106-436 Queer Theory Ten Years On

Formerly available as 106-087. Students who have completed 106-087 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Usually admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth year honours in English, cultural studies or gender studies.

This subject considers sexuality through a strategic focus on the recent rise and fall of queer theory. Coined as a phrase in the early 1990s and pronounced dead by many scholars barely a decade later, queer theory dramatises many of the classificatory, representational and political/ethical problems that structure modern understandings of sexuality more generally. Through the interpretative frame of queer theory, this subject considers the historical development of categories of sexual identity, including heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and post-queer formulations of transgender subjectivities. It enables students to articulate and develop queer perspectives on issues of critical currency, for example, theories of the body, of subject formation, of representation, of political activism. Taking up various anti-homophobic perspectives, the subject moves between such topics as drag queen/drag king subcultures and the discourse of AIDS; re-readings of classic literary and film texts and public sex cultures.

• be able to communicate effectively in oral and written contexts;

• demonstrate independent thought and critical argument;

• manage and organise workloads in relation to a specified time frame.

One research essay of 5000 words (100%) due at the end of the semester. Students are required to present one 25-minute seminar paper, and attend a minimum of 80% of scheduled seminars (10 out of 12 seminars).

A subject reader will be available from the University Bookshop.