This seminar is an introduction to some dimension of the history of a nation, region, people, culture, institution, or historical phenomenon selected by the respective instructor. Students will come to understand, and develop an appreciation for: the origins and evolution of the people, cultures, and/or political, economic, and/or social institutions of a particular region(s) of the world. They may explore how human encounters shaped individual and collective identities and the political, economic, and social orders of the region/nation/communities under study. Instructors prioritize critical reading, engaged participation, and focused writing assignments.

This seminar will explore queer creative expression over the course of six hundred years, revealing the ways in which the production and reception of art that challenges normative sexual and gender identities can represent and archive historical experiences of difference. From Botticelli to Beyoncé, it will examine the values, visions, customs, judgements, and aspirations expressed by queer motifs in literature, poetry, and drama, painting, sculpture, and architecture, music, dance, photography, and cinema. It will assess how these modalities of the imagination, as they evolved through the late medieval, early modern, and modern periods, have fostered and fragmented queer sociality, community, and kinship networks across time and space.

Repeat Rules

Requirements class fulfills