Research Sem.: Recovering the History of Sex, Sexualities, Gender and Love at Notre Dame, 1972-2022

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Parietals, ResLife and SYRs— ND’s Vagina Monologues, the old Keenan Revue, and the “Gay? Fine By Me” t-shirt campaign— 30+ years of queer student groups (forbidden, unofficial, and unofficial) -- ND’s never-quite-adopted “nondiscrimination policy” — these and a host of other customs, traditions, events and scandals comprise Notre Dame’s rich history of sex, sexualities, gender and love. Today most of this history has been forgotten, misremembered, even mythologized. Nonetheless, similar issues of sex, sexualities, gender and love remain both controversial and central to students’ ND experience. If students and their supporters neither remember nor understand these past controversies, how can they assess today’s controversies, however similar or different? How can this generation of students understand the part that they, themselves, are playing in this longstanding history? How can they tell the difference between a return to past practices and changes that are truly novel? This seminar begins a multi-semester project recovering and making available this rich history. During the semester, students serve as both historians and archivists. That is, first and perhaps most important--each student serves as historian, utilizing student publications like the Observer to research and write a short, informative essay that uncovers, and explains one important event, aspect, or trend in Notre Dame’s past. These individually researched essays constitute this project’s heart and centerpiece, because only such essays can explain to modern students what sex, sexuality, gender and love meant to that generation of students—at least as exemplified in the subject of the essay. They will also explain how and why previous generations’ views, practices and ND experiences differed from those of ND students, today. Oral history makes up a second component of students’ historical practice. During the last half of the semester, each student will learn “best practices” for gathering and processing oral histories, and then act accordingly. Ideally each student will interview someone who remembers the event or trend which they wrote about in their essay. Yet as long as the interviewee knows or remembers something relevant to this course, and as long as they consent to provide and donate their oral history, anyone is fair game: alum, administrator, professor, staff, parent, etc. At the same time, the entire class will begin to build a permanent, accessible, Archive/Database of Sex, Sexuality, Gender, Love at ND, 1972-2022. Initially, the backbone of this Archive will be constituted of relevant articles found as we comb through the rich reportage of past ND student publications—Observer, Scholastic, Rover— etc. Students’ research will inevitably carry them to other types of primary sources, which will be included in the Archive, whenever feasible.