Transnational Queer Film Studies Returns Fall 2016

Students in English 3980 in Prague with
special guest Professor Karen Tongson of USC

GW Students: English 3980W returns this fall and is now open for registration!

This course meets at GW all semester as a regular class but includes a short-term study abroad element: one week in Prague, Czech Republic, where we will meet with Czech students taking the same class in Prague and attend an international queer film festival together. Given the unique nature of this class, students must sign up through Study Abroad using this link.

The class meets Tuesday and Thursdays from 11:10-12:25 with a CRN of 16363. A more extended description is below. Professor Robert McRuer is happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have at rmcruer@gwu.edu

This course fulfills both a WID requirement and a requirement for the LGBT Studies Minor for students who are interested in that option!

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

English 3980W: Transnational Film Studies and LGBTQ Cultures: The interdisciplinary field that has come to be called “queer” studies over the past two decades has always concerned itself with questions of representation: how are, for instance, lesbians and gay men, or transgendered people, represented in film, in novels, in other forms of media? As the field has developed, these questions of representation have increasingly been linked to other, complex questions, involving political economy, globalization, and transnationalism: in what ways have lgbt people been incorporated into contemporary nation-states? What identities and desires threaten “the nation” as it is currently (and variously) materialized in our world? How have identities such as “gay” and “lesbian” circulated globally? How have those recognizable minority identities come into contact and conflict with other ways of identifying around non-normative desires? Have those identities at times functioned imperialistically, especially as “gay tourism” has become a recognizable part of global capitalism? Conversely, what kinds of unexpected alliances have been shaped across borders as queer movements have globalized? How have these movements theorized race, gender, class, and ability; what connections have been made with other movements organized, however contentiously, around identity?

This film studies course will consider how questions of queer representation intersect with questions of queer globalization(s). From November 3-11, we will travel to Prague, Czech Republic to attend Mezipatra: Queer Film Festival along with students from Charles University in Prague in Professor Katerina Kolárová’s class.