120691 PS Proseminar Cultural and Media Studies (2021S)

Throughout history, many tales of queer lives have been told in the US context, ranging from invisibility and suppression to visibility and liberation and focusing on real and fictional stories. In this class, we will discuss a plethora of examples in various cultural and media texts and shed light on both historical and contemporary queer narratives in the US.

Together we will critically analyze various primary texts through a queer studies lens, discussing concepts and ideas such as queer communities, compulsory heterosexuality, queer suffering, queer space, or queer phenomenology. We will consider the production contexts of these texts to understand them as political and social agents influencing specific cultural moments in the US. Furthermore, we will learn to read queerly and understand the United States through a queer lens. In doing so, we will also shed light on the dense queer history of the United States from before the Stonewall Riots to today. The primary materials to be discussed include selected episodes from TV shows such as Queer Eye (2018-present) and RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009-present), movies like Carol (2015), and Moonlight (2016), celebrity texts (Laverne Cox), queer activism (e.g. It Gets Better or The Trevor Project) and more.

At the end of this course, students will be able to critically analyze and queer cultural texts in American popular culture with methods such as visual and discourse analysis and close reading. Students will also have gained a theoretical through readings from the field of queer studies, media studies and American studies. Furthermore, students will learn how to conceptualize, research, and write academic texts such as a paper proposal and a proseminar paper.