Courses

An introduction to the anthropology of sex, sexuality and gender, this course uses case studies from around the world to explore how the worlds of the sexes become gendered. In ethnographic, ethnohistorical and contemporary globalizing contexts, we will look at: intersexuality and supernumerary genders; physical and cultural reproduction; sexuality; and sex-based and gender-based violence and power. We will use lectures, films, discussion sections and short field-based exercises.

Full details for LGBT 2421 - Worlding Sex and Gender

This course engages classical antiquity and its reception through the prism of queer studies. Cruising Homer, Sappho, Euripides, Plato, Ovid and more, we will explore how queer theoretical frameworks help us account for premodern queer and trans bodies, desires, experiences, and aesthetics. We will trace how people historically have engaged with the classical past in political and affective projects of writing queer history and literature, constructing identities and communities, and imagining queer futures. We will unpack how classical scholarship might reproduce contemporary forms of homophobia and transphobia in its treatments of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in the classical past, and in turn how modern uses of the classical might reinforce or dismantle exclusionary narratives around 'queerness' today as it intersects with race, gender, sexuality, and class. Finally, we will consider how the work we are doing in this class (where the 'Queer' in 'Queer Classics' may be taken as an adjective or an imperative) relates to the ways that contemporary writers, activists, artists, and performers have animated the classical past with queer possibilities. All readings will be in translation; no knowledge of Latin and Greek is required.

Full details for LGBT 3635 - Queer Classics

Individual study program intended for juniors and seniors working on special topics with selected reading or research projects not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with an LGBT Studies faculty member who has agreed to supervise independent study.

Full details for LGBT 3990 - Undergraduate Independent Study

The Velvet Underground remains one of the most acclaimed and influential rock groups to emerge within the culturally turbulent era of the late 1960s. From their association with Andy Warhol beginning in 1965, to their last recorded performance with Lou Reed in August 1970, the Velvet Underground revitalized rock 'n' roll as streetwise outsider art.  Lyrics tell of hard drugs, hustlers, and queer and transgender lives, while the music ranges from noise, drones, feedback, and minimalism to edgy pop tunes. In 2015 Cornell University acquired a substantial archive of Velvet Underground material, including rare photographs, posters, flyers, handwritten lyrics, rare recordings, and ephemera.  The first segment of this course will delve into music, lyrics, and the performance art of the Velvet Underground as an archive of underground and dissident art and identities in New York City; the second segment of the course will be devoted to working with the Cornell Velvet Underground Archive to develop student projects. This course is open to graduate students and fourth-year undergraduates by permission. Undergraduates should contact the instructor before enrolling.

Full details for LGBT 4331 - The Velvet Underground Archive

Examines the new cinemas of Southeast Asia and their engagement with contemporary discourses of gender and sexuality. It pays special attention to the ways in which sexuality and gendered embodiment are at present linked to citizenship and other forms of belonging and to how the films draw on Buddhist and Islamic traditions of representation and belief. Focusing on globally circulating Southeast Asian films of the past 15 years, the course draws on current writings in feminism, Buddhist studies, affect theory, queer studies, postcolonial theory, and film studies to ask what new understandings of subjectivity might emerge from these cinemas and their political contexts. Films are drawn from both mainstream and independent cinema and will include the work of directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Danny and Oxide Pang, Yau Ching, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Garin Nugroho, and Jean-Jacques Annaud.

Full details for LGBT 4451 - Gender and Sexuality in Southeast Asian Cinema

This richly interdisciplinary course examines trans issues in the transnational context of North and South America. Focusing on the tensions and cross-pollinations of (especially US and Canadian) trans studies and (especially Argentinian) travesti theory, the course equips students to engage in critical epistemologies, to practice philosophical and cross-cultural analyses, and to attend to the nuances of language, law, and lived experience.

Full details for LGBT 4687 - Trans Theory and Politics Across the Americas

Examines the new cinemas of Southeast Asia and their engagement with contemporary discourses of gender and sexuality. It pays special attention to the ways in which sexuality and gendered embodiment are at present linked to citizenship and other forms of belonging and to how the films draw on Buddhist and Islamic traditions of representation and belief. Focusing on globally circulating Southeast Asian films of the past 15 years, the course draws on current writings in feminism, Buddhist studies, affect theory, queer studies, postcolonial theory, and film studies to ask what new understandings of subjectivity might emerge from these cinemas and their political contexts. Films are drawn from both mainstream and independent cinema and will include the work of directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Danny and Oxide Pang, Yau Ching, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Garin Nugroho, and Jean-Jacques Annaud.

Full details for LGBT 6331 - Gender and Sexuality in Southeast Asian Cinema

The Velvet Underground remains one of the most acclaimed and influential rock groups to emerge within the culturally turbulent era of the late 1960s. From their association with Andy Warhol beginning in 1965, to their last recorded performance with Lou Reed in August 1970, the Velvet Underground revitalized rock 'n' roll as streetwise outsider art.  Lyrics tell of hard drugs, hustlers, and queer and transgender lives, while the music ranges from noise, drones, feedback, and minimalism to edgy pop tunes. In 2015 Cornell University acquired a substantial archive of Velvet Underground material, including rare photographs, posters, flyers, handwritten lyrics, rare recordings, and ephemera.  The first segment of this course will delve into music, lyrics, and the performance art of the Velvet Underground as an archive of underground and dissident art and identities in New York City; the second segment of the course will be devoted to working with the Cornell Velvet Underground Archive to develop student projects. This course is open to graduate students and fourth-year undergraduates by permission. Undergraduates should contact the instructor before enrolling.

Full details for LGBT 6332 - The Velvet Underground Archive

This richly interdisciplinary course examines trans issues in the transnational context of North and South America. Focusing on the tensions and cross-pollinations of (especially US and Canadian) trans studies and (especially Argentinian) travesti theory, the course equips students to engage in critical epistemologies, to practice philosophical and cross-cultural analyses, and to attend to the nuances of language, law, and lived experience.

Full details for LGBT 6687 - Trans Theory and Politics Across the Americas