Transnational / Transgender

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The interdisciplinary field of transnational transgender studies reveals how concepts, systems, and experiences of gender cross political and geographic boundaries, and how people move within, across, and against the gender categories available to them. Centering transgender knowledges and practices, this course explores how gender moves across space and time. How and why have some persons transitioned across gender boundaries, and what happens when they do? How do ideas about gender travel across national borders, and how are those ideas (and those borders) transformed along the way? What does transgender studies have to do with nation-states, economics, and global political dynamics? How have political and economic structures of movement - such as empire, migration, globalization, settler colonialism, and tourism - shaped gender in local and global contexts? And what social movements, cultures, visions, forms of resistance, and possible futures emerge out of these encounters? This seminar is discussion-based and centered on collaborative learning. Students will pursue independent research on a topic related to transnational transgender studies, share their research in class, and help to lead and facilitate class