. (Especially chapters 1, 3 and 4).
Steven Seidman. 1996. Queer Theory/Sociology Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers.
Riki Wilchins. 2004. Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer. Los Angeles: Alyson Books.
CLASS SCHEDULE
Introduction to Critical Sexualities Course
September 11
*No Readings Assigned
Presentation Sign-Up and Administration.
Queer Theory: An Introduction
September 18
Required Readings:
Janet Halley and Andrew Parker. 2011. After Sex? On Writing Since Queer TheoryDuke University Press: Durham and London. (Introduction and Chapter 2 by Carla Fredccero).
Steven Seidman. 1996. “Introduction” in Queer Theory/Sociology (Eds.) Steven Seidman. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 1-30.
Michael Warner. 1993. “Introduction” In Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory (Eds.) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. vii-xxxi.
Recommended Readings:
Claire Colebrook. 2009. “On the Very Possibility of Queer Theory,” In Chrysanthi Nigianni and Merl Storr (Eds.) Deleuze and Queer Theory, Stockport, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.
Tuhkanen, Mikko. 2009. “Queer Hybridity,” Chrysanthi Nigianni and Merl Storr (Eds.)Deleuze and Queer Theory, Stockport, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.
Sigmund Freud and Sexology
September 25
Required Readings:
Sigmund Freud. 1962 [1905] On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Penguin Books.
Recommended Readings:
Nikki Sullivan. “The Social Construction of Same-Sex Desire: Sin, Crime, Sickness” In A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory by Nikki Sullivan. New York: New York University Press, 2003.
Merl Storr. “Transformations: Subjects, Categories and Cures in Krafft-Ebing’s Sexology.” In Lucy Bland and Laura Doan (Eds.) Sexology in Culture: labeling bodies and desires. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998.
Russel Grigg, Dominique Hecq & Craig Smith. (Eds.) Female Sexuality: The Early Psychoanalytic Controversies. New York: Other Press, 1999.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Psychopathia Sexualis: The Case Histories. London: Velvet, 1996.
Kim M. Phillips and Barry Reay. (Eds.) Sexualities in History: A Reader. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.
André Green. 2000. The Chains of Eros: The Sexual in Psychoanalysis. New York and London: Karnac.
Tim Dean and Christopher Lane. 2001. Homosexuality & Psychoanalysis. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Russell Grigg, Dominique Hecq & Craig Smith. 1999. (Eds.) Female Sexuality: The Early Psychoanalytic Controversies. New York: Other Press.
Shelley Saguaro. 2000. (Eds.) Psychoanalysis and Women: A Reader. New York: New York University Press.
Rosalind Minsky. 1996. (Eds.) Psychoanalysis and Gender: An Introductory Reader. New York: Routledge.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Psychopathia Sexualis: The Case Histories. London: Velvet, 1996.
Kim M. Phillips and Barry Reay. (Eds.) Sexualities in History: A Reader. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.
Michel Foucault and the History of Sexuality
October 2
Required Readings:
Michel Foucault. 1978. The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books.
Film: An Autobiography of Michel Foucault
Recommended Readings:
Susan J. Hekman. (Eds.) Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
Ann Laura Stoler. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995.
Judith Butler: Gender Performativity
October 9
Required Readings:
Judith Butler. “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification” In Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson (Eds.) Constructing Masculinity New York: Routledge, 1995.
Judith Butler. 1993. “Critically Queer” GLQ 17(32): 17-32.
Judith Butler. 1993. “The Lesbian Phalus and the Morphological Imaginary” In Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’,” New York: Routledge.
José Esteban Muñoz. 1991. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Introduction. (Pages 1-34).
Recommended Readings:
Nikki Sullivan. 2003. “Performance, Performativity, Parody, and Politics.” In A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory by Nikki Sullivan. New York: New York University Press.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New
York: Routledge.
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York:
Routledge.
Butler, Judith. 1997. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge.
Queer Toilet Talk
October 16
Required Readings:
José Esteban Muñoz. 2007. “Cruising the Toilet: LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Radical Black Traditions and Queer Futurity.” GLQ 13.2-3: 353-367.
Bersani, Leo. 2010. Is the Rectum a Grave? And other essays. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (Chapter 1).
Moore, Alison. 2005. “Kakao and Kaka: Chocolate and the Excretory Imagination of Nineteenth-Century Europe” In Christopher E. Forth & Ana Carden-Coyne (Eds.)Cultures of the Abdomen: Diet, Digestion, and Fat in the Modern World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 51-69.
Cavanagh, Sheila. 2013. “Touching Gender: Abjection and the Hygienic Imagination” InThe Transgender Studies Reader 2 (Eds.) Susan Stryker and Aren Z. Aizura. New York: Routledge.
Childhood Sexualities
October 23
Required Readings:
Kathryn Bond Stockton. (2004) “Growing Sideways, or Versions of the Queer Child” In Steven Bruhm and Natasha Hurley (Eds.) Curiouser: On the Queerness of Children.Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
James R. Kincaid. (2004) “Producing Erotic Children”. In Steven Bruhm and Natasha Hurley (Eds.) Curiouser: On the Queerness of Children. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Kenneth B. Kidd. 2011. Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, Chapter One.
Recommended Readings:
Sheila L. Cavanagh. (2011) “Queer Notes on Sex Education in Ontario” InContemporary Studies in Canadian Curriculum: Principles, Portraits and Practices(Eds.) Darren Stanley and Kelly Young. Calgary: Detselig Press, 237-269.
Sheila Cavanagh. 2007. Sexing the Teacher: School Sex Scandals and Queer Pedagogies. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Steven Bruhm and Natasha Hurley. 2004. Curiouser: On the Queerness of Children. (Eds.) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Sigmund Freud. 1977 [1907]. “The Sexual Enlightenment of Children”. Translated by James Strachy. New York: Basic Books.
Marjorie Heins. Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
James R. Kincaid. Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998.
Judith Levine. Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002.
Phillips, Adam. 1998. The Beast in the Nursery: On Curiosity and Other Appetites.New York: Vintage Books.
Co-Curricular Week (no classes on October 30th)
The Queer Art of Failure
November 6
Required Readings:
Halberstam, Judith (Jack). 2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press.
Recommended Readings:
Phillips, Adam. 1994. On Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press.
Transsexuality and Jacques Lacan
November 13
Required Readings:
Patricia Gherovici (2010) Please Select Your Gender: From the Invention of Hysteria to the Democratizing of Transgenderism. New York: Routledge. (Chapters 6-9).
Transgender Theory and Psychoanalysis
November 20
Required Readings:
Oren Gozlan. (2011) “Transsexual surgery: A novel reminder and a navel remainder”International Forum of Psychoanalysis.
Oren Gozlan. (2008) “The Accident of Gender” Psychoanalytic Review, 95(4).
Recommended Readings:
Patricia Elliot. 2010. Debates in Transgender, Queer and Feminist Theory: Contested Sites. Ashgate Press.
Jay Prosser. 2006. “Queer Feminism, Transgender, and Transubstantiation of Sex” InThe Transgender Studies Reader (Eds.) by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, New York: Routledge, 257-280.
Salmon, Gayle. 2004. “The Bodily Ego and the Contested Domain of the Material.”
Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 15.3: 95-122.
Jordy Jones. 2004. “Gender Without Genitals: Hedwig’s Six Inches” In The Transgender Studies Reader (Eds.) by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, New York: Routledge, 449- 467.
Bobby Noble. 2004. Masculinities Without Men. Vancouver: University of British
Columbia.
Stryker, Susan and Stephen Whittle, eds. 2006. The Transgender Studies Reader.New York and London: Routledge.
Jay Prosser. Second Skins: The body narratives of transsexuality. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Pat Califia. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1997.
Sheila L. Cavanagh. “Teacher Sexuality: The Illusion of Sexual Difference and the Idea of Adolescent Trauma in the Dana Rivers Case” Sexualities. 6, ¾, 2003
Richard Ekins & Dave King. (Eds.) Blending Genders: Social Aspects of Cross-dressing and Sex-Changing. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
Judith Halberstam. Female Masculinity. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998.
Vivian K. Namaste. Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Jean Bobby Noble. Mascultinities Without Men. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2004.
Postcolonial Sexualities: I
November 27
Required Readings:
Jasbir K. Puar. 2005. “Queer Times, Queer Assemblages” Social Text 84-85(23): 121-139.
Hiram Perez. 2005. “You Can Have My Brown Body and Eat it, Too!” Social Text 84-85(23): 171-191.
Richard Thompson Ford. 2011. “What’s Queer about Race?” In After Sex? On Writing Since Queer Theory Duke University Press: Durham and London, pp. 121-129
Elizabeth A. Povinelli. 2006. The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality. Durham and London: Duke University Press. (Introduction)
Recommended Readings:
Bethany Schneider. 2011. “Oklahobo: Following Craig Womack’s American Indian and Queer Studies” ?” In After Sex? On Writing Since Queer Theory Duke University Press: Durham and London, pp. 151-164
Martin F. Manalansan IV. 2005. “Race, violence, and Neoliberal Politics in the Global City” Social Text 84-85(23): 141-155.
Edelman, Lee. 2004. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham and
London: Duke University Press.
Kath Weston. 2008. “A Political Ecology of ‘Unnatural Offences’: State Security, Queer Embodiment, and the Environmental Impacts of Prison Migration” GLQ 14(2-3): 217-237.
Amy Villarejo. 2005. “Tarrying with the Normative: Queer Theory and Black History”Social Text 84-85(23): 69-84.
David L. Eng. Racial Castration: Managing masculinity in Asian America Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001.
Anne McClintock. 1995. Imperial Leather: race, gender and sexuality in the colonial conquest. New York: Routledge.
Jasbir K. Puar. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Gayatri Gopinath. Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005.
Edward W. Said. Orientalism London: Penguin, 1978
Reina Lewis. Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004.
Joseph Boone. “Vacation Cruises; Or, The Homoerotics of Orientalism”. In John C. Hawley (Eds.) Post-Colonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections. New York: State University of New York Press, 2001.
José Quiroga. 2000. Tropics of Desire: Interventions from Queer Latino America. New York and London: New York University Press.
Amit S. Rai. 1998. “Thus Spake the Subaltern…: Postcolonial Criticism and the Scene of Desire” In The Psychoanalysis of Race (Eds.) by Christopher Lane. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 91-119.
James Penney. 1998. “Uncanny Foreigners: Does the Subaltern Speak Through Julia Kristeva?” In The Psychoanalysis of Race (Eds.) by Christopher Lane. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 120-138.
Gwen Bergner. 1998. “Myths of Masculinity: The Oedipal Complex and Douglass’s 1845 Narrative” In The Psychoanalysis of Race (Eds.) by Christopher Lane. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 241-260.
Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks. 2000. Desiring Whiteness: A Lacanian Analysis of Race. London and New York: Routledge.
