LGBTQ Film Studies and Transnational Cultures
Section outline
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The interdisciplinary fields of gender, sexuality and queer studies have considered representations of lgbt/queer people central to how compulsory heterosexuality and normative definitions of gender identities works and affect us—regardless of our desires and identifications. The emergence of new queer cinema in the 1990s pushed the field beyond asking ‘is this a good or bad portrayal of a lesbian/gay/transgender character?’ and opened new ways/queer ways of artistic expression as well as new avenues of critical explorations into cultural politics of global capitalism. Foregrounding the cultural politics of race, ethnicity and structures of inequalities, following questions transpire as pressing: In what ways were glbt and queer identities incorporated into the nation-states? In what ways is the call and celebration of (sexual) diversity embedded in the neoliberal ideology of privatized and individualized ‘choices’ that underpin demontage of ‘the public’ and ‘the social’? How have the lgbt and queer identities been circulated globally? And how are they implicated in imperialism? For instance, how are cultural formations such as pink economy, or queer tourism functioning vis-à-vis global capitalism? And what conflicts have materialized over the ways in which to articulate non-normative desires and identities? What various forms of activism and cultural critique and strategies of dis/identification have developed over the transnational lgbtq cultures? The transnational setting of this class (and classroom) will encourage us to reflect upon transnational translations between the ‘West’ and ‘post-socialist’ and post-colonial contexts and ask, what modes of expression does the subaltern queer and the post-socialist inarticulate crip develop? And lastly, how can we—drawing on the late queer theorist José Muñoz—think the possibility of critical imaginaries and visions of the political that transgress the pragmatism of ‘presentness’?
During the semester, the class converges for a week-long intensive workshop with our partner class of George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), taught by Professor Robert McRuer.
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