ENGL 314: Syllabus
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1/9 Course Objectives, Expectations,
Procedures
Why Study Sexuality? Is there a History of
Sexuality?
Discussion of Mark Lilly’s “The Homophobic Academy” and Michelle Boorstein’s “Paradise Lost” (in Readings for ENGL 314)
Viewing of Torch Song Trilogy, Screenplay by Harvey Fierstein
Assignment for Next Class: Read the following and prepare Questions and Insight #1: Sappho, Fragments; Ellen Greene, "Feminine Desire in Sappho's Verse”; Thomas Hubbard, excerpt from Homosexuality in Greece and Rome; Martha Nussbaum, "Of Paederasty and Proposition Two"; (all in Readings for ENGL 314); Judith C. Brown, "Lesbian Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe" (in Hidden from History)
1/16 Varieties of Sexual Practices in the Ancient
World and Later Repressions of Same-Sex Love
Questions and Insight #1 Due
Sappho, Fragments ; Ellen Greene, "Feminine Desire in Sappho's
Verse”; Martha Nussbaum, "Of Paederasty and Proposition Two"; Thomas Hubbard, excerpt from Homosexuality in Greece and Rome; (all in Readings); Judith C. Brown, "Lesbian Sexuality in
Medieval and Early Modern
Assignment for Next Class: Read the following and prepare Questions and Insight #2: Shakespeare, Selections from Sonnets (sonnet numbers TBA); Bruce Smith, excerpt from Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England (in Readings); Alan Bray, excerpt from Homosexuality in Renaissance England (in Readings);
1/23 Early
Modern Constructions of Same-Sex Eroticism and Heterosexist Literary Criticism
Questions and Insight #2 Due
Shakespeare, selections from Sonnets; Bruce Smith, excerpt from Homosexual
Desire in Shakespeare's England (in
Viewing: excerpts of Derek
Jarman's Edward II or Caravaggio and Shakespeare in Love
Assignment for Next Class: Read the following and prepare Questions
and Insight #3: Walt Whitman, Calamus (in
1/30 Late
Nineteenth-Century Emergence of a Gay Male Identity:
Questions and Insight #3 Due
Walt Whitman, Calamus (in
Viewing: Out of the
Past
Assignment for Next Class: Read the following and prepare Questions
and Insight #4: Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray; Joseph Bristow,
"Wilde, Dorian Gray, and Gross Indecency" (in
2/6 Oscar Wilde and the Emergence of a Gay
Male Identity in 1890s
Questions and Insight #4 Due
Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray; Joseph Bristow, "Wilde,
Dorian Gray, and Gross Indecency" (in
Viewing: Before Stonewall
Assignment for Next Class: Read
the following and prepare Questions and Insight #5: Moises Kaufman, Gross Indecency;
Arthur S. Leonard, "Equal Protection and Lesbian and Gay Rights (in
2/13 Legal
Constructions of Same-Sex Relationships: Same-Old Same-Old
Questions and Insight #5 Due
Moises Kaufman, Gross Indecency; Arthur S. Leonard,
"Equal Protection and Lesbian and Gay Rights" (in
Viewing: Wilde
Assignment for Next Class: Read the following and prepare Questions
and Insight #6: Martin Sherman, Bent; Richard Plant, excerpts from The
Pink Triangle (in
2/20 Nazi
Persecution of Sexual Minorities
Questions and Insight #6 Due
Martin Sherman, Bent; Richard Plant, The Pink Triangle (in
Viewing: Bent
Assignment for Next Class: Read the following and prepare Questions
and Insight #7: Radclyffe Hall,
"Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself" (in Readings);
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own,
Chapters 1, 5, and 6; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "Discourses of Sexuality
and Subjectivity: The New Woman, 1879-1936" in Hidden from History;
2/27
Forging Lesbian Identities and
Communities: 1920s
Questions and Insight #7 Due
Radclyffe Hall, "Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself" (in
Viewing:
Assignment for Next Class: Read James Baldwin's Giovanni’s Room and prepare Questions and Insight #8.
3/6
Race and Bisexual Orientation in
Pre-Stonewall Gay Fiction: James Baldwin
Questions and Insight #8 Due
James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
Viewing: Tongues Untied
Assignment for Next Class: Read Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man and prepare Questions and
Insight #9
3/20 Pre-Stonewall
Gay Male Fiction—Christopher Isherwood
Questions and Insight #9 Due
Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
Viewing: Before Stonewall
Assignment for Next Class: Read Audre Lorde’s Zami and Leslea Newman’s “A Letter to Harvey Milk” and prepare Questions and Insight #10
3/27 Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation in
Post-Stonewall Lesbian Fiction: Audre
Lorde & Leslea Newman
Questions
and Insight #10 Due
Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name; Leslea Newman, “A Letter to Harvey Milk”
Viewing:
The Times of Harvey Milk
Assignment for Next Class: Read
the following and prepare Questions and Insight #11: Jamison Green, excerpt from Becoming a Visible Man; Will Roscoe,
“Gender Diversity in Native North America”
(both in Readings); recommended reading: Ki Namaste, "Tragic Misreadings: Queer Theory's Erasure of
Transgender Subjectivity" (in Readings).
4/3
Transgender and Transsexual Identities
in Modern Western Cultures and Gender/Sexual Diversity in Traditional
Non-Western Cultures
Questions and Insight #11 Due
Jamison Green, excerpt from Becoming a Visible Man; Will Roscoe,
“Gender Diversity in Native North America”; recommended reading: Ki Namaste, "Tragic Misreadings: Queer Theory's Erasure of
Transgender Subjectivity" (
Viewing: The Brandon Teena
Story
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare Questions and Insight #12 on
the following: Becky Birtha, Lover’s Choice (specific story titles
TBA); Dorothy Allison, “A Question of Class, ” “The Theory and Practice of the
Strap-on Dildo,” “Femme,” and “Survival Is the Least of my Desires” (in Readings); and Madeline Davis and
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, "Oral History and the Study of Sexuality in
the Lesbian Community:
4/10 Cultural Shaping of Sexual
Desires and Practices
Questions and Insight #12 Due
Becky Birtha, Selected Stories (TBA); Dorothy Allison, “A Question of Class ” and
“Survival Is the Least of my Desires” (
Viewing: Last Call at Maud’s
4/17 Night
at the Movies. Viewing and Discussion of
either Angels in
Assignment for Next Class: Read Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and prepare Questions and Insight #13
4/24 Post-Modern
Lesbian Fiction in the Post-Stonewall Era--The Lesbian Coming Out Novel goes
PoMo: "To the Pure All Things Are Pure"
Questions and Insight #13 Due
Jeanette Winterson,
Viewing: One Nation Under God
5/3 Final
Exam. Final Papers Due by 5:30
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