106-218 Reading Sexuality

Note

Available as 106-318 at 3rd-year level.

Credit Points

Coordinator

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject understands categories of sexuality as historically and culturally contingent rather than as natural expressions of a private self. It provides the historical and theoretical frameworks for understanding the rise of specific sexualities - homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, queer - in relation to available medical, psychoanalytic, philosophical and popular discourses. It enables students to explicate the complex imbrications of sexuality and other categories of identity, such as gender and race. Drawing on recent formations in lesbian and gay studies, this subject reads a diverse range of cultural texts from the proceedings of court cases to personal advertisements, from celebrity gossip columns to popular film, to argue that sexuality is a central, if incoherent, aspect of contemporary everyday life.

Assessment

Written work of not more than 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

Course reader available from the department.

• K Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us. Vintage.
• A Jagose, Queer Theory. MUP.
• Film:, Black Widow.
• Film:, Cruising.
• Film:, The Children's Hour.
• Film:, Rope.