Queering Gender and Sexuality in Modern European History

3 credits · Undergraduate

This course explores the construction, expressions, and politics of queer sexual desire in modern Europe. The course examines the ways in which gender and sexuality have become central to questions of identity in modern European societies. The readings for the course will be drawn from sexological texts, political writings, and recent scholarship produced by both historians and theorists of gender and sexuality. We will also watch some movies central to the themes of this class. This course will not only offer a chronological history of modern ‘queer Europe’, but it will also interrogate the meanings of the term ‘queer’ and explore what queer historical practices look like, or should look like. We will not only trace the history of those individuals who would claim to occupy various categories of identity, but we will also explore how those identity categories have been brought into existence.