Queering the Archive: History and the Politics of Identity

How is history made? Who makes it? Who benefits from how stories of the past are told? How might we queer the making of histories and how could this influence our futures? This course follows feminists, queer theory scholars, and activists in their journeys to critically analyze historical archives and open up queer readings of the past. We will spend time with variety of cultural texts including Cheryl Dunye’s film The Watermelon Woman, Lara Kramer’s performance piece NGS (Native Girl Syndrome), and Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred to think about historical knowledge production and its relationship to identity formation.