WGSS 65.04 Queer Visual Culture

This seminar will look into the cultural history of queer aesthetics. The subjects are mostly moving images (cinema, TV and video), activist performances and some aspects of visual art. The starting-point is the simultaneous 'invention', disease mongering (pathologization) and 'emancipation' of homosexuality in the European fin de siècle and how it is negotiated in educational and feature films. The syllabus moves then to figurations of queerness in popular (and queer) imagination, for instance the 'Drag Queen' or the 'Vampire' with special attention on the AIDS crisis and will finally focus on gender-ambivalence, transgender, and gender-bending performances such Butch-Femme aesthetic or Glam-Rock. A general tension will be observed between 'The Epistemology of the Closet' (Sedgewick), Mainstreaming Queerness and an effort on part of activists to use queer visual culture as a tool for political intervention.

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:ART; WCult:CI

The Timetable of Class Meetings contains the most up-to-date information about a course. It includes not only the meeting time and instructor, but also its official distributive and/or world culture designation. This information supersedes any information you may see elsewhere, to include what may appear in this ORC/Catalog or on a department/program website. Note that course attributes may change term to term therefore those in effect are those (only) during the term in which you enroll in the course.