From homosexual to LGBTQIA+: How we got queer in the USA, 1920—present

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course traces the changing history of sexual and gender identities in the USA between roughly 1890-present. We begin with the early 20th century’s “invention” of the binary hetero or homo sexual identity -- a rigid dualism that (from today’s point of view) would structure even the most radical challenges to normative gender and sexual identities through until the last decades of the twentieth. We conclude by briefly considering the sources and extent of radically “queer” challenges to gender and sexual binaries, beginning in the 1990s. As much as possible, we will draw on the words and images of those who struggled to define themselves -- their art, music, film, literature, interviews, oral histories, memoirs and autobiographies. The class will analyze these using various existing historical and other disciplinary frameworks. In addition, students will deepen our historical knowledge by sharing their own research on a topic of their choice (1890-2015). Our learning will be discussion-based and collaborative.