Lesbian Communities

Thank you for a great class!

2007-12-10T22:34:00.000-05:00

Tell us what you wrote about:

1) What is your version of the argument of the course?

2) Read your favorite paragraph from your learning analysis.

3) Which reading connected you most strongly to the argument of the class?

Thursday 6 December -- CLASS CANCELED

2007-12-06T06:38:00.000-05:00

Due to hazardous weather conditions the University of Maryland will not open until 10 am. Our 9:30am class is canceled today.

This makes attendance at the final class next Tuesday even more important. Please make sure you will be there.

And be safe!

Layers of Locals and Globals: our last two classes

2007-12-05T18:43:00.000-05:00

Review and Reflect:
How lesbian both is and is not a "universal" term.
What emergent knowledge have we made together in this class.

Tuesday, 11 December—LAST CLASS—Lesbianisms in Multinational Reception

We'll share our travels in the class, reading from bits of our learning analyses and talking about the readings and events that mattered most to us in the class.

DUE: Learning Analysis / 7-8 pgs. YOU MUST PRESENT IN CLASS TO RECEIVE CREDIT. MAKE YOUR PLANS ACCORDINGLY!

ALSO DUE: Portfolio documenting all assignments.

2007-12-05T18:42:00.001-05:00

2007-12-05T18:38:00.000-05:00

Futamigaura

2007-11-28T10:53:00.001-05:00

Some links:

http://www.yamasa.org/japan/english/destinations/mie/futamigaura.html

http://sonic-yoshi.blogspot.com/2007/08/mie-futamigaura-meoto-iwa-ise-jingu.html

http://anaba.blogspot.com/2005/05/spooky-futamigaura.html

http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-34963/Meotoiwa-at-Futamigaura-beach-Ise-Shima-National-Park-Japan

Next two classes will be on movie Sayonara

2007-11-23T18:44:00.000-05:00

Today and Thursday we will discuss the movie Sayonara, so you must have seen it by now.

• Handout: James Michener's book upon which the movie is based (also called Sayonara). Selections to read.

• Reread Robertson to understand movie, perhaps esp. chaps 1 & 2.

• Read on the web movie synopsis and awards, and ck out Takarazuka URLs.

Why does the movie transform the Takarazuka of the book to the Mizubiyoshi (and actually played by the Takarazuka's rivals, the Shochuku in the film)?

This film is intended to be an anti-racist film that supports interracial marriage. How does it use implicit proscribed sexualities and the Takarazuka to explicitly make its political case?

How is it a critique of heterosexuality while glorifying marriage? What relevance does it have to contemporary debates on homosexual marriage?

How do we excavate possible lesbianisms concerning the Takarazuka?

The syllabus description for Thursday should now read:

Thursday, 29 November—Takarazuka in US Pasts and Present

• We will examine the handouts from Michener's book and explore more the idea of multiple heterosexualities. Check out this link on Michener: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/michene.htm

We will continue our discussion from Tuesday.

Some images from US anti-Japanese propaganda, with WWII stereotyping of Japanese men:
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven

images from Japanese WWII propaganda
one
two
three

Japanese war brides in Australia: here
text of the war brides act
movie "I was a Male War Bride" crossdress pic
Canadian controversies about children of WWII war brides

DUE: Summary 4, final overview (5 pgs), compares Takarazuka and US contexts of proscribed sexualities as they transform historically. Hand in printed out, contribute to blog.
ALSO DUE: assignment chart in preparation for final Portfolio gathering.

Takarazuka III: Writing Fans

2007-11-13T13:39:00.000-05:00

• Robertson, Takarazuka : read Chaps Four & Five

Why do fans matter in Robertson's analysis?

How does Takarazuka play a role in queer politics and culture today?

DUE: Summary 3, on the book Takarazuka, using How to Read guidelines

LOOKING AHEAD NOTE: For the next class meeting following Thanksgiving you need to have viewed movie Sayonara.

Tuesday, 20 November—NO CLASS, Thanksgiving Week
Thursday, 22 November—NO CLASS, Thanksgiving Week

Tuesday, 27 November—Sayonara
We will discuss the movie Sayonara, so you must have seen it by now.
• Handout: James's Michener's book upon which the movie is based (also called Sayonara). Selections to read.
• Reread Robertson to understand movie, perhaps esp. chaps 1 & 2.
• Read on the web movie synopsis and awards, and ck out Takarazuka URLs.
Why does the movie transform the Takarazuka of the book to the Mizubiyoshi (and actually played by the Takarazuka's rivals, the Shochuku in the film)? This film is intended to be an anti-racist film that supports interracial marriage. How does it use implicit proscribed sexualities and the Takarazuka to explicitly make its political case? How is it a critique of heterosexuality while glorifying marriage? What relevance does it have to contemporary debates on homosexual marriage? How do we excavate its possible lesbianisms?

Takarazuka II: Androgynies & Nationalisms

2007-11-12T11:11:00.001-05:00

• Robertson, Takarazuka : read Chaps Two & Three

What connections does Robertson make between gender, sexuality and nationalism?

How do you translate her observations into similar connections in US today?

Ranges and moments in spacetime:

over a century of Takarazuka creation, management and on-going popularizations
Japanese/US connections after WWII and during the occupation: militarisms and nationalisms
what's happening today, globalization of entertainment and sexualities

Divide into three groups: each one will comb through the book to gather materials and make observations on the following topics to share with the class:

Grp 1: investigates words, languages of sexuality and gender, classifications
Grp 2: investigates ideologies of gender re Takarazuka
Grp 3: investigates ideologies of nationalism re Takarazuka

Each grp should also make notes on any comparisons and contrasts they note with conditions in the US today, esp. in relation to everything knotted around gay marriage....

Takarazuka I: Overview Sexual Politics and Popular Culture

2007-11-07T21:40:00.000-05:00

• Psych out Robertson, Takarazuka: read all intro & concluding materials; esp. Epilogue, and Chapter One

• Use index entries "Homosexuality" and "Same-sex love" to analyze the place of lesbianisms in this book. Read stuff from index that interests you, at least 20+ pages.

Continue with violated assumptions list and note what debates about lesbians in US have connections to this reading?

DUE: Violated Assumptions list 7

Soon you need to have viewed the movie Sayonara. Consider having a viewing party for extra credit.

Some L Word Pics

2007-11-06T07:26:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8sXdV6jaH4

Shape Yourself

2007-11-01T09:09:00.001-04:00

Martina's new book

Mannish Sports?

2007-11-01T09:04:00.001-04:00

Sewing Circle members?

2007-11-01T08:49:00.000-04:00

Here Lies the Heart

2007-11-01T08:44:00.001-04:00

Mercedes de Acosta Her Life

Technologies of Lesbian Celebrity

2007-10-31T22:20:00.000-04:00

• Read Chaps Five & Six of Entertaining Lesbians (reread one if it's the one you've already read; be an expert!)

How does Martina Navratilova's stardom challenge heterosexual norms? For whom?

Are these "unwitting collaborations with oppressive forces"? Gever has alternate explanation. What is it?

Powerful Martina

Martina Defects

Takarazuka

Thinking About the film Sayonara

Presentation 6

2007-10-29T22:07:00.000-04:00

Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in 20th Century Colonical Cultures By Ann L. Stoler

Chapter X: Globalization and Sexuality By Kathryn Farr

Queer Studies in the House of Anthropology By Tom Boellstorff

Common Themes in 3 Articles:

Globalization
Colonization
Sex work (how that looks different in different contexts)
Image of women across time and cultures
Eugenics
Non-normative sexualities
Racializing desire
Racializing danger
Gendered metaphors for power relations

Summaries:
In Stoler’s article Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in 20th Century Colonical Cultures she discusses how European colonizers between the 17th and 20th centuries sought to position themselves in New Worlds (Indo-China, West Africa, India, etc.) as superiors to the colonized natives, and how they used gender to construct social morality, proper conduct, economic and political stability and racial eugeny in order to do so. She discusses the role that European women played in colonized societies and what roles they were restricted from, and how through the perpetuation of European superiority racism and degenerate cultures were formulated and strengthened amongst European colonizers as a whole.

In Globalization and Sexuality, Kathryn Farr makes two major points…
perspectives in which the study of sexuality and globalization is obscured and advanced
globalization narratives reflective of western cultures (power “masculine” flows to less power “feminine”)
sexuality literature gender deviance is a marker of homosexuality
western ideologies are present in both, universalisms and binaries employed
idea of “scattered hegemonies”, or “transnational” theorists who find connections between a variety of locations (class, gender, ethnicity, urban, rural and other geographics)

examines major issues addressed in globalization and sexuality literature
-culture, identity and cosmopolitan “gayness”
-commodity capitalism has moved gay identity from a minority status to a cultural or lifestyle signification
-“Americanization” of gay culture around the world
-others contend that gay culture moves across borders
-travel and tourism
-development strategy
-sex tourism (globalization) has fostered a sizeable migratory male labor population in general w/ heterosexual customer base that can be racialized
-focus on consumption rather than production
-migration, production and commodification, nationalism, citizenship and nation-state conflict
-work-related mass migration of people
-female labor (global city and survival circuits)
-communication connections: virtual and actual
-collective resistance and situated strategies

Lastly in Tom Boellstorff’s article Queer Studies in the House of Anthropology he discusses how Anthropological work has increased on female nonnormative sexualities (women identifying as lesbian), forms of Transgenderism, and the study of normative sexualities (women and men identifying as heterosexual). They have also helped with understanding how sexualities are shaped by culture conceptions of female embodiment, notions of female agency, desire, and community come from the idea of domination. He attempts to break down the study by showing advancement in different areas of research.

In the article Boellstorff decides to break down his explanation of the different types of research done in queer studies down into four different categories.

*Anthropologies of female Desire, Transgenderism, and Normativity
-there has been a increase in female nonnormative sexualities
-also there has been an increase of ethnographic work on forms of Transgenderism despite the lack of transgender ethnographers completing the research.

*Globalization and Nation
-There is a focus on political and economic forces being a factor in the construction of sexuality.
- New work accepts non Western gay and lesbian subjectivities as legitimate forms of selfhood, addresses the role of mass media, consumerism, ethnicity, religion, class, and other factors.

*Language, Geography, History
-Today questions of sexuality have been linked to urbanity, modernity, and to the colonial encounter.
-This type of work shows how place making can shape cultural conceptions of desire, community, and belonging.

*Regional Studies
-The emphasis on sexuality changes a lot during regional work
-Examples are Asian cultures focusing on the state of female sexuality while Latin American Cultures focus on male to female transgenderism.

Arguments and Examples:

Stoler:
-“European women in these colonies experienced the cleavages of racial dominance and internal social distinctions very differently then men precisely because of their ambiguous positions, as both subordinates in colonial hierarchies and as active agents of imperial culture in their own right.” (634)à“dramatically reshaping the face of colonial society, imposing their racial will on…societies.” (640)
-“I suggest that the very categories of “colonizer” and “colonized” were secured through forms of sexual control…” (635)
- The control on marriage and the immigration of European women to colonized areas, “revealed how deeply the conduct of private life, and the sexual proclivities which individuals expressed were tied to corporate profits and to the security of the colonial state.” (638)
- “appeals to white prestige were a gloss for different intensities of racist practice, gender-specific and culturally coded.” (639)
Farr:
-“ The dominant paradigm also suggests that globalization travels one way, from the most powerful and affluent (and thus masculinized) nation-states and multi-nationals to the “lesser,” dependent (and thus feminized) nation-states. Localities – so much a part of the feminine world and important as well in understanding queer culture – are also deemed of lesser significance in the globalized world.” (Farr 2006)
-Sexuality and globalization literature highlights dominant paradigms, but they are not the only ones present; also used to advance cultures and activism
-Globalization spreads the ideology of Western culture, which is racialized and capitalist.
-Some say that globalization should be looked at as a phenomenon driven by migrant labor (Puar, 2002) instead of a flow of ideas
-nationalisms and nation states threaten rights for women and gays
-argument of a “gay nation” that makes the identity and space seem flat, and doesn’t allow for multiple identities and allegiances
-danger of migration, and that people are needed but not welcomed based on a racist, classist mentality (privileged statuses help with border crossings)
-possibility of “gay” as a place
-although many forces that continue racist, classist spaces in globalization, some are using global networks to do activism or to advance their position
Boellstorff:
“Once at the center of anthropological theorizing (Lyons & Lyons 2004), sexuality deserves a less marginal place than it occupies today with regard to topics of anthropological interest ranging from postcolonial to globalization, from embodiment to technology.”(2.2)

“Many anthropologists and others do not like the term queer “because it reminds them so strongly of homophobia and oppression” (Graham 1998, p. 106). However, even those who reject it must acknowledge the influence of queer studies on “lesbian and gay anthropology,” even if they disagree with that influence.”(2.2)

“An additional concern with my chosen title could be that it lumps together women and men, thereby passing over the experiences of women. It is true that ostensibly ungendered uses of man”—more specifically, “gay”—have over generalized in the past, and overgeneralization can and does occur with some uses of “queer.” However, for two reasons I find this concern unconvincing as a general principle. First, although I do not have the space to discuss them here—focused as it is on anthropology—a range of queer feminisms and queer-of-color critiques insist on the relevance of “queer” beyond the situated
knowledge practices of gay white men (e.g., Ferguson 2003, Johnson & Henderson 2005, Rodriguez 2003). A second reason, one that strikes at the heart of the theoretical conundrum at hand, is that some rejections of “queer” originate in an implicit disavowal of overarching categories in social analysis.”(2.2)

“…few ethnographic monographs on female nonnormative sexualities have appeared (e.g., Chalmers 2002, Green 1997, Kirtsoglou 2004, Sinnott 2004). Because such monographs are a mainstay of anthropological prestige (and rightly so, given that they render most visible the insights offered by sustained ethnographic engagement), their lack is a cause for concern. Weston’s (1993) observation that “particularly lacking are data on homosexuality and homoeroticism among women outside the United States” (p. 345) remains accurate.”(2.4-2.5)

“In light of the literature discussed, I suggest that if a pathway out
of the impasse signaled by the impossibility of a name exists, it is probably through, not around, questions of intersectionality, inclusion, and difference. Have we reached a point of paradigmatic exhaustion with intersectionality, inclusion, and difference as our analytical goals and ethnocartography and the logic of enumeration as our means toward those goals?”(2.9)

Questions to Ponder:
Do gender relations in colonized societies stand as metaphors for the power relations between geographic regions?
Why is it that racial anxieties are expressed through sexuality?
How do European women in the present play a part in contributing to an “us” and “them” system?
How do you feel about the word Queer? The author suggested that it can be seen in two different ways. One showing unity and the other showing disrespect because it was constructed through a type of homophobia.
How do you think globalization (movement of people and ideas) and sexuality work with each other both in the literature and outside of it?

* Chapter X: Globalization and Sexuality is an unpublished manuscript and should not be cited without permission.

Powerful Martina

2007-10-28T20:46:00.001-04:00

Martina Defects

2007-10-28T20:44:00.001-04:00

Takarazuka

2007-10-28T20:40:00.000-04:00

Takawiki

Thinking about the film "Sayonara"

2007-10-28T20:28:00.000-04:00

proscribed heterosexualities
prescribed sexualities

transgender
gender specialists
entertainment cultures
fandoms
lesbians

nationalisms
anti-racisms

militarism
occupation
war brides
immigration

marriage

Laurie R. King, Worlds, Feminism, LGBT intentions

2007-10-24T20:54:00.000-04:00

Laurie R. King's website

The Art of Detection

Kate Martinelli's World

LRK on Kate Martinelli:

In 1993, when A Grave Talent was published, it was easy to imagine a lesbian cop in the closet. In 2006, in the world of The Art of Detection, that same cop would have to be provided with deep neuroses to explain why she remained behind the closet door. Part of the pleasure of the Martinelli series, I think, lies in this arc of social and personal freedom: The rainbow family life depicted in The Art of Detection would have seemed a romanticized idyll in 1993; on 2006, gay men with adopted daughters and lesbians on the school board are just daily life in the City by the Bay.

Similarly, in 1993, there was no woman homicide detective in the SFPD. In 2006, there are two.

Such extreme changes, such a sudden gust of fresh, wholesome air, permeates The Art of Detection. Events in the historical portions of the novel take place in 1924, but those living in San Francisco seventy years later would have found many of the attitudes all too familiar. It is only those who are born into The City today who have the chance to look at Kate Martinelli’s earlier self and shake their heads in wonder.

San Francisco Neighborhoods

LRK on Feminism

LRK on Why the Mystery?

The whole genre question is further complicated by the undeniable fact that a great deal of crime fiction is simply pap, predigested and undemanding, suitable for the reader who either lacks the inner fortitude necessary for tackling something with fiber (moral or otherwise) or who simply doesn’t feel like chewing his or her way through something substantial after a hard day’s work. ...

So why the mystery? Because it is a strong form that nonetheless allows me to do what I wish with it, possessing both rigid structure and immense freedom. On its bones I can hang a story about things that matter, about death and pain and the dark side of the human mind, about fear and triumph and joy and the price we pay for justice. A story about the full gamut of human response.

The mystery novel, because the form is as big as I need it to be, and as intimate.

The mystery, because it’s human.

Queer Loving

2007-10-24T12:43:00.000-04:00

The article compares the struggles for the rights to interracial marriage with those for same sex marriage. By comparing both of these issues on a time line, Somerville exposes the reality of the history of discrimination our country chooses to participate in. While we are conditioned to recall these struggles as two separate entities, they are intertwined as pieces of the picture of the struggle for minority rights.
The similarity of these struggles is countered at points in Somerville's article. She also shows how using this analogy of same sex marriage to interracial marriage may not be as beneficial to those supporting this cause as one would think. The analogy is not as cut and dry as it seems
Do cases allowing interracial marriage apply to all groups requesting equal marriage rights?
U.S. law often serves the purpose of a rhetorical reminder of what is acceptable as our status quo. It is the root of the nationwide group think epidemic. Marriage was always more threatening to the status quo than was simply a relationship. The public scrutiny, which again was often backed by the law, still has the power to push same sex relationships behind closed doors. In the instance of both homosexual and interracial unions, the most effective control was asserted over the legality the marriage. While relationships can be outlawed, laws against marriage protect the lineage and fiscal interest of a power class.

San Francisco's Gay Marriage Moments

2007-10-23T09:28:00.000-04:00

2007-10-23T09:27:00.001-04:00

Gay Marriage in San Francisco

2007-10-23T09:25:00.001-04:00

Reading like a Queer

2007-10-23T08:42:00.000-04:00

p 240:
This insistence on the indelible working of the homo/heterosexual defi nition within seemingly remote structures of meaning, such as the binary oppositions of knowledge/ignorance or domestic/foreign, has become a cornerstone of queer theory, supporting a wide body of deconstructive work that queers nominally un(homo)sexual concepts from resolutely anti-normative positions. That work reveals the insidious pervasiveness—but also the exploitable fragility and illogic—of heteronormativity and the overdetermined elaboration of sexual discourse. As Elizabeth Freeman eloquently describes it, “To ‘queer’ something is at once to make its most pleasurable aspects gorgeously excessive, even to the point of causing its institutional work to fail, and to operate it against its most oppressive political results.”

p 257:
...Moraga's confessions are actually shrouded in shame more than in solemn, deliberated transgression.... Significantly, this propensity for confessing and for the shame left in its wake does not, as one might expect, lead to a weakening of the narrative or to the idea that she is debilitated by angst. Rather than portray shame as dysfunctional--as something that must be overcome or healed--Moraga suggests that it can be recuperated and, in fact..can be empowering.

Queer Loving
Queering the Color Line
Scientific Racism and the Emergence of the Homosexual Body
Queer Fictions of Race

Cherrie Moraga's Going Brown
Last Generation
Waiting in the Wings

The love plot of intimacy and familialism

2007-10-18T09:04:00.000-04:00

From Berlant and Warner, Sex in Public:

"A complex cluster of sexual practices gets confused, in heterosexual culture, with the love plot of intimacy and familialism that signifies belonging to society in a deep and normal way. Community is imagined through scenes of intimacy, coupling, and kinship; a historical relation to futurity is restricted to generational narrative and reproduction. A whole field of social relations becomes intelligible as heterosexuality, and this privitized sexual culture bestows on its sexual practices a tacit sense of rightness and normalcy. This sense of rightness--embedded in things and not just in sex--is what we call heteronormativity. Heteronormativity is more than ideology, or prejudice, or phobia against gays and lesbians; it is produced in almost every aspect of the forms and arrangements of social life: nationality, the state, and the law; commerce; medicine; and education; as well as in the conventions and affects of narrativity, romance, and other protected spheres of culture. It is hard to see these fields as heteronormative because the sexual culture straight people inhabit is so diffuse, a mix of languages they are just developing with premodern notions of sexuality so ancient that their material conditiions feel hardwired into personhood."

Queer counterpublics and the world-making activities of queer life

2007-10-16T19:40:00.000-04:00

Michael Warner (p. 147):

"Queer counterpublics still exist and have not lost their vitality. But they have become increasingly isolated, as their connection with the national organizations, magazines, and publics has eroded. What will matter more and more is the world-making activity of queer life that neither takes queerness to be inevitable nor understands itself from the false vantage of 'society.' Because love, privacy, and the couple form obscure this effort, even the most generous estimate of the politics of marriage puts new pressure on keeping the world-making project in view. And because sexual culture and nonnormative intimacies are so commonly the practices of this world-making, any argument for gay marriage requires an intensified concern for what is thrown into its shadow."

Presentations 4

2007-10-16T02:39:00.000-04:00

What do gay tourism, a Puerto Rican lesbian, and mediations on transgender and language have in common?

Sounds like the opening to a bad joke huh? We thought so too.

First up....
Circuits of Queer Mobility: Tourism, Travel and Globalization
By Jasbir Kaur Puar

Opening Scenario:

The Cayman Islands refused docking privileges to a gay cruise ship from the US and other Caribbean governments followed suit by saying they too would deny docking privileges to gay cruise liners. The Cayman Island justified their decision by saying that gay vacationers could not be counted on to “uphold standards of appropriate behavior.” (Puar 101).

Gay and Lesbian Travel Facts:
• Estimated 5-25 million gays and lesbians spend more than $10-17 billion on travel products a year
• One report found that 94% of gay and lesbian travelers are, in fact, just gay, while only 6% are lesbian
• Today there are over 300 travel providers for gay vacations

Howard Hughes argues that there is a great deal of similarity between a homosexual identity and “tourism”… “The acceptance of a homosexual identity is often dependent upon the act of being a ‘tourist’ at least in the limited sense of travel….Given that the fulfillment or achievement of gay identity often involves travel and is thus, in practice, a variation of tourism, it may be argued that the search for gay identity is itself conceptually a form of tourism. A man may live in what is basically a heterosexual society and visit ‘the resort’ of gay society in his leisure time” (Puar 103).

History of Gay and Lesbian Tourism:

-Gay tours were started by Hanns Ebensten in the 1950s

-The early 1990s marked the “golden age” of the gay and lesbian tourism industry because of:
• The AIDS crisis
• Subsequent popularization of gay men’s circuit parties

-Initially gays and lesbians promoted themselves to certain venues and now more venues market themselves to gays and lesbians

-From 1998-2002 the market focused on expanding from domestic to international destinations. In particular they expect the greatest increases to be in trips to South Africa, New Zealand, Finland, Australia, Brazil, and the South Pacific islands, while they expect visits to domestic destinations to decrease.

-The Internet allows anonymity so that gays and lesbians may access information without outing themselves and allows for increased access into gay and lesbian communities around the world

-Surveys have found that in 1992 the median income of a gay male was over $51,000 dollars a year (which was twice the national average at that time). In addition they found that fewer than 5% of gay couples had children so they had more time for travel. The increased income and lack of children may explain why they found that gay couples traveled 4.5 times a year compared to the “straight average of one trip” (Puar 109).

-International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association list of homophobic travel destinations includes:
• Jamaica (officially condemned by the association as “the worst destination in the Caribbean”)
• Afghanistan, Bavaria, Brazil, Columbia, Iran, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru

Queer Visibility- “Either visibility achieved through the marketplace is politically suspect or visibility in the marketplace is a sign of progress in the realm of acceptability, where visibility is assumed to be generically and equally available to everyone and, as such, can be either unequivocally hailed or rejected outright” (Puar 111).
Possible problems:
• Only certain gays and lesbians can be a part of certain queer visibility at certain times based on their race, ethnicity, class, gender and nation.
• Does not take into account transnational queer identities (Mainly focused on US and European identity politics)
• One must be careful to not confuse heterosexuality with heteronormativity, and we must be able to separate the two (for example it is one thing is say that heterosexuality is assumed in a space while it’s very different to proclaim a space is inherently heterosexual.) (Puar 112).

Gay and lesbian tourists may be able to disrupt public spaces as well as question the overall creation of “public space”. Puar goes on to say that “visibility politics” may supply some of the backbone of gay and lesbian travel. (Puar 102).

Queer Tourism- “How (global) tourism affects (local) sexualities and how (local) sexualities are perceived by (global) tourism” (Puar 104)
• Queer Diasporas- maintained as privileged sites of sexuality through travel and tourism practices (for example the “queer diasporic return to the homeland) (Puar 113)
• Speaks of reacquainting oneself with tradition, and by locating queer heritage and connection in one’s homeland
• Imperial Nostalgia- the idea that tourists may be lured to homophobic areas because of the possibility of “taboo sexual encounters, illicit seductions, and dangerous liaisons”
• Global Gay and Lesbian Activism- traveling with the intent to increase international “queer solidarity” with gays and lesbians from other countries (for example Queers for Cuba and the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organization’s annual encuentros)
o Raises the question of “pleasure tourism” vs. “political travel”
o Travel and tourism are used by activists as forms of globalization to create solidarity networks while relying on tourist infrastructures…..
The agendas closely overlap, though the impulses might be different: one seeks out “our world” to enable the modern queer subject to be “out and about”; the other seeks global queer solidarity to promote modern notions of queer human rights in order to save queers at the peripheries, who operate in a vector of sameness within difference. These examples demonstrate how queer tourism unpins and fuels a gay and lesbian rights agenda that assumes the attainment of “modern queer sexuality” as its ultimate goal” (Puar 125).

Questions Posed by Puar:
“How is community created through and against such encounters? What are the differing constructions of global and local sexualities? How are these cruises part of the production of a global gay identity contested by postcolonial situations?....What are the roles of activists, human rights organizations, NGOs, national governments, multinational corporations, and ethnographers in mediating this conflict?” (Puar 102).

Discussion Questions:
1) What are your reactions to the opening scenario?
2) What relationships do you see between lesbian, gay or queer identity, globalization and/or tourism?
3) What connects can you make between Puar’s discussion of queer visibility and other authors we’ve discussed in class (i.e. Entertaining Lesbians)?
4) How does this tie into our debate about assimilation vs. creating a distinct LGBT community?

Next up....
Meditations on Brincando el charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican
Frances Negron-Muntaner

Brief Storyline: This movie is about a Latina woman named Claudia Marin, a middle-class light-skinned Puerto Rican, who is island born, but lives in the U.S. When Claudia is confronted by her father, who angrily waves a photo of Claudia and her lover, she makes the decision to exile herself to Philadelphia in exploration of identity and what it means to be Puerto Rican, Gay and an Artist.

Movie Clip: “The Father Scene”
“This clip has been called “foundational” by critics, because it represents a common experience for Puerto Rican queers: the moment at which they are expelled from their families or choose to leave home for fear that they will not survive otherwise” (Negron-Mutaner, 516)

Racial Identity and Sexual Identity: Negron-Mutaner begins the article speaking about traditional Puerto Rican Day parades, particularly in New York and Philadelphia. The flags that are carried in the parade are pictured in the article having 51 stars.

“The flag that the unknown man carries has fifty-one stars; hence it is not a ‘real’ American flag. Rather, it constitutes an attempt to lift the shame from the lonely star of the Puerto Rican flag by redrawing the U.S. emblem to include Puerto Rico as a state of the Union; it also suggests a way to imagine Puerto Ricans as AmeRican first class citizens.” (Negron-Mutaner, 513)

“A powerfully scary rag indeed, to make the American flag Puerto Rican.” (Negron-Mutaner, 513)

The idea of transformation of culture and sexual identity is difficult for Claudia. Negron utilizes migration as a form of identity as well. When Claudia comes to the states she is transformed from “white” to “colored.” Claudia is struggling with what is thought to be a betrayal of her own culture.

And finally....
Transgender and Language: A Review of the Literature and Suggestions for the Future
By Don Kulick

Cliff Notes Version:
Drop a bunch of names to make yourself sound intelligent, make broad claims that you don’t discuss further, and talk about the lack of literature on FTM transsexuals and language. Congratulations, you have just garnered all of the substantial information from this article.

Point 1
Kulick points out here that the available literature for FTM transsexuals on how to “talk like a man” is pithy, while they are abundant for MTF transsexuals. He then argues that while there is some physiological basis for this discrepancy, it is also an ideological one. FTMs are given testosterone, which typically deepens their voice making language training less necessary. Estrogen and other female hormones do not have similar effects for MTFs. However, this mismatch “both reflects and invokes widespread cultural attitudes that hold that being a man is self-evident, whereas being a woman is a complicated set of procedures that require careful adherence to detailed, explicit instructions (often issues by men) about how to walk, talk, sit, eat, dress, move, and display affect” (Kulick, 609).

Point 2
On one hand, transsexuals show that speech norms are stereotypes; that they are “stylized repetitions that help produce the appearance of appropriately sexed corporeality” (610). However, they also help to uphold a sexist society by “exchanging one stereotype for the other” (606). So which is it?

Point 3
Terminology used to define and identify transsexual groups are still being debated. Queer linguists are creative.

Point 4
Current language is restrictive to transsexuals who cannot adequately convet their identity. Transsexuals frequently play with other languages to avoid gender agreements and associations. Their actions may be construed as subversive, but more than likely they are just trying to express themselves.

Point 5
Masculinity and femininity are constructed through language. “Men’s” and “women’s” language are not anchored to corporal sexed bodies but instead refer to a societal construct.

Discussion Questions
- What is “woman’s language”? What is “man’s language”?
- Are transsexuals part of a subversive revolutionary movement or are they reinforcing a patriarchal system?
- Kulick says, “Being a man, both in cultural models and in transsexual practice, seems easy. Being a woman requires effort, advice, and help” (609). Is this true of our society today?

Now it's your turn! What do you think these articles have in common?

Genders on My Mind

2007-10-09T12:27:00.000-04:00

• From GenderQueer: read Wilchins' essays and the Epilogue, pick about half the stories to read in any order you like.

Be prepared to say why you chose the stories you did, and which ones connected to which other ones.

Continue your violated assumptions list and reflect on changes in social power just over the course of your own life.

How does this reading affect your understanding of at least some debates in lesbian communities today? How do these issues connect to other debates that might not seem at first glance to be connected? How can you tell?

Presentations 3

2007-10-09T01:30:00.000-04:00

Gender Identities

GAWKING, GAPING, STARING
by Eli Clare

Eli Clare is an activist, speaker, poet, essayist. He is a self-described “pansexual tranny with a long butch dyke history” who intersects the issues of race, class, gender, and disability.

Through a highly personal account, Eli Clare appeals to a wide audience in his discussion of how the intersection of gender and disability impact his life, and the lives of others. He brings up a few personal stories where gender or disability had a strong impact on people’s lives. William Johnson, an African American male whose “pinhead” got him a freak show spot with P.T. Barnum in the early 20th century. To his co-workers, “What-is-it?” was a “dean of freaks.” Billy Tipton, a fantastic jazz musician who lived her life as a female-bodied man and died at the refusal to see a doctor to treat her bleeding ulcer. It wasn’t until her death, while the paramedics were working to save her life, that her son found out that his dad was born a female. This happened in 1989. Brandon Teena, a twenty-one year old boy who was raped and killed by his friends after they found out that he was born a she. December 31st, 1993.

Eli relates these lived experiences to her own. As a pansexual trannyfag with cerebral palsy, “a condition marked by impaired muscle coordination,” (Oxford Amer. Dictionary) he stands out in the sea of “normal.” But instead of looking at him, people stare through him as if he was a pane of glass. Not entirely invisible, as you know it’s there, but you stare through it just the same. It won’t mind, since it’s just a pane of glass after all. As if Eli, a person, was little else than a curious oddity. Inconsequential as soon as we notice his seeming physical defects, he ceases to matter. People actively dehumanize Eli, and many, many others, by gawking, and thus refusing to see.

Argument: What’s the point? How does it proceed?

Various social norms and values govern our everyday lives; creating a powerful “center” of conversation and thought (discourse) that marginalizes others

Masculine-feminine vs. those outside

Able bodied/minded vs. physically/cognitively disabled

Language as reflexive, creating/supporting social norms and values, while also holding the ability to challenging them
the English language fails at describing the various existing genders, forcing us to choose a spot somewhere along the supposed continuum between man and woman
Eli Clare creates her own knowledge by decentering popular discourse by adopting her own role models outside of the mainstream that accept parity in difference

Exigence

Definition of gender: does gender necessarily fall within the masculine-feminine continuum, or is there room outside?
How is the construct of gender similar to disability? How is it different?
What are the parallels between homophobia, ableism, transphobia?
Must we actively seek normalcy? Why do we shun acceptance of difference?

Lipstick or Timberlands? Meanings of Gender Presentation in Black Lesbian Communities
by Mignon R. Moore

Exigence:
This article is important because it discusses the roles race and ethnicity have played in forming differences in lesbian communities, particularly in the case of racially homogeneous black and Latina lesbian communities in New York City.

Moore discusses the presentation of gender in a black lesbian community in New York as a “modification” of butch/femme identities.

She enters into the debate of whether gender presentation exists in black lesbian communities as a way to “order or structure women’s expectations for and within relationships” (pg 114). She discusses gender presentation’s role as both a method of individual self-expression and also as a collective system of attraction and identification with certain roles and expectations within a community.

Argument:
Moore argues that “for several reasons, and despite what we have seen among lesbian feminists, many black gay women in the 1970s did not distance themselves from the use of physical presentations of gender as an organizing mechanism for their relationships and for lesbian community life” (pg 115), meaning that although the lesbian-feminist movement of the 1970s discouraged gendered presentations of self (promoting instead a universal sort of androgynous look), black and Latina lesbians did not necessarily join this ideology, largely because many of the issues faced by their community were not being addressed on the mainstream lesbian-feminist agenda. Speaking generally, since they were not being included in the lesbian-feminist ideology, a social structure evolved that was based on a different system of values, which relied more on complementary feminine (femme) and less-feminine (gender-blender and transgressive) relationships and gender presentations.

She also discusses that the term “aggressive” is possibly the most popular word among respondents to denote a less-feminine (gender-blender or transgressive) gender presentation (although it is disliked by lesbian-feminist communities). She says that while the stereotype or ideal is that “aggressives” are in fact more assertive in personality, and will frequently describe themselves as such, there is often admittance that actual aggressiveness of personality does not necessarily correlate with gender presentation—for instance, femme lesbians are not less likely to have aggressive personalities, just as women with “aggressive” or less-feminine gender presentations are not more likely to have aggressive personalities.

She discusses her 30-month study of black lesbian communities in New York and gives the following as evidence that distinct categories of gender presentation structure black lesbian relationships:

Measuring of physical presentation of gender by asking a series of open ended questions in in-depth interviews about the respondent’s perception of her gender display,
Mail-in survey asking respondents to rank their physical presentation of gender on a scale from 1-10: 1-3 being feminine, 4-6 somewhere in between feminine and masculine, and 7-10 as masculine
Her own observations of how individuals dressed and their mannerisms over the 30 month period. She “examined their style in relation to those of their partners and in relation to those of other lesbians in the community” (pg 124).

Moore determined that black lesbian women fell into three categories of gender presentation: femme or feminine, gender blenders, and transgressives.

Femmes/feminine women (48%% of respondents) present their gender in a way consistent with literature on other femme lesbians – they wear skirts or dresses, make up, jewelry, form fitting clothing.
Gender blenders (34% of respondents) combine specific aspects of femininity and masculinity to create a unique look in various ways (such as a form-fitting shirt with men’s pants or shoes, men’s clothing with a women’s hairstyle, or any other combination of masculine and feminine attributes).
Transgressive women (18% of respondents) usually wear men’s clothing, which is never form-fitting, their hair might be in dreadlocks, braided in cornrows, or worn very short. Many of these black lesbians use the term “aggressive” to denote a woman with masculine gender display.
“In practice the relationship between physical presentation and interaction style is not at all clear” (pg 126), meaning that more masculine women are not necessarily the sexual aggressors in relationships, just as more feminine women are not necessarily more passive, which is one of the reasons Moore defines this gender system as “modified” from historical understandings of “butch-femme” roles in lesbian relationships.

Examples of how this material relates to our course:

Moore states that “perhaps the most observable consequence of the development of black lesbian communities outside white lesbian-feminist influences is seen in the persistence and meanings of gendered presentations of self among black gay women” (pg 116). In other words, she argues that because black lesbians were not included in the lesbian-feminist movement in the 1970’s, they still hold on to masculine/feminine gendered presentations, whereas many white lesbian feminists moved towards androgynous gender presentations.
Are gendered presentations within any lesbian community necessarily problematic?
Moore also suggests that gender presentations within black lesbian communities are a “modification” of butch/femme identities. Are the three categories that Moore gives of gender display within black lesbian communities modifications of butch/femme identity, or separate entities that developed within black lesbian communities?
Moore notes that middle class black lesbians were less likely than working class black lesbians to acknowledge the use of gender presentations to structure their relationships, yet she still asserts that “black lesbians in New York use gender display to structure social interactions, and the order of these social interactions maintains social control in the community” (pg 129).
Why does Moore suggest that all black lesbian relationships rely on these distinct categories of gender presentation when many of the women reject the idea that these labels work or even exist?

Global Identities: Theorizing Transnational Studies of Sexuality
by Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan

“In modernity, identities inevitably become global.” (663)

Power relations affect sexual identities, and as society becomes more global, identities are subject to and the object of global encounters and exchange.

The importance of transnationalism in sexual identity politics:
“An interdisciplinary and transnational approach that addresses inequalities as well as new formations can begin more adequately to explore the nature of sexual identities in he current phase of globalization.” (664)

Meanings behind transnational:

Migratory basis: In U.S. academy, transnationalism usually refers to current migration and migratory patterns.
Culture over Nation: Identities are linked to culture more so than to the nation, and as culture becomes more widespread in today’s “borderless world” (664) the importance of the nation becomes increasingly irrelevant.
Diasporic linkages: Where transnationalism refers to migration (as in U.S.-centric models), diaspora refers to materials, evidence, or texts from a region outside the U.S. In addition, everyone within the U.S. is considered to be diasporic in some sense. We are all originally immigrants after all, whether we have WASP normative cultural values or cultural identities that vary from the norm. Diasporic groups are best understood through the politics of cultural identity or cultural citizenship.
Neocolonialism: Refers to the globalization of capital, i.e. through international labor, consumption, production, etc.
NGOization of social movements: Social movements become increasingly globalized with the introduction of organizations such as the United Nations and ideals such as international human rights standards.

It is important to pay attention to ideas of transnationalism in sexual politics so that issues of globalization, race, political economy, immigration, migration, and geopolitics are not oversimplified and instead become a part of the feminist interpretation of sexuality. Sexuality does not exist in a vacuum, and is affected by each of these variables; thus, they deserve significant study.

Disciplinary divides in the study of sexuality:
In the study of sexuality, there are divergent areas where a synthesis is necessary for further understanding. These areas are:

The separation of sexuality from race, class, nation, religion, etc: The feminist idea of intersectionality seems to combat this divide, combining each of these factors to explain oppressive identity structures. However, it still sees these as separate factors, when they are actually interconnected in such a way that to separate them inevitably alters their meaning. “Gender and sexual differences have become understood as attributes of bodies unmarked in any other way, despite copious evidence that all of these modern identities are interconnected. The binary gender model is so pervasive and universalized that it has become naturalized” (667). Gender and sexuality cannot be separated from those other factors that contribute to our individuality.
International vs. American studies: A nationalist basis of scholarship separates us from them, making one culture the norm and the other… the other. However, “the changing nature of migrations, global flows of media, and capital demands a different notion of transdisciplinary scholarship” (669). Focus on sexuality becomes Eurocentric, focusing on white-middle class, on sexuality devoid of issues of ethnicity or class.
Tradition vs. Modernity: U.S. and European culture are viewed as modern and progressive with “freedom of sexuality”. However, all this means is that sexuality is oppressed in different ways than “traditional” nation-states. It displaces victims of sexual oppression to the third world, to FGM and other “barbaric” practices, ignoring violence and prejudice that faces the gender queer in the United States.
Global vs. Local: In this opposition, the local is seen as a space of oppositional consciousness breeding resistance, whereas the global is seen as an oppressive network or dominant power structures. Instead of focusing on one or the other, a more complicated model should be used, in which transnational relations are related to power structures, where transnationalism as previously defined is cultural, local, and global.

“Sexual subjects are produced not just by the politics of identity or social movements but by the links between various institutions that accompany these social movements. Furthermore, we need to probe these connections and circuits to see how identities are upheld or made possible by institutions linked to the state” (672).

The transnational practice of the study of sexuality emerges through disciplinary and interdisciplinary sites. One example is new scholarship in the field through the introduction of women’s studies, gender studies, GLBT studies, ethnic studies, and the like. Another example is studying travel and tourism, providing a window to see connections among nationalism, political economy, and cultural formations. It is important to take everything into account, from nationality to gender, from sexuality to political institutions, from immigration to transnationalism. Only then can we fully understand the impact of global identities in sexual identity politics.

Lesbians and Melodrama

2007-10-02T14:19:00.001-04:00

• Read Chaps Three & Four of Entertaining Lesbians

Here are some "new public cultures of sexuality": how might you be able to tell where they fit into a global map, if at all?

DUE: Summary 1. This assignment can be done with a partner, although you should each write up a separate summary. But you are welcome to work on your analysis together and edit each other's work. This one is likely to be around 4 pgs long.

Star Wars in the Liberation Movements

2007-10-02T13:50:00.000-04:00

Shooting Stars: Kate Millet

Lesbian Nation: Jill Johnston

Talking Trash

The Personality is Political

Coming OUT as a Realist Narrative

Self-fashioning, Entrepreneurial Individualism

Presentation 2

2007-09-29T09:31:00.000-04:00

Academic Activisms

Struck by Lightning? Interracial Intimacy and Racial Justice by Rachel F. Moran
Book reviewed by Kevin R. Johnson and Kristina L. Burrows

Introduction:
History of legal regulation of racial mixture in the U.S. and its modern day repercussions
Offers support that race is a social and legal construct
Author contends that interracial marriage is inextricably linked to quest for racial justice
Low interracial marriage is a result of lack of diversity in schools, housing, employment (segregation and social isolation)
Importance of connections between race, class, and marriage

Part II: “The Anti-miscegenation Laws and the Complexities of Race: Perez v. Sharp – Are Latina/os ‘White’?”

Little known 1948 California Supreme Court decision declaring ban on interracial marriage unconstitutional (19 years before Loving v. Virginia)
Latina/os legally defined as white
Disparities between legal identification and social reality
Perez fought on grounds of Freedom of Religion and later Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment
CA Supreme Court Justice Roger Traynor ultimately found that the law was unconstitutionally vague, drawing on sociological and anthropological research, effectively acknowledging that race is a social construction. Traynor also pointed out the contradiction of only barring white intermarriage (Blacks and Asians could intermarry) – clearly invested in maintaining white supremacy.
Additional discussion of Latino/a assimilation versus separatism

Exigence:

- Are Latina/os white? How do we account for differences between legal identification and social realities?
- Latina/os have not enjoyed all of the privileges of whiteness; many are physically identifiable as non-white.
- Has partial ability to “pass” granted access to white privileges that other racial minorities have not had?
- Should Latina/os be eligible for affirmative action and other ameliorative programs designed to promote racial equality?
- Discussions about racism between Latina/os and Blacks is relatively unexplored
- Tensions between Black communities and Latina/o communities – arguments that Latino/as have a less persuasive argument than African-Americans for affirmative action programs.

Example: There are parallel questions of privilege, legal status, and assimilation/integration/separatism in the queer community. The next two articles draw these connections and comparisons. Some ask, is it fair to draw parallels between racial equality and queer equality?

Part III: Interracial Intimacy: A critical Analysis

Exigence:
This argument is crucial because it points out how our society, as well as the legal system deliberately makes a conscious effort to support ani-miscegenation, even though they claim not to. Moran challenges the notion and argue in effect that race matter in selecting a partner and that structural factors like segregation deeply influences the finding of a spouse. This is due to our unconscious decisions because we are conditioned by our won personal histories. Moran argues that people are socialized to “like” certain qualities in potential marriage partners. Nevertheless, anti-miscegenation is rooted deeper than that and is connected to our political histories, that still tends to persist years later. Also, Moran fails to mention any argument pointed towards interracial same-sex relationships. Johnson and Burrows complaints are that Moran’s book is disturbingly heterosexist and by excluding from the analysis same-sex relationships that cross racial lines, Interracial Intimacy limits its analysis to on category fo intimate relationships between people fo different races.

● Society view white men as more desirable, successful, and more educated, which makes African American men less desirable marriage material. Do you agree when Moran believes that we are conditioned by our personal histories and are taught to look for certain qualities?
● Marring into a particular race can lower your status and or socioeconomic status.
● Beauty and sexual attractiveness affect our choice.
● Marrying a non-white immigrant. Do you think this is done on purpose? Does it try to discourage interracial marriage?
● Laws that have been recently banned that were still supporting anti-miscegenation.
● Child Custody and transracial adoption.
● Can you think of reasons for interracial marriages?
● What within the bounds of the law can be done to change the prevalence of same-race marriages?

“The Miscegenation Analogy Revisited: Same-Sex Marriage as a Civil Rights Story” - Kevin Mumford

University of Iowa’s professor Kevin Mumford is the Academic Coordinator of the school’s program in Sexuality Studies and his intellectual interests include modern African American history, the Civil Rights movement, race and sexuality, sexuality formation and political culture. He believes that same-sex couples should have the legal choice to marry; however, he is frustrated with the movement’s narrow vision.

Mumford critically examines the arguments posited by Evan Wolfson and his text entitled, Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to Marry, and George Chauncey’s Why Marriage: The History Shaping Today’s Debate Over Gay Equality—not to undermine the movement’s struggle for gay liberation; rather, his purpose is to “reimagine a wider spectrum of possibilities for social change in American culture.”

Exigence:

Examines the connections between neoliberalism and marriage
Those who evoke the analogy rarely specialize in African American history and their comparisons sometimes lack historical detail and/or accuracy
The miscegenation analogy equates racial and sexual discrimination, in support of both legal and moral arguments for same-sex marriage
People should interrogate whatever analogies they locate across or between categories of difference
This article should be read by groups/people who either respond positively or critically to gay marriage equality

Making Connections to What Matters:

“Both Chauncey and Wolfson deploy social science research that validates gay and lesbian families with children, while at the same time portraying them as practically living in a state of social jeopardy.”

Wolfson argues that marriage can provide children with “protection and security.” He explains that “children deserve to know that their relationship with both of their parents is stable and legally recognized.”
o Critique: Does not address non-traditional families (ie: single parent households)
o Implication(s): Possible backlash of political expediency

Philosophy of liberal individualism
o Promote relative equality
o Demonstrate a key insight made by Nancy Cott: “Marriage powerfully operationalizes the historical project of national assimilation.”
o At the heart of neoliberalism: gay marriage and global restructuring
Suggested Readings:

Duggan, Lisa. The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Massachusetts: The Beacon Press, 2003.

Hutchinson, Darren Lenard. “Out Yet Unseen: A Racial Critique of Gay and Lesbian Legal Theory and Political Discourse,” 29 CONN. L. REV. 561 (1997).

Somerville, Siobhan B. “Queer Loving,” GLQ 11:3, Duke University Press, 2005. pp. 335-370.
Strathern, Marilyn. “The Tyranny of Transparency,” British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2000.

Street, John. Mass Media, Politics and Democracy. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

General Questions/Concepts to think about throughout the semester:
Even though groups advocate the same issue/position, it doesn’t mean they have the same politics. Which differences make a difference? (Katie King)
What does visibility conceal? (Marilyn Strathern)
Re-presentation v. Representation (See Gever p. 199 footnote #5)
Identity Politics
Neoliberalism

“Citizenships, Sexualities, and Education”
by Lisa W. Loutzenheiser & Lori B. MacIntosh

Argument
- This article discusses how the queer student body is approached in schools, and uses queer theory as a starting point for curricular reform.
- Main points:
1. Queer bodies are read in school settings as “Other”
2. Naming can “either be enabling or paralyzing”—the mere inclusion of LGBT issues into the curriculum may just reinforce difference.
3. Current approaches to difference focus on the individual and do not explore underlying dominant ideologies or heteronormative infrastructures.
4. Queer theory can be applied to curricular reform to disrupt discrete, fixed notions of identity and allow room for intersections of identity.
5. Critical race theory (CRT) and queer theory can inform each other and provide alternatives to assimilation and essentialist inclusions.

Exigence
- Article concerned with providing a safe, open space for queer students and making queer citizenship part of curricular theory.
- Its audience is mainly educators, especially at the middle school and high school level.

Application to our course and questions
- One of the things the article takes for granted is that the assimilationist approach fails to create real progress. However, the concept of assimilation is one-way in its direction—it assumes the minority group alone changes by conforming to the standards of the group in power. If minority groups assimilate into the majority group, how much can they change it from within? Also, given that high schools have become more focused on testing and assessments, is it realistic to expect them to devote classroom time to question power hierarchies and discuss heternormativity? What other options are available?

October 1, 2007 4:26 PM

Pardon Poor Larry Craig by Frank Rich

2007-09-27T16:34:00.000-04:00

Roxie's World: Talk Amongst Yourselves

anatomy of a failed sex panic? check this one out.

Trouble

2007-09-25T14:06:00.000-04:00

Is Gay Marriage the "death of a radical movement"?

Warner is another gay male feminist scholar. If Chauncey's book is an unabashed work of advocacy for gay marriage, who is this book for and what does it advocate?

In what ways are Chauncey and Warner allies? In what concerns do they differ?

How much does audience matter here?

When does each write their book? How much does that matter to the positions they take up?

What historical contexts are they each making an intervention into? How do those interventions compare? Why might the differences matter?

The Trouble With Normal (3:35)

Artist: Bruce Cockburn

Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the 3rd world trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local 3rd world's kept on reservations you don't see
"It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Fashionable fascism dominates the scene
When ends don't meet it's easier to justify the means
Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream
As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream
Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse

(Toronto  30/6/81)

Presentation 1

2007-09-24T19:30:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we will be presenting 3 articles. Bellow are the relevant materials.

“When Marriage Falls: Queer Coincidences in Straight time” By Tom Boellstorff

Argument

What is its point?

To discuss the effects of same-sex marriage within straight time and queer time, and suggest the possibility of same-sex marriage outside of restraints of straight time (i.e. queering of straight time).

How does it proceed?

It discusses two main concepts in relation to marriage:

Straight time- is made up by heteronormativity, capitalism, and apocalypse (apocalypse is the present as the failure of the future… the present as the locus of temporal disorder). It has a linear temporal trajectory(e.g. it looks at time as a straight line procession of the past, present and future it can only move forwards or backwards not lateral, circular, or up and down). Both progressive and conservative politics exist within straight time (e.g. conservative: tradition provides model for the future --- progressive: present created by moving the future into the present--- we should go see “progress”). Even queer theory is created and discussed in the limitations of straight time.
Queer time- falls rather than passes like straight time. It is embraces contamination and imbrication. It is coincidental time; it falls instead of moving in a linear fashion. He does not suggest a total change to queer time or even that it is possible but suggests that the “queering” of straight time could allow for a same-sex marriage that is not heternormative or apocalyptic in straight time.

Examples

- Straight time defines both progressive (queer theory) and conservative arguments against same-sex marriage:

“In both cases, the linear structure of straight time is also a casual structure: one thing leads to another along a “slippery slope” trajectory of apocalypse that for conservatives will culminate in polygamy, marrying one’s pets, and other imagined horribles, and for progressives will culminate in things like gentrification.” (Boellstorff 234)

- Coincidental time:

It is marked by instead of time “passing” it “falls”. It does not “accumulate” or “build” it is an always meantime and does not line up on an apocalyptic trajectory. (Boellstorff 240)

An Example from Indonesia is that in Java they have a seven day week and five day work week. Each day therefore has two names. Every 35 days a coincidence of the combination of names occurs. These coincidences are important in a person’s life because when a child is born a name is not chosen for 35 days until the coincidence of days on which the child was born recurs. There is no linear time line for which a day can be placed so “anniversaries” are more coincidences of time. A western example would be Friday the 13^th; two cycles of time coinciding. (Boellstorff 239)

Exigence

What is at stake in this argument?

For the author it is a queering of the straight time to allot for the possibility of same sex marriage within a straight time. He does not take a stance to whether he agrees or disagrees with same sex marriage, but instead offers a temporal for its possible existence.

Why is it important?

It is an important argument because it suggests an alternative or queer time in which same sex marriage can exist without the restrictions of heteronormative and apocalyptic straight time.

Into what debates does it intervene?

This article mainly discusses the debates between whether same-sex marriage should occur, and what the effects of same-sex marriage would be not only on marriage but those who do not marry. It does not take a specific stance on whether it is positive or negative but points out each side.

Who is its audience?

The audience of this article would probably consist of theorists, scholars, and educated queers.

Claudia Card “Gay Divorce: Thoughts on the Legal Regulation of Marriage”

Card’s Position:

Law should not decide which relations are legitimate
Marriage is unjust, better to make an alternative which would not invoke the state.

Options and Their Injustices

Legalizing Same Sex Marriage:

Benefits (insurance, inheritance, etc) from marriage still determine life or death
Burden of proof to unilaterally terminate marriage

Abused partners can’t prove harm; state denies divorce & traps the abused

Refusing to Support Same Sex Marriage

Condones the denial of benefits to lesbians and gays
Denying this right may lead to homosexuals being denied other rights
Reduces visibility

Long Range Goal:

Marital status should disappear as a legal status
Problems of gay divorce (any divorce)
Marriage discriminates against the unmarried; make benefits universal

Short Term Goal:

Take marriage off the agenda; put efforts into realistic battles
Marriage issue backfired, making lesbians and gays worse off

Agitating for marriage may rally religious fundamentalists to implement more exclusions of rights for lesbians and gays

Questions

What would Geever say about the argument regarding benefits of gay marriage?
Which path do you think is better/more just? Are those 2 the same?
As Chauncey argues, marriage is a LEGAL matter, not a religious matter, so what would happen to marriage if the state did not recognize it? What about divorce without marriage (is it better as Card insinuates?)?

And there are 2 resources for the last piece. The first comes from Mary.

Summary of Amy L. Brandzel’s “Queering Citizenship? Same-Sex Marriage and the State”

In her article “Queering Citizenship? Same-Sex Marriage and the State,” Amy Brandzel argues that marriage has historically been used as a tool to enforce a hetero-normative citizenry. She thus contends that any consideration of same-sex marriage should include an analysis of the ways in which marriage is a deliberate and well-functioning exclusionary institution that is harmful to those who are prohibited from it, those who choose not to participate in it and finally, those who do participate in it.

Brandzel posits that the public debate over same-sex marriage is deeply connected to concerns regarding the boundaries of race, sex, and gender in American citizenry generally. In her analysis, the author reveals citizenship to be a messy and multi-layered legal status, identity, and community relationship. Because these layers of citizenship co-exist and work to obfuscate the ultimate goals and purposes of citizenship generally, it is difficult to identify purposeful limitations and/or exclusions in any one strand in particular. Despite this difficulty, Brandzel begins her analysis by exploring the legal history of citizenship in the United States. She explains that marriage has enjoyed a history of regulation that has significantly restricted the rights of women and racial minorities while remaining the very status that differentiates “good” citizens from “bad” citizens. By making marriage a necessary characteristic of upstanding citizenship, while prohibiting certain citizens from participating in the institution, the state has crafted a citizenry in which only those who are able to marry are full citizens. In this promotion of heterosexual, intra-racial marriage, the state has valued and forwarded a notion of exclusive and highly privileged citizenship. Same-sex marriage would likely simply bolster this exclusive citizenship while further masking its deliberate and exclusionary construction.

However, Bendzel explains that the current national debate about same-sex marriage has exposed many of the problems inherent in citizenry that queer theorists have been concerned with for years. In particular, the assertion of heterosexuality as normative and homosexuality as aberrant is inconsistent with fierce legislation such as DOMA that seeks to defend the institution of marriage from homosexuality. Further, the national discourse regarding same-sex marriage has revealed the extent of the state’s interest in policing citizenship through the institution of marriage.

It is Bendzel’s hope that queer Americans might forgo the immediate and illusory benefits of marriage in the short-term in favor of a commitment to a visible subversion that continues to expose governmental interest in the policing of race, gender, and sex boundaries. In keeping a commitment to this subversion, queer Americans would also remain a significant reminder that citizenship has never been the great equalizer it is purported to be.

Next is from Leyda

QUEERING CITIZENSHIP
By: Amy Brandzel

Amy Brandzel gives an overview of the historical meaning behind marriage but most importantly how marriage is factored into citizenship.
According to Amy, the state has used marriage to promote properly gendered, properly racialized, properly heterosexuals in America. It has differentiated that all other sexual or familial practices are deviant. Furthermore, citizenship is mostly played out as exclusive, privileged and promotes heteroronormativity.
Citizenship is defined by T.H Marshall as a legal status, a political identity and a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community.

Brandzel points out the legal history of marriage and conditions for citizenship from 1790 to present, detailing social changes that occurred through piece of passed legislation. According to the law, the right to marry is a fundamental right.
According to Brandzel, citizenship serves as an equalizer in society; the reality is that not everyone who is a citizen is equal or treated equally.

According to Cotts, marriage sets the stage for cultural regulation and is a vehicle for public policy where the state shapes the gender order. This is done by creating laws that tell us who can marry and who can’t.
Since, the laws does not categorize LGBT people a suspect class, meaning they have not been historically discriminated against, many of the cases brought upon by LGBT persons have been rejected if fought under discrimination laws.

Therefore, if citizenship is supposed to be the social equalizer and everyone should be treated equally, the questions is why are LGBT people being excluded from getting married especially when the right to marry is a fundamental right?

Brandzel argues that the state’s interest in marriage is one of exclusion and heteronormative function. It is a production for properly racialized, properly gendered properly heterosexuals in America. Therefore citizenship is not about being a full member of the community but a form of exclusion and discriminatory practice.

Brandzel points out through history the various legislations that have passed to discriminate and prevent people from becoming citizens or marrying, eventually are deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Brandzel’s final note is that all the law suits regarding same-sex marriage are another chapter for equalizing citizenship and that eventually same-sex marriage legislation will be passed and accepted by the general public as all other anti-discriminatory laws beforehand.

Beginning our collaborations together: sharing research

2007-09-24T09:25:00.001-04:00

Hi Folks -- the presenters tomorrow will be discussing the following essays if you want to read them yourselves. This is not a requirement. Part of the point of presentations is that we get to know about more materials than we each probably have time to read ourselves. Still, some of these materials may turn out to be very interesting to you nonetheless. You may want to look at them before hand, if you have the time and interest. Or you may discover in the presentations your additional interests and read stuff after presentations.

So, for those who might want to read them before, here are the citations. They are all available through Research Port this time around. This may not always be the case, but as much as possible we hope so. So you can take these citations and look them up yourself.

These are actually already listed on your syllabus. Not everything is listed there however.

For tomorrow:

Boellstorff, T. (2007). When Marriage Falls, Queer Coincidences in straight Time. GLQ, 13(2-3), 227-248.
Brandzel, A. L. (2005). Queering Citizenship? Same-Sex Marriage and the State. GLQ 11(2), 171–204.
Card, C. (2007). Gay Divorce: Thoughts on the Legal Regulation of Marriage. Hypatia, 22(1), 24-38.

For next week:

Johnson, K. R. (2003). Struck by Lightning? Interracial Intimacy and Racial Justice. Human Rights Quarterly, 25, 528–566
Loutzenheiser, L. W., & MacIntosh, L. B. (2004). Citizenships, Sexualities, and Education. Theory into Practice, 43(2), 151-158.
Mumford, K. (2005). The Miscegenation Analogy Revisited: Same-Sex Marriage as a Civil Rights Story. American Quarterly, 57(2), 523-531.

So presenters are working to tell people enough about these articles to substitute to some extent for reading them, and yet still be able to talk about them and consider reading them for themselves.

Class members should listen carefully and generously, take notes and prepare to ask questions and engage in discussion. Don't make the presenters do all the work of creating discussion. Help. Remember you will be in the same boat soon, so be the kind of collaborative group presence you hope to have for your presentation.

Everyone should be thinking ahead to how this information will help us in our class project. So prepare for class by thinking about that, going over the syllabus and looking ahead.

Best wishes, Katie

Is She or isn't She?: Continuing Debates in Lesbian Communities

2007-09-18T13:56:00.001-04:00

What's curious about the new roles lesbians are playing in popular culture?

What changes do you map yourself?

What experiences have you had seeing these things change in your own lifetime?

How do you mark these changes?

Which lesbians are these anyway?

What does Gever have to say about all this?

Is visibility good? Why or why not?

What does GenderQueer include?

2007-09-11T12:23:00.000-04:00

Out on the web, among the networked knowledge worlds, in alliance with many activisms, what work does GenderQueer do?

What work does it do in your communities? What do you need this term, this activism, these imaginations for?

How does it connect lesbian communities, or does it? Where?

What global implications does it have? What local ones?

Where is it "glocalized"? Find out what "glocal" means too.

Voices from the Global South: Lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people come out globally

Gender Subversion Kit

2007-09-11T11:53:00.000-04:00

http://www.buyolympia.com/crimethinc/sid=475425607/post.html

How about Harriet the Spy?

Worth the Trip: Queer Books for Kids and Teens

GLS Education Network

Reactions Against GLSEN's pamphlet for Queer Teens

Irene Monroe's "Queer Take" and other observations

"Black Looks" on Ladylike

A Debate? Inside, outside or where in relation to lesbian communities?

2007-09-10T09:44:00.000-04:00

You might like to check out this link for thoughts on at least one debate in lesbian communities. This website often discusses debates both inside and also about lgbt venues of various sorts. What do you think about this one?

Roxie's World: An Open Letter to Jodie Foster

Gay Marriage, George Chauncey, Uses of History

2007-09-09T09:14:00.000-04:00

Reading Chauncey's Why Marriage supplies us with a knot of issues to untangle, admire, reknot, and alter. This little book does many things and opens out to a lot it cannot and doesn't do.

This is the place to contribute your comments on the book: lists of assumptions, debates and more.

Remember, if you can't get this particular book at Vertigo, find it elsewhere, find other Chauncey books, find the amicus brief online, research everything Chauncey on the web.

And then research gay marriage, all marriage, marriage laws, histories of marriage, feminist concerns about marriage today and in many feminisms of various pasts. Look up "free love" on the Wikipedia, "Queer Loving" on ResearchPort, and Google Boswell on same sex marriage and Freedman on marriage and fictive kin.

This knot is full of amazing tangles and suprizing textures.

We'll see more and more of them over the course of the semester.....

Curiosity about where things taken for granted come from

2007-08-30T11:27:00.000-04:00

Nothing like satire and art activism to get one's issues going!

Here is the Official Dykes to Watch Out For website:

http://www.dykestowatchoutfor.com/

This is the place to attach your lists of violated assumptions, esp. any triggered in the course of enjoying Alison Bechdel.

Try to get into the spirit of the assignment, investigating and being curious about what assumptions we have and how we discover them.

Lesbian Communities

2007-08-13T13:08:00.000-04:00

This semester of Lesbian Communities will take up a range of themes and "pairings," in global networks. We will explore gay marriage and queer heterosexualities, transgender and genderqueer, popular culture and entertainment cultures. The networks we will travel, engage and alter will be those of lesbian feminisms and racialized nationalisms, militarized colonialisms and media glocalizations, sex practices and sex romances. All of these are elements in queering knowledges and wondering about institutional normalizations.

Are these familiar or unfamiliar ways of thinking? The class, as always, is made up of folks for whom all of this is totally new, others for whom this is complexly familiar, and still others who have lots of experience to share but are less used to the academic side of Lesbian community. There will rightly be lots of differences among folks in class, but one thing we will have in common is that we all engage in the human practices of making, using and exploding assumptions. So we will take up the practice of being curious about our violated assumptions as a common thread through the course, collecting them in lists to chart our various movements among knowledges.

Required Texts (also on reserve at McKeldin Library)
These are required READINGS. You do have to read them. You do not have to BUY them. But you do need to be familiar with the books themselves whether you buy them or not. I will put them on reserve at McKeldin. Borrow and share with each other. However, do not wait til the last minute (the night before) to discover one is not available on reserve, etc. Be sure you have secured access LONG before we are going to read it in class.

I have ordered all from Vertigo Books because I want to support the bookstore and help it to survive in College Park! It is on the corner between HW 1 and Knox Rd, across the street from the Cornerstone restaurant: 7346 Baltimore Avenue. The telephone number there is: 301.779.9300. But you need to note that Vertigo is a small independent bookstore and thus cannot issue refunds or accept returns. Their small staff and limited resources simply will not allow them to do so. Supporting them, however, works to counter the large economic consolidations of the publishing industry. They do not buy back books or make refunds. Returns will receive store credit. Any returns must be made within 15 days of purchase. Returned books must be in saleable condition with proof of purchase.

Also start looking through the "Lesbian & Gay," and "Women's" section in each bookstore you go to, and consider making a trip to a great bookstore in DC: Lambda Rising (Dupont Circle Metro; 1625 Conn. Ave. NW; tel. 202.462.6969. http://www.lambdarising.com/
• Each week pick up a copy of The Washington Blade (available at Stamp Student Union) or look at it online at: http://www.washblade.com/. Look for lesbian specific local publications and bring to class to share as you locate them.

• Alison Bechdel. Invasion of the Dykes to Watch out For. Alyson, 2005 (1555838332)
• George Chauncey. Why Marriage? The history shaping today's debate. Basic, 2004 (0465009581)
• Martha Gever. Entertaining Lesbians: Celebrity, Sexuality, and Self-Invention. Routledge, 2003 (0415944805)
• Laurie R. King. The Art of Detection. Bantam, 2006 (0553804537)
• Joan Nestle, Riki Wilchins, and Clare Howell, eds. 2002. Genderqueer. Alyson (1555837301)
• Jennifer Robertson. 1998. Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture. California, 1998 (0520211510)
• Michael Warner. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics. Harvard, 1999 (0684865297)
• Video or DVD of Joshua Logan's 1958 film Sayonara, starring Marlon Brando. (ASIN: B00005LOLD) One class copy available for class to share around. I didn't order this but it is easily available online if you want to buy it. Will be on reserve also in non-print media. This film is based on James Michener's novel also titled Sayonara, an amazing book, dated in important historical ways we will analyze. Reading it is optional but will help your analysis. It too will be on reserve. (0449204146)

Short electronic texts. You will be choosing among these and some others possibly for class presentations. Be sure your email address is correctly included on the course listserve. You should have received a Welcome message before the first day of class. If you did not, check Testudo.

• Boellstorff, T. (2007). When Marriage Falls, Queer Coincidences in straight Time. GLQ, 13(2-3), 227-248.
• Brandzel, A. L. (2005). Queering Citizenship? Same-Sex Marriage and the State. GLQ 11(2), 171–204.
• Burrows, K. L., & Johnson, K. R. (2003). Struck by Lightning? Interracial Intimacy and Racial Justice. Human Rights Quarterly, 25, 528–566.
• Card, C. (2007). Gay Divorce: Thoughts on the Legal Regulation of Marriage. Hypatia, 22(1), 24-38.
• Loutzenheiser, L. W., & MacIntosh, L. B. (2004). Citizenships, Sexualities, and Education. Theory into Practice, 43(2), 151-158.
• Mumford, K. (2005). The Miscegenation Analogy Revisited: Same-Sex Marriage as a Civil Rights Story. American Quarterly, 57(2), 523-531.
• Nakamura, D. (2007, Thursday, August 16, ). D.C. to Fire 3 Over Woman's Detention as a Man; Corrections Officers Ignored Inmate's Protests Over Mix-Up During Arrest, Jail Processing. The Washington Post, p. B01
• Puar, J. K. (2002). Circuits of Queer Mobility, Tourism, Travel, and Globalization. GLQ, 8(1-2), 101-137.
• Somerville, S. B. (2005). Queer Loving. GLQ, 11(3), 335–370.
• Soto, S. K. (2005). Cherrie Moraga's Going Brown, “Reading Like a Queer.” GLQ, 11(2), 237–263.
• Troianovski, A. (2007, Saturday, August 11,). Rights Movement Divides Russia's Gay Community; Most Seem to Favor Low-Key Approach Over Confrontational One. The Washington Post, p. A10.

Summary of Assignments

If you have a laptop feel free to bring it to class. We do have wireless access in the building. (Obviously you don't use cell phones in class, IM on laptops, or anything else that interferes with participation.)

Each assignment is created to provide a specific learning experience. Grades necessarily matter but not as much as the experience does, and won't be emphasized. But you may come to office hours at any time to discuss grades, papers and how you are doing in the class in detail. Also note that you don't get credit for any assignment until it has been contributed on the class blog as either a Post or Comment.

There are four general sorts of learning experiences that you will participate in this semester.

(1) Violated assumptions, on-going blog commentary, keeping track and portfolio, and extra credit:

• For each of the seven books you will formally turn in lists of at least four violated assumptions. We will discuss the format in which to do this in class. These will also be added as comments on Posts for each book on the class blog, the night before that class. Keep track of what you have done, you will have to turn in tallies at the end in your Portfolio. Dates: 9/4, 9/11, 9/18, 9/20, 10/25, 11/8

• Twice during the semester you will formally turn in lists and discussions of debates in lesbian communities. We will discuss this at greater length in class too, but basically each time you will list five debates and discuss two you've listed, each in a paragraph. These also will be added as comments to the Debates Post on the class blog, the night before class. Keep track of what you have done here too as you will have to turn in tallies at the end in your Portfolio. Dates: 9/11, 9/27

• Three times during the semester you will formally contribute comments attached to the Posts to the blog made by group presenters. Keep track of what you have done here too as you will have to turn in tallies at the end in your Portfolio. Three from possible dates: 9/25, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16, 10/23, 10/30

• You can receive extra credit if you create a blog for yourself when you register on Blogger: 1 pt. just to make a blog at all, or 2 pts. if you post your summaries (below) on your blog, or 7 pts. if you regularly post to your blog and link it to the class blog. You can also receive 3 pts. of extra credit if you host a Sayonara viewing party (below). To get credit for these they need to be documented in your final Portfolio.

• As you can see there are lots of different exercises, commenting and posting and presenting and handouts and so on. You will be responsible for keeping track of what needs to be done, what you have done and where it is posted, when it was turned in, presented or whatever. You will turn in this tally and any documentation in a Portfolio at the end of the class along with your Learning Analysis. A preliminary tally will handed in 20 September. Dates: 9/20, 12/11

Lists and discussions of violated assumptions, debates in lesbian communities and comments on presentations will need also to printed out and handed in class. None of these are graded, but you do get points for them, and points will be deducted if they are late, even with a good excuse. Think of these like small quizzes. The point of these assignments is to keep folks doing the work week by week, coming faithfully to class, and preparing well.

[All together will be 25% of your grade. Add to that any extra credit.]

(2) Group Presentations: Everyone will be a member of a group that will make a presentation to the class. These will focus on several short articles on various aspects of queer scholarship supplementing our course materials. Guidelines for presentations will be handed out, but briefly stated you will analyze why this article matters, what piece of its argument interests you for this class the most, and how you would apply that to the issues of our course. The presentation is limited to fifteen minutes, after which you and your group will lead class discussion. You will turn in a description of who did what work in the group. Usually everyone in the group gets the same grade. Groups and dates will be drawn by lot after the first week. After that you will need to make arrangements for group work.

• Presentations will take place on: 9/25, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16, 10/23, 10/30
[25% grade]

(3) Summarizings: Throughout the semester you will be working on a series of summarizing exercises, all leading up to our collective class project focused around the book Takarazuka. All these need to be printed out and handed in class, and also contributed to the class blog site as Comments.

These summarizing exercises are not graded, but you do get points for them, and points will be deducted if they are late, even with a good excuse. They should be contributed to the blog the night before class. They won't be handed back; instead come to Katie's office hours (TWTh 11-noon) if you want to discuss them with her individually in addition to talking about them in class. The point of these assignments is for you to think carefully about where we are all going in the course, how the argument of the course is shaping up, what role the materials we are reading are taking in the argument of the course, and how we put U.S. lgbt concerns into historical, global, and feminist contexts.

Two of the papers are analyses of specific books. The first and last ones are summaries of other kinds of analytic exercises.

The very first summary paper is based on your visiting some "lesbian community" in our area and considering comparisons with international communities as revealed on global websites. Find a community to visit using the Blade or Diamondback or getting recommendations in class or around. Compare what you gathered from your visit in a local community to what you can learn from specific international websites. This assignment can be done with a partner, although you should each write up a separate summary. But you are welcome to work on your analysis together and edit each other's work. This one is likely to be around 4 pgs long.

Two summary papers are on books, one will engage Entertaining Lesbians, the other the book Takarazuka. Each of these kinds of summary is around 2 pgs long and includes three elements.

(1) a summary of the contents of the book–approximately 1 page.
(2) insights you gathered about the book from doing specific "How to Read" exercises (from the How to Read handout. (It is also linked to the blog where you can download it in PDF). Tell us which exercises you focused on and what happened as a result.
(3) a list of topics you would like the class to discuss. Among these might be issues that were unclear, opinionated statements about what you liked and didn’t like about the book, and new information/understandings/insights gained from the book. Items 2-3 together should be about a page and need not be written in complete sentences.

The final summary paper is an overview (around 5 pgs) of the parallels we will generate in the class among the complex analysis Robertson makes concerning the Takarazuka, historicizing the movie Sayonara, and our own thinking about how these teach us how to consider the issue of gay marriage in the U.S. today. We will analyze these at the confluence of U.S. civil rights histories, "American" nationalisms including immigration issues, the effects of war and militarisms, and the glocalizations and biomedicalizations of various political and technoscientific identities. You will share your own specific understanding of how to put such pieces together. This kind of analysis is an "emergent" one: none of us really knows how to do this entirely. None of us is "in control" of what happens. As a class we will be contributing to the making of this new knowledge. Real knowledge making is collective, partial, tentative, and speculative. It puts together things that at first glance don't seem to go together. But this is what one sort of "interdisciplinary" work is about and we will practice it in this class in this form. It is quite difficult, very exciting and amazingly satisfying.

• Summaries are due: 10/4 (visit report), 11/6, 11/15, 11/29 (overview)
[All together these will account for 25% of your grade]

(4) Learning Analysis: A synthetic assignment which requires you to describe the argument of the course, report your experience of the course week by week within that argument, compare this class to other women's studies and LGBT courses, and to analyze the materials of the course that mattered most to you. The assignment also allows you to give feedback about how well the course worked for you and ways it didn't. YOU MUST PRESENT THIS IN CLASS ON THE LAST DAY. You will not receive full credit for it otherwise. Carefully make your plans to be in class on the last day. (around 7-8 pgs.)

• DUE: 11 December
[25% grade.]

Reading, Writing and Presenting Assignments

Thursday, 30 August—Introduction to Lesbian Communities and International Receptions
Welcome to the class! Today we will introduce ourselves, find some class buddies to share work and notes with, ponder what we hope from the class and how we each are resources in building a learning community. We'll discuss the blog and how we will use it in class.
• We will start our first reading in class, two recent articles from the Washington Post
One article raises questions about Trans identities in local communities today. The other helps us consider the global contexts of lgbt needs and activisms. I will have emailed you a copy before the first class, along with the beginning of this syllabus, so bring copies of each with you to the first class, and be prepared to share with others.
AFTER CLASS GO OVER TO THE STUDENT UNION AND PICK UP A COPY OF THE BLADE or look at it online: http://www.washblade.com/

Tuesday, 4 September—Dykes to Watch Out for
• Read all of Invasion of the Dykes to Watch out For. Find and examine Bechdel websites too.
Muse on the similarities and differences between the lesbian communities Bechdel describes and your own life and communities. Be prepared to talk about these similarities and differences. Start off your violated assumptions list: note places where you were surprised, laughed, were made angry or disoriented, or where you expected one thing and got something different, and figure out what assumption you held was violated and provoked your reaction. You will add to this list throughout the class, and it will help you keep track of the changes you go through in it. You will need to do this kind of investigation for the final Learning Analysis.
DUE: first assignment: a list of violated assumptions / 1 pg. PRINTED OUT, and on blog

Thursday, 6 September—Examining our Textbooks and More Violated Assumptions
• Today we will look at all the textbooks for our course. Bring as many to class as you can or examine on reserve.
How are they what you expected? How are they not? What surprises about choosing any of them for this class? What surprises do you encounter reading in them? If something surprises you, perhaps an assumption you didn't know you had was violated. In this class we do the hard but fascinating work of figuring out our violated assumptions. Be curious about yourself! Listing violated assumptions is one way to analyze the common sense knowledges we've believed without questioning. What associations do we have with community, lesbian community, queers, feminism and activism? What debates are current within lesbian communities?
DUE: we will set up presentation grps and schedules, and share guidelines

Tuesday, 11 September—Gay Marriage: Debates in Lesbian Communities I
• Read all of Chauncey, Why Marriage?
Chauncey is a gay male feminist scholar. This book is an unabashed work of advocacy for gay marriage. He positions gay marriage inside histories of feminism and sexuality. Bechdel clued us into the fact that not all lesbians or feminists or progressive political people are for gay marriage. What motivates differences on this issue? How is Chauncey trying to persuade these folks? What does it take to do so? What new histories did you learn reading this book? What work do you think it does well?
DUE: Violated Assumptions list 2; Debates in lesbian communities list 1; contribute as comments as well as bring in printed out. Do this will all lists from now on.

Thursday, 13 September—NO CLASS, Rosh Hashanah

Tuesday, 18 September—Gendering: More Debates in Lesbian Communities
• Read the three introductions to GenderQueer and choose a story to read too.
Continue with violated assumptions list: what assumptions were violated by this reading? Which three violated assumptions are the most interesting? What debates in lesbian communities did you notice in this reading?
DUE: Violated Assumptions list 3

Thursday, 20 September—Is She or isn't She?: Continuing Debates in Lesbian Communities
• Read the first two chapters of Entertaining Lesbians. Web assignment: start searching for and linking to international sites. Bring URLs to share with class. Check out the Takarazuka on the Web.
More violated assumptions! What's curious about the new roles lesbians are playing in popular culture? What changes do you map yourself? What experiences have you had seeing these things change in your own lifetime? How do you mark these changes?
DUE: Violated Assumptions list 4; create a chart of all assignments and start your tallies of what you've done and what is still left to do. This will part of your Portfolio.

Tuesday, 25 September—Scholarly Assessments, Presentations I
Our first set of presentations on various academic articles relating to a range of issues around our various class "pairings." Group membership and article assignments decided before hand by lot.
DUE FOR GRP 1: "Author" of group Posts to blog. Group presents for 15 mins., bringing a handout for everyone in class. After the presentation, the group will lead class discussion for the rest of class. Every member of the group should have some part in the presentation, and everyone should have contributed to the group's projects. Each person will turn in a description of who did what work in the group.
NOTE: soon you will do a summary of your visit to a lesbian community. Where will you go? With whom? How will you describe your experience? How will you compare it to international groups on Web sites?

Thursday, 27 September—Troubling the Normal? Who wants to be Normal? When and Why?
• Read Warner, Trouble with Normal; Preface, Chaps 1 & 2 & Conclusion
Warner is another gay male feminist scholar. If Chauncey's book is an unabashed work of advocacy for gay marriage, who is this book for and what does it advocate? In what ways are Chauncey and Warner allies? In what concerns do they differ? How much does audience matter here? When does each write their book? How much does that matter to the positions they take up? What historical contexts are they each making an intervention into? How do those interventions compare? Why might the differences matter?
DUE: Violated Assumptions list 5; Debates in lesbian communities list 2; contribute as comments as well as bring in printed out.

Tuesday, 2 October—Academic Activisms, Presentations II
Our next set of presentations. Group membership and article assignments decided before hand by lot.
DUE FOR GRP 2: "Author" of group Posts to blog. Group presents for 15 mins., bringing a handout for everyone in class. After the presentation, the group will lead class discussion for the rest of class. Every member of the group should have some part in the presentation, and everyone should have contributed to the group's projects. Each person will turn in a description of who did what work in the group.
NOTE: Summary 1 about your visit to a lesbian community and its comparison to an international groups is due next class period.

Thursday, 4 October—Star Wars in the Liberation Movements
• Read Chaps Three & Four of Entertaining Lesbians
Here are some "new public cultures of sexuality": how might you be able to tell where they fit into a global map, if at all?
DUE: Summary 1. This assignment can be done with a partner, although you should each write up a separate summary. But you are welcome to work on your analysis together and edit each other's work. This one is likely to be around 4 pgs long.

Tuesday, 9 October—Contexts and Interventions, Presentations III
Our next set of presentations. Group membership and article assignments decided before hand by lot.
DUE FOR GRP 3: "Author" of group Posts to blog. Group presents for 15 mins., bringing a handout for everyone in class. After the presentation, the group will lead class discussion for the rest of class. Every member of the group should have some part in the presentation, and everyone should have contributed to the group's projects. Each person will turn in a description of who did what work in the group.

Thursday, 11 October—Genders on My Mind
• From GenderQueer: read Wilchins' essays and the Epilogue, pick about half the stories to read in any order you like.
Be prepared to say why you chose the stories you did, and which ones connected to which other ones. Continue your violated assumptions list and reflect on changes in social power just over the course of your own life. How does this reading affect your understanding of at least some debates in lesbian communities today? How do these issues connect to other debates that might not seem at first glance to be connected? How can you tell?

Tuesday, 16 October—Inside and Outside Queer Theory, Presentations IV
Our next set of presentations. Group membership and article assignments decided before hand by lot.
DUE FOR GRP 4: "Author" of group Posts to blog. Group presents for 15 mins., bringing a handout for everyone in class. After the presentation, the group will lead class discussion for the rest of class. Every member of the group should have some part in the presentation, and everyone should have contributed to the group's projects. Each person will turn in a description of who did what work in the group.

Thursday, 18 October—Sexualities, Prescribed and Proscribed
• Read Warner, Trouble with Normal, Chaps 3 & 4 & reread Conclusion
Chapter 3 begins with a quotation by Foucault, p. 81. How is Warner explaining what Foucault means here with his examples from current US histories concerning gay marriage? What else does he want us to connect here? What issues does he tie together for us?

Tuesday, 23 October—Political Alliances, Presentations V
Our next set of presentations. Group membership and article assignments decided before hand by lot.
DUE FOR GRP 5: "Author" of group Posts to blog. Group presents for 15 mins., bringing a handout for everyone in class. After the presentation, the group will lead class discussion for the rest of class. Every member of the group should have some part in the presentation, and everyone should have contributed to the group's projects. Each person will turn in a description of who did what work in the group.

Thursday, 25 October—Some Pastpresents of Same-Sex GenderQueer Marriages
• Read all of The Art of Detection. Check out Laurie R. King websites to describe in class
What happens when Laurie R. King blends two historical time periods together? Why does she do this? What does this do to your brain? What kind of thinking does it make you do?
DUE: violated assumptions list 6

Tuesday, 30 October—Communities and Differences, Presentations VI
Our next set of presentations. Group membership and article assignments decided before hand by lot.
DUE FOR GRP 6: "Author" of group Posts to blog. Group presents for 15 mins., bringing a handout for everyone in class. After the presentation, the group will lead class discussion for the rest of class. Every member of the group should have some part in the presentation, and everyone should have contributed to the group's projects. Each person will turn in a description of who did what work in the group.

Thursday, 1 November—Technologies of Lesbian Celebrity
• Read Chaps Five & Six of Entertaining Lesbians (reread one if it's the one you've already read; be an expert!)
How does Martina Navratilova's stardom challenge heterosexual norms? For whom? Are these "unwitting collaborations with oppressive forces"? Gever has alternate explanation. What is it?

Tuesday, 6 November—Why NOT a Portrait Gallery of Lesbian Celebrities?
• Psych out the whole book Entertaining Lesbians; read the Afterword, reread the introduction and anything else that will help you put together the argument of the entire book.
What role do US entertainment cultures and their genderqueerings have to do with LGBT histories and meanings? What does Gever mean by self-invention? How do technologies of celebrity connect with other technologies of making selves we all are networked inside of?
DUE: Summary paper 2, on the book Entertaining Lesbians, using How to Read guidelines

Thursday, 8 November—Takarazuka I: Overview Sexual Politics and Popular Culture
• Psych out Robertson, Takarazuka: read all intro & concluding materials; esp. Epilogue, and Chapter One
• Use index entries "Homosexuality" and "Same-sex love" to analyze the place of lesbianisms in this book. Read stuff from index that interests you, at least 20+ pages.
Continue with violated assumptions list and note what debates about lesbians in US have connections to this reading?
DUE: Violated Assumptions list 7
Soon you need to have viewed the movie Sayonara. Consider having a viewing party for extra credit.

Tuesday, 13 November—Takarazuka II: Androgynies & Nationalisms
• Robertson, Takarazuka : read Chaps Two & Three
What connections does Robertson make between gender, sexuality and nationalism? How do you translate her observations into similar connections in US today?

Thursday, 15 November—Takarazuka III: Writing Fans
• Robertson, Takarazuka : read Chaps Four & Five
Why do fans matter in Robertson's analysis? How does Takarazuka play a role in queer politics and culture today?
DUE: Summary 3, on the book Takarazuka, using How to Read guidelines
NOTE: For the next class meeting following Thanksgiving you need to have viewed movie Sayonara.

Tuesday, 20 November—NO CLASS, Thanksgiving Week
Thursday, 22 November—NO CLASS, Thanksgiving Week

Tuesday, 27 November—Sayonara
We will discuss the movie Sayonara, so you must have seen it by now.
• Handout: James's Michener's book upon which the movie is based (also called Sayonara). Selections to read.
• Reread Robertson to understand movie, perhaps esp. chaps 1 & 2.
• Read on the web movie synopsis and awards, and ck out Takarazuka URLs.
Why does the movie transform the Takarazuka of the book to the Mizubiyoshi (and actually played by the Takarazuka's rivals, the Shochuku in the film)? This film is intended to be an anti-racist film that supports interracial marriage. How does it use implicit proscribed sexualities and the Takarazuka to explicitly make its political case? How is it a critique of heterosexuality while glorifying marriage? What relevance does it have to contemporary debates on homosexual marriage? How do we excavate its possible lesbianisms?

Thursday, 29 November—Takarazuka in US Pasts and Present
• In Queer Time: read Chap 6: "Oh Behave!" and reread parts of Dykes to Watch Out For.
How do we put Takarazuka in conversation with Queer Time? Why do Lesbianisms in Multinational Reception have to deal with masculinities? What do lesbian communities have to do with, learn from such work? How do we see these relations depicted in Dykes to Watch Out For?
DUE: Summary 4, final overview (5 pgs), compares Takarazuka and US contexts of proscribed sexualities as they transform historically. Hand in printed out, contribute to blog.
ALSO DUE: assignment chart in preparation for final Portfolio gathering.

Tuesday, 4 December—NO CLASS, Hanukkah Eve.

Thursday, 6 December—Layers of Locals and Globals, US Lesbianisms as Local
• ON RESERVE: King, "There Are No Lesbians Here"; from Cruz-Malavé, Queer Globalizations
This is an essay I wrote a while ago, trying to put together what it means to consider how lesbian both is and is not a "universal" term. Today we will continue to analyze what emergent knowledge we have made together in this class.

Tuesday, 11 December—LAST CLASS—Lesbianisms in Multinational Reception
We'll share our travels in the class today, reading from bits of our learning analyses and talking about the readings and events that mattered most to us in the class.
DUE: Learning Analysis / 7-8 pgs. YOU MUST PRESENT IN CLASS TO RECEIVE CREDIT. MAKE YOUR PLANS ACCORDINGLY!
ALSO DUE: Portfolio documenting all assignments.