This graduate seminar is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Queer Theory. Rather than present a single story of its formation, this seminar offers an introduction to various inheritances, concepts, and contestations that have shaped Queer Theory since its earliest emergences in the 1990s. By delving into both its polymorphous origins and its enduring complexities today, this seminar will consider how Queer Theory intervenes in political, historical, medical, sociological, literary, and philosophical debates over sex, sexuality, gender, race, and class in a global context. Together, we will analyze how Queer Theory's attention to desire, discourse, and the politics of the body opens new avenues for theorizing the relationships between self and other, sameness and difference, theory and practice, and subjectivity and the state, among others.
4-5 units · Letter (ABCD/NP)
This graduate seminar is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Queer Theory. Rather than present a single story of its formation, this seminar offers an introduction to various inheritances, concepts, and contestations that have shaped Queer Theory since its earliest emergences in the 1990s. By delving into both its polymorphous origins and its enduring complexities today, this seminar will consider how Queer Theory intervenes in political, historical, medical, sociological, literary, and philosophical debates over sex, sexuality, gender, race, and class in a global context. Together, we will analyze how Queer Theory's attention to desire, discourse, and the politics of the body opens new avenues for theorizing the relationships between self and other, sameness and difference, theory and practice, and subjectivity and the state, among others.
Offered in Autumn 2025 at Stanford University.