Department of Spanish and Portuguese

VT: Queer Voices: Transatlantic LGBT Literature and Theory

Note: Graduate students only.

This course will begin with some groundwork of gender and queer theory, read alongside contemporary lbgtq+ literature from the Spanish-Speaking world: authors like Camila Sosa Villada, Mayra Santos Febres, tatiana de la tierra, Ana Ojeda, Elizabeth Duval, and Juli Delgado Lopera. The middle section of the course will center student interests and projects, through case studies or questions of queerness, gender, and sexuality in cultural texts –literary, visual, aural, etc.– that will be the focus of their research. The final part of the course will offer a retrospective look at historical cases of figures who fall outside of normative expectations of gender and sexuality –the cross-dressing in Golden Age comedia or the chica rara, for instance— to think through and with the ways in which we approach and engage with “queer” historical texts without imposing contemporary expectations. Course catalogue image is Gerardo Castro’s Flowers for the Dead (2012). Grade is based on original research projects, presentation, and written reflections. Reading knowledge of Spanish required; students from all disciplines are welcome.

HISP-S 695     #12912      2:20P-3:35P        TR         AC C 103        Prof. Rhi Johnson