The Berkeley Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small-seminar setting. Berkeley Seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester.

When do queer U.S. Latine writers begin to publish their writing under the category of “queer”? When do they begin to share their art with the world? It all began in the 1980s. This is when Latinas and other women of color began to publish what are now canonical texts in women of color feminism, books such as This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1983) and Loving in the War Years (1983). In this informal seminar, we will read some of the earliest texts and films produced by queer Latine people. We’ll read slowly each week and engage in lively discussion. We will pay attention to both the content (the argument and/or what an author says) and the form (how the author uses words and/or images to convey a feeling, attitude, style). To that end, we will be developing skills of close reading, a method used in the humanities (which includes literary, film, art, and cultural studies). Students will be expected to read and annotate the assigned readings before class, identify passages they found moving and/or deserving of discussion, and to actively participate in class discussion.

Repeat Rules