Queering Sexual Cultures in Africa and the Diaspora

3 units

This course examines gender and sexuality in contemporary Africa and the diaspora. We will focus specifically on queerness as a category of analysis and will examine queer identities, practices, communities, and cultures in Africa and the African diaspora. In recent years, many African countries have adopted harsh anti-homosexuality laws and much of the political and popular discourse frames expressions of same-sex desire as un-African.'' However, there is a long history of non-normative sexualities in Africa, challenging the manner in which the continent is constructed as heterosexual by both local and global forces. Similarly, black communities across the African diaspora have relied on the regulation of gender and sexuality to demarcate the boundaries of blackness, and have traditionally sought belongingness to the nation through compulsory heterosexuality. Many scholars, artists, and activists in the African diaspora continue to critique parochial definitions of Africanness and Blackness that rely on the exclusion of queer subjects. By drawing on historical, theoretical, and visual texts, we will examine the debates concerning sexuality, citizenship, and human rights on the African continent and the diaspora as well as their relationship to global issues around sexual citizenship and human rights. By focusing on the lived experiences of LGBTQ subjects in the African diaspora, we will interrogate the contested relationship between sexuality and politics. This reading intensive, interdisciplinary course will familiarize students with the debates and issues of Queer African Studies, Black Queer Studies, and Black and African Feminist Thought.