ENGL 680: Syllabus

1/12 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)

1/19 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 Europe" (in Hidden from History)

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);

1/26 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 Readings); Alan Bray, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (in Readings)

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 Readings); Jonathan Ned Katz, excerpt from Love Stories; Jonathan Ned Katz, "Coming to Terms: Conceptualizing Men's Erotic and Affectional Relations with Men in the U. S., 1820-1892" (in Readings)

2/2 Late Nineteenth-Century Emergence of a Gay Male Identity: United States

Questions and Insight #3 Due

Walt Whitman, Calamus (in Readings); Jonathan Ned Katz, excerpt from Love Stories (in Readings); Jonathan Ned Katz, "Coming to Terms: Conceptualizing Men's Erotic and Affectional Relations with Men in the U. S., 1820-1892" (in Readings)

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 Readings)

2/9 Oscar Wilde and the Emergence of a Gay Male Identity in 1890s England

Questions and Insight #4 Due

Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray; Joseph Bristow, "Wilde, Dorian Gray, and Gross Indecency" (in Readings)

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 Readings)

2/16 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 Readings)

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 Readings); Erwin Haeberle, "Swastika, Pink Triangle, and Yellow Star: The Destruction of Sexology and the Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany" in Hidden from History

2/23 Nazi Persecution of Sexual Minorities

Questions and Insight #6 Due

Martin Sherman, Bent; Richard Plant, The Pink Triangle (in Readings); Erwin Haeberle, "Swastika, Pink Triangle, and Yellow Star: The Destruction of Sexology and the Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany" in Hidden from History

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;

3/2 Forging Lesbian Identities and Communities: 1920s England and France

Questions and Insight #7 Due

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

Viewing: Paris Was a Woman

Assignment for Next Class: Read James Baldwin's Giovanni’s Room and prepare Questions and Insight #8.

3/9 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

3/23 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

3/30 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).

4/6 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" (Readings).

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: Buffalo, 1940-1960" in Hidden from History.

4/13 Cultural Shaping of Sexual Desires and Practices

Questions and Insight #12 Due

Becky Birtha, Selected Stories (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” (Readings); Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, "Oral History and the Study of Sexuality in the Lesbian Community: Buffalo, 1940-1960" in Hidden from History

4/20 Night at the Movies. Viewing and Discussion of either Angels in America, Broke-Back Mountain, Fire, or When Night Is Falling

Assignment for Next Class: Read Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and prepare Questions and Insight #13

4/27 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, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Viewing: One Nation Under God

5/4 Final Exam: Scholarly Essay Due by 5:30