Assignments & Readings | ENGL 466 A Winter Quarter 2012-13 | University of Washington

Download the course policies and syllabus (PDF).

Assignments

Major Papers: You will be required to write up to three formal papers, each 4-6 pages in length, that engage each of the novels and theoretical and critical texts of the class. Papers will be collected three times during the quarter, approximately in Week 5, Week 8, and Finals Week. You must complete a minimum of two papers. Each paper will be graded and the average of the number completed will constitute 50% of your final grade.

Identity Log: Over the course of the quarter, you will keep and maintain a weekly "identity log" or "iLog," recording, detailing, and thinking about your own identities and identifications, particularly those mediated by and through the course's keywords. Your "iLog" will function as a kind of identity workbook, an analytical and metacognitive journal, connecting your observations and experiences to the texts, theories, and ideas of the class. Periodically, you will be given specific prompts or experiments, and you will share your logs in class and via the class's Tumblr: http://engl466a.tumblr.com/. These weekly logs will be evaluated on completion and your critical, analytical engagement with the prompt. Each log will earn a check, check plus, check minus, or zero, and in total, will constitute 10% of your final grade.

iLog #1: Imagining Sex(uality): What is sex? What is sexuality? For this initial iLog, consider your personal definitions of these terms. Think on the first weeks' readings and post a single image of yourself or something related to your definitions. Then describe the image in its caption. Tell us what the photo is about and reveals about your definitions of these slippery terms. Connect your comments, if possible, to the readings and our discussions so far. Then, take a look at each other's photos and iLogs and respond thoughtfully, respectfully, and analytically. Please tag your image with the terms "sex," "sexuality," and "iLog 1" (without the quotations). Make sure to sign your iLog. Post conscientiously: these images will be public and should be appropriate to the class.

Log #2: Queer(ing) Race: Brian in Nella Larsen's Passing says provocatively, "If I knew that, I'd know what race is" (38). For this iLog, consider our definitions of race, gender, sexuality, and embodiment. Think on the readings on race and post a single image, YouTube video, news story, or something that conceptualizes, challenges, or critiques the intersection of race and queer. Then articulate what the artifact you selected is about and reveals about your understandings of these slippery terms. Connect your comments, if possible, to the readings and our discussions so far. Then, take a look at each other's iLogs and respond thoughtfully, respectfully, and analytically. Please tag as separate words your artifact with the terms "race," "queer," and "iLog 2" (without the quotations). Make sure to sign your iLog. Post conscientiously: these artifacts will be public and should be appropriate to the class.

iLog #3: Queer(ing) Space:

"We are describing a constellation of practices that everywhere disperses heterosexual privilege as a tacit but central organizing index of social membership” (Berlant & Warner 555).

"'Queer space' refers to the place-making practices within postermodernism in which queer people engage and it also describes the new understandings of space enabled by the production of queer counterpublics” (Halberstam 6).

Using the above epigraphs as inspirations, consider the intersection of queer and space and post a single image, YouTube video, news story, or something that conceptualizes, challenges, or critiques the intersection of space and queer. If possible, articulate the organization, overlap, and even incommensurability of an ideal or abstract queer space and actual, physical, material, geographical space. Then articulate what the artifact you selected is about and reveals about your understandings of these terms. Connect your comments, if possible, to the readings and our discussions so far. Then, take a look at each other’s iLogs and respond thoughtfully, respectfully, and analytically. Please tag as separate words your image with the terms "space," "queer," and "iLog 3" (without the quotations). Make sure to sign your iLog. Post conscientiously: these artifacts will be public and should be appropriate to the class.

iLog #4: Queer Bodies:

"The drama of perverts, victims, and protectors is played out in countless arenas, from honest (read: white middle-class) taxpayers cheated by sexually and reproductively out-of-control welfare mothers (read: African American women) to innocent (read: heterosexual) youth in need of protection from the corrupting influence of sexual, especially queer, content (a notion of corruption also inflected with class issues) on the Internet. Thus social relations of race, class, age, and other modes of oppression that are not always reducible to conflicts of gender or sexuality are nonetheless continually played out in sexual terms—mediated by the bodily terms that disability activists and scholars have recognized.

It is important here to underscore the importance of disability as a site on which to deconstruct social ideologies of perversion, victimization, and protection, because such ideologies are tied also to the ableist norm of perfect bodies and minds, which construes goodness in terms of health, constancy, energy, wholeness, and strength at the expense of actual bodies that do not conform to these specifications" (McRuer and Wilkerson 8).

Though McRuer and Wilkerson are specifically thinking about the ways disabilities studies can be deployed to critique and disrupt normative bodies, how might we think more broadly about ways to queer understandings of bodies, to queer representations of different bodies, to queer bodies themselves. For this iLog, post a single image of picture of yourself or well-known figure or public person (be careful about appropriating someone randomly from the web). Then articulate what the image you selected reveals about your understandings of queer bodies. Connect your comments, if possible, to the readings and our discussions about embodied difference, disability, body modification, and trans* theory. Then, take a look at each other’s iLogs and respond thoughtfully, respectfully, and analytically. Please tag as separate words your image with the terms "bodies," "queer," and "iLog 4" (without the quotations). Make sure to sign your iLog. Post conscientiously: these artifacts will be public and should be appropriate to the class.

Queer Inquiries Collaboratory: As a class project, you will contribute to and collectively curate an online collaboratory via the social media platform Tumblr. The Tumblr is a collaborative space, a collection of identity artifacts, and is for continued class discussion. The Tumblr will be for public archiving and curating of materials related to our class, to the readings, and to your own intellectual and analytical discoveries. You will be invited to be a contributor. Once invited, start posting things relevant to the class and the week's main ideas. Comment on the artifacts other people post. Participating on the Tumblr counts toward overall class participation and the Tumblr may be used for iLog assignments as well. Be thoughtful, make connections, stay relevant, maintain respect. Happy collecting!

Critical Review: a 500-750 word analytical review of a narrative text you would think could be or should be included in our class. Critical Reviews will be posted to the class Tumblr.

Information Sheets

The following are handouts, informational sheets, and readings that will be assigned or used over the course of the quarter. Each student will recieve a copy of each as a handout in class during the appropriate week. If you miss a sheet, feel free to print out a new copy.

ENGL 466 Student Info Sheet & Release Form

Ed's Top Ten List of "Ways to Survive University"

Ed's Top Ten Rules of Writing

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

MLA Citation and Bibliographic Format

Readings

Half of the readings for the class are in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader edited by Henry Abelove, Michele Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin. The remaining short readings are available via the Course Reader (for sale at Ave Copy, 4141 Univ. Way @ 42nd) or through the university's online course reserves, or directly from the web. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader and three other required novels are available at the UW Bookstore (or through any reputable bookstore, many of which can be found at used bookstores, try to get the same editions). Consult the course syllabus for the week each reading will be covered in class. The three touchstone novels for the class are:

Baldwin, James. Another Country. New York: Vintage, 1960.

Butler, Octavia. Adulthood Rites. New York: Aspect, 1988.

Larsen, Nella. Passing. New York: Norton, 2007.

Moreover, the following is a full list of the class readings by week:

Week 1: January 7-11 • HISTORY

Rubin, Gayle S. "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 3-44. (reader)

Marcus, Steven. "Introduction." Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Ed. and Trans. James Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 1962. xxxi-liii. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Freud, Sigmund. "The Sexual Aberrations." Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Ed. and Trans. James Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 1962. 1-38. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Ellis, Havelock. "Sexual Inversion." Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6). The Project Gutenberg eBook. 8 Oct. 2004. 30 Nov. 12. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13611/13611-h/13611-h.htm. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Ellis, Havelock. "The Study of Sexual Inversion." Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6). The Project Gutenberg eBook. 8 Oct. 2004. 30 Nov. 12. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13611/13611-h/13611-h.htm. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Week 2: January 14-18 • SEXUALITY

Burgett, "Sex" Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 217-221. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Foucault, Michel. "We 'Other Victorians.'" The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York, Vintage Books, 1978. 1-14.

Foucault, Michel. "The Repressive Hypothesis." The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York, Vintage Books, 1978. 15-50.

Halperin, David M. "Is There a History of Sexuality?" The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 416-431. (reader)

Lorde, Audre. "The Uses of the Erotic." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 339-343. (reader)

Week 3: January 21-25 • GENDER

Halberstam, Judith. "Gender." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 116-120. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Butler, Judith. "The Heterosexual Matrix in 'Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire.'" Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990. 42-44. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Rich, Adrienne. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 227-254. (reader)

Wittig, Monique. "One is Not Born a Woman." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 103-109. (reader)

Week 4: January 28-February 1 • RACE & CLASS

Ferguson, Robert A. "Race." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 191-196. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Hammonds, Evelynn. "Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality." differences. 6.2+3 (1994): 126-145. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Mercer, Kobena. "Looking for Trouble." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 350-359. (reader)

McDowell, Deborah E. "'It's Not Safe at All': Sexuality in Nella Larsen's Passing." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 616-625. (reader)

D'Emilio, "Capitalism and Gay Identity." (reader) The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 467-476. (reader)

Week 5: February 4-8 • SPACE

Sedgwick, "Epistemology of the Closet." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 45-61. (reader)

Edelman, Lee. "Tearooms and Sympathy, or, The Epistemology of the Water Closet." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 553-574. (reader)

Berlant, Lauren and Michael Warner. "Sex in Public." Critical Inquiry. 24.2 (Winter 1998): 547-566. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Delany, Samuel. "Writer's Preface." Time Square Red, Time Square Blue. New York: NYU Press, 1999. xiii-xx.

Delany, Samuel. "...Three, Two, One, Contact: Times Square Red." Time Square Red, Time Square Blue. New York: NYU Press, 1999. 111-199.

Week 6: February 11-15 • TIME

Freeman, Elizabeth. "Introduction." GLQ: Queer Temporalities. 13.2-3 (2007): 159-176. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Dinshaw, Carolyn, Lee Edelman, Roderick A. Ferguson, Carla Freccero, Elizabeth Freeman, Judith Halberstam, Annamarie Jagose, Christopher Nealon, and Nguyen Tan Hoang. "Theorizing Queer Temporalities: A Roundtable Discussion." GLQ: Queer Temporalities. 13.2-3 (2007): 177-196. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Halberstam, Judith. "Queer Temporality and Postmodern Geographies." In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: NYU Press, 2005. 1-21. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Edelman, Lee. "The Future is Kid Stuff." No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. 1-32. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Muñoz, Jose Estaban. "Introduction: Feeling Utopia." Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: NYU Press, 2009. 1-18. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Muñoz, Jose Estaban. "Queerness as Horizon: Utopian Hermeneutics in the Face of Gay Pragmatism." Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: NYU Press, 2009. 19-32. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Week 7: February 18-22 • QUEER

Somerville, Siobhan B. "Queer." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 187-191. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. "Queer and Now." Tendencies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. 1-22. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Butler, Judith. "Critically Queer." GLQ. 1.1 (1993): 17-32. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Warner, Michael. "What's Wrong with Normal?" The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. New York: The Free Press, 1990. 41-80. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Week 8: February 25-March 1 • BODY

McRuer, Robert and Abby L. Wilkerson. "Cripping the (Queer) Nation." GLQ. 9.1-2 (2003): 1-23. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

McRuer, Robert. "As Good As It Gets: Queer Theory and Critical Disability." GLQ. 9.1-2 (2003): 79-105. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Schippert, Claudia. "Can Muscles Be Queer?: Reconsidering the Transgressive Hyper-Built Body." Journal of Gender Studies. 16.2 (July 2007): 155-171. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

"Historical HIV/AIDS Posters." AVERT: AVERTing HIV and AIDS. 30 Nov. 2012. http://www.avert.org/aids-posters.htm.

"AIDS Education Posters." University of Rochester Libraries. 2011. 30 Nov. 2012. http://aep.lib.rochester.edu/.

Week 9: March 4-8 • TRANS*

Stone, Sandy. "The Empire Strikes Back." The Transgender Studies Reader Eds. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge, 2006. 221-235. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Stryker, Susan. "(De)Subjugated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies." The Transgender Studies Reader Eds. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge, 2006. 1-18. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Garber, Marjorie. "Spare Parts: The Surgical Construction of Gender." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina, Barale, David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993. 321-336. (reader)

Lane, Riki. "Trans as Bodily Becoming: Rethinking the Biological as Diversity, Not Dichotomy." Hypatia. 24.3 (Summer 2009): 136-157. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Spade, Dean. "Preface." Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. Brooklyn, NY: South End Press, 2011. 7-18. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Spade, Dean. "Introduction: Rights, Movements, and Critical Trans Politics." Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. Brooklyn, NY: South End Press, 2011. 19-48. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Week 10: March 11-15 • TECHNOLOGY

Turing, Alan. "The Imitation Game in 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence.'" Mind. 65:236 (Oct. 1950): 433-435. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Halberstam, Judith. "Automating Gender: Postmodern Feminism in the Age of the Intelligent Machine." Feminist Studies. 17.3 (Autumn 1991): 439-460. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. 149-182. (cp) (Also available via UW e-reserve).

"dys4ia." Auntie Pixelante. 9 Mar. 2012. 30 Nov. 2012. http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=1515. (game)

"Lim." Merritt Kopas: Gender / Space / Bodies / Play. 29 Aug. 2012. 30 Nov. 2012. http://mkopas.net/2012/08/lim/. (game)

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