LGBTQ+ Studies Certificate

“Queer” is a word that does different things for different people. For some, it names an identity or a community—sexy or subversive, a kind of shelter or a somewhere over the rainbow. For others, it’s none of those things—anti-identity, or outdated, or too complicit with systems of oppression. We can hear such people asking, arms folded, “Is ‘queer’ over?” With an eye toward these disagreements, this course invites students to explore what queerness is and does through an engagement with both the field of queer theory and the repertoire of queer performance. Throughout the semester, students will grapple with concepts including but not limited to the closet, the binary, intersectionality, performativity, temporality, attachment, desire, stigma, and worldmaking. We will strive, while moving through various moments in queer history (the early AIDS crisis, marriage equality, etc.), to articulate gender and sexuality to race, (dis)ability, nation, class, and other categories of otherness. Ultimately, always, and at a minimum, this course will ask the following questions: How is queerness performed? How is it theorized? How or what does queer theory perform? How or what does queer performance theorize?

Afrofuturism is a new and rapidly developing interdisciplinary genre. It is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of history that addresses the developing intersection of African cultural expressivities and performances with technology. One key question will guide this course: How does the Afrofuturist genre (re)imagine gender norms and sexual identities on the continent and in the diaspora?Students will be encouraged to think critically about how Afrofuturism should be put into practice.

The coursework includes readings and written critical responses. The course’s one major paper will require interdisciplinary research on gender and sexuality in Afrofuturism.

Because Afrofuturism is a developing interdisciplinary genre, course materials will draw from diverse disciplines and sources including films, music, podcasts, documentaries, street art, dance, photography, Instagram, and clothing practices as well as scholarly texts. Readings include Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness (2015) edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones, Children of Blood and Bone (2018) by Tomi Adeyemi, How Long ‘til Black Future Month? (2018) by N. K. Jemisin, and World of Wakanda (2016) by Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey, the first black women to author a series for Marvel Comics.