Transgender Art and Visual Culture in the US
Course Proposal
Image: Marsha “Pay it No Mind” Johnson and Silvia Rivera, New York City (1969)
What are the roots of contemporary transgender culture? How have visual materials and works of art both shaped and documented transgender culture in the United States during the 20th century? This course considers newspapers, paintings, photographs, sculptures and other types of visual materials as important points of access to the history of transsexuality and transgender identity in the United States since the 1940s and 50s. Using as a starting point the salacious headline from December 1952 “EX-GI BECOMES BLONDE BEAUTY” that announced the “sex-change” of Christine Jorgensen, this course charts the roots of contemporary transgender discourse back to the work of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in the early twentieth century, the work of Dr. Harry Benjamin in the United States after World War II, the role of Marsha “Pay it No Mind” Johnson and Sylvia Rivera in the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, and the anti-transsexual polemics from within the Feminist movements in the 1970s – all before diving into the materials that produce and preserve contemporary transgender culture. Weekly discussions, notation assignments, film screenings, and guest lectures are designed to keep students engaged and to create a collegial and collaborative classroom environment. A final paper, produced in stages throughout the term, will afford students an opportunity to produce an historical essay of their own on an object of transgender visual culture that has likely never been written on before. What do you have to say about these works that might reveal something that has thus far gone unseen?
Course Objectives
The objective of this course is to challenge and empower students to meaningfully engage with the art and visual materials that make up transgender history in the United States in ways that are sensitive to both their own internal life and the work’s formal qualities, materials, historical context and political significance. To do this, I will rely on and impart methods of formal analysis, social art history and material culture. These methods may be familiar to some students and completely new to others; whatever the case, by the end of this course all students will have developed and exercised their own set of skills for addressing visual materials according to their aesthetic properties, their relationships to their social contexts and the ways in which works function to activate the viewer’s sensorial experience. By the end of this semester, students who come to class prepared and who invest in their papers will be equipped to:
Course Materials
Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, eds., Transgender Studies Reader, vol. 1 (Florence: Routledge, 2006)
Joanne J. Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002)
Additional readings available on course website
E-mail Policy
Students are expected to check their college email address regularly for course updates between class meetings. Failure to read and react to University communications in a timely manner does not absolve the student from knowing and complying with the content of the communications. Students can reach me through my college email address. I strive to respond to emails within 24 hours on week days. If I have not responded to your weekday email within 48 hours, please feel free to send me a reminder. I am not always available to reply to email over the weekend. If you have an urgent concern that cannot wait until Monday, please make that clear in the subject heading of your email and I will do my best to respond. Email is ideally used for quick questions/clarifications. All other concerns—questions about your progress, written work, your grade, class in general—should be addressed during office hours.
Your Responsibilities (and Grade)
Operate with Integrity
Throughout this course, we will engage with topics, images, materials and histories that can feel quite sensitive and vulnerable for some of us. By enrolling in this class, you are committing to conducting yourself, framing your comments and questions, and approaching materials (images and texts) in a manner that values the diverse experiences that are undoubtedly, though maybe not visibly, present in our classroom community. You are committing to acquiring new knowledge about human experience, whether or not queerness or art are already familiar topics for you. A guiding principle for investigating images and texts in this course is that none of us are experts on gender (not even the instructor), yet each of us possesses unique insights into what it is to live as a gendered being that can enrich our discussions of and connections to visual materials.
Mature Content
Our course readings and classroom discussions will often be mature in content that is both political and personal. You might experience strong emotional reactions to some of the images and texts we cover. You might have emotional responses to your peers’ understanding of the readings. This is to be expected, yet all of us are responsible for managing our reactions and transforming them into well thought-out contributions to class discussions. We are also each responsible for presenting our perspectives in ways that produce a rigorous and respectful discursive environment.
Gender-Inclusive Language
It is essential that each participant in this class contribute to creating an environment in which people of all identities are encouraged to share their perspectives. Using appropriate and respectful language is key to this process. Just as sexist language excludes women’s experiences, non-gender-inclusive language excludes the experiences of trans, intersex, and genderqueer individuals. Language is gender-inclusive and non-sexist when we use words that recognize and affirm how people describe, express, and experience their gender. Gender-inclusive/non-sexist language avoids assuming a male speaker (freshman, upperclassman, chairman, mankind, etc.), erasing non-binary gender identifications, and conflating biological sex with gender expression (text borrowed from the University of Pittsburgh Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies website).
Accept Challenges with Grace
In taking this class you are also committing to challenging yourself to develop an acute ability to read and analyze images and texts. Studying images requires time. It takes time for the nuances of images to become apparent to us. In the world we live in, time is often scarce, and it can be a challenge to sit still in front of an image and to wait for its depth to become clear to us. I urge you to take on this challenge and trust that extended looking can offer information that is otherwise unknowable. Studying history and theory also takes time, but there are ways to streamline the experience without sacrificing your learning. I have provided a guide for efficiently and effectively reading dense texts that outlines a few useful strategies on the course website.
Grades for this class will be composed of the following parts:
10% Class Participation
15% Descriptive Practice (1 page)
15% In-class Image Presentation
15% Midterm
20% Final Paper and Presentation (10 pages)
25% Final Exam
Late assignments will not be accepted without prior arrangement
Exam, Assignment & Course Grading Scale
94-100 (A); 90-93 (A-); 88-89 (B+); 83-87 (B); 80-82 (B-); 78-79 (C+); 73-77 (C); 70-72 (C-); 68-69 (D+); 63-67 (D); 60-62 (D-); 59 and below (F).
My Responsibilities
It is my privilege to design the syllabus, teach this course and facilitate a dynamic learning environment. To help foster the latter, I have planned key activities that expand beyond weekly lectures. These include lectures, discussions, in-class writing workshops and film screenings. I will also be available during the office hours listed at the top of this syllabus and by appointment to further facilitate your success in this class.
Weekly Readings
Each week I provide a selection of texts that are intended to operate on a number of different registers. Some texts serve to provide useful historical context that surpasses what I will include in lecture. Some texts will give you further background in the disciplines of transgender theory, visual culture, or art history. A few of these texts might be difficult to unravel on your own, but I encourage you to get as much from them as you can, to use your notes to track both your understanding and questions and to come to class willing to share both your insights and your confusion in discussion sections.
Course Calendar:
Week 1: Introduction to Methods of Transgender Studies, Visual Studies, and Art History
Susan Stryker, “(De)Subjugated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies” in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 1-17)
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “Chapter 1: Images, Power, and Politics” in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (pages 9-48)
Week 2: Early Medical History – Richard von Krafft-Ebbing and Magnus Hirschfeld’s Die Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (1919-1933)
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “Chapter 2: Viewers Make Meaning” in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (pages 49-92)
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Sex Change” in How Sex Changed (pages 14-50)
Richard von Kraftt-Ebbing, Selections from Psychopathia Sexualis in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 21-27)
Magnus Hirschfeld, Selections from The Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 28-39)
Harry Benjamin, “Transsexualism and Transvestitsm as Psycho-Somatic and Somato-Psychic Syndromes in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 45-53)
Week 3: Christine Jorgensen – “Ex-Gi Becomes Blonde Beauty” and Other Media (1952)
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “Chapter 3: Modernity – Spectatorship, Power, and Knowledge” in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (pages 93-140)
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty” in How Sex Changed (pages 51-97)
Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography (pages 94-198)
Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”
Week 4: 1950s and 60s – Pulp Fictions, Casa Susanna, Fantasia Fair, and others
Joanne Meyerowitz, “From Sex to Gender” in How Sex Changed (pages 98-129)
Joanne Meyerowitz, “A Fierce and Demanding Drive” in How Sex Changed (pages 130-167)
Susan Stryker, “Love is a Many Gendered Thing” in Queer Pulp (pages 73-95)
Ms. Bob Davis, “Using Archives to Identify the Trans* Women of Casa Susanna” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: Archives and Archiving (pages 621-634)
Week 5: Compton’s Cafeteria Riots – The Trans Rebellion Before Stonewall
Esther Newton, “The Queens” in Mother Camp (pages 20-40)
Film Screening: Susan Stryker’s Screaming Queens (2005)
DUE: Descriptive Practice
In-Class Peer Reviews and Writing Workshop addressing developing a thesis statement, essay structure, paragraph structure, and other material
Week 6: Trans People and Sexual Revolutions I – The Stonewall Rebellion, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Sexual Revolutions” and “Liberal Moment” in How Sex Changed (pages 168-254)
John D’Emilio “A New Beginning: The Birth of Gay Liberation” in Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities (pages 223-239)
Film Screenings: The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson by David France (2017); Happy Birthday Marsha by Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel (2016)
Week 7: Trans People and Sexual Revolutions II – Feminism and Women’s Liberation
Joanne Meyerowitz, “From Sex to Gender” in How Sex Changed (pages 98-129)
Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male” (excerpts)
Sandy Stone “The Empire Strikes Back” in in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 221-235)
Susan Stryker, “The Difficult Decades” in Transgender History (pages 91-120)
Week 8: Midterm Exam
Week 9: Trans Masculinities – Butch Roots and Transgender Presents
Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues (excerpt)
Jack Halberstam, “Transgender Butch: Butch/FTM Border Wars” in Female Masculinity (pages 141-175)
Aaron Devor, “Have FTM Transsexuals Always Existed?” in FTM: Female to Male Transsexuals in Society (pages 3-36)
Tirza True Latimer, Chapters 2 and 3 in Women Together/Women Apart (pages 43-104)
Week 10: Candy Darling and the 1960s and 70s Avant Garde
In-class Paper Progress Presentations
My Face for the World To See: The Diaries, Letters, and Drawings of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar (1997)
Film Screening: Women In Revolt! by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrisey
Week 11: Beyond Binaries – The Material Worlds of Greer Lankton and Jerome Caja
Image: Jerome Caja, Foot of Christ (1991)
Jules Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory”
Andrew Durbin, Paul Monroe, “Unalterable Strangeness” http://www.flashartonline.com/article/unalterable-strangeness/
Julia Serrano, Whipping Girl chapters 2 & 3 (pages 35-64)
Jeanne Vaccaro, “Felt Matters” in The Transgender Studies Reader 2 (pages 91-100)
Week 12: Drag Balls and Transness in the 1980s and 90s
Judith Butler, “Critically Queer” in The Routledge Queer Studies Reader (pages 18-31)
C. Riley Snorton, “A Nightmarish Silhouette” in Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (pages 139-175)
Marquis Bey, “The Trans*-ness of Blackness, the Blackness of Trans*-ness” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: The Issue of Blackness (pages 275-295)
Film Screening: Paris is Burning (1992)
Week 13: The Body as Material in Trans Performance Art – Vaginal Davis, Cassils, and Wu Tsang
José Muñoz, “The White To Be Angry: Vaginal Crème Davis’s Terrorist Drag” in Dissidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (pages 93-118)
Amelia Jones, “Postmodernism, Subjectivity, and Body Art: A Trajectory” in Body Art/Performing the Subject (pages 21-53)
Peggy Phelan, “Broken Symmetries: Memory, Sight, Love” in Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (pages 1-33)
Week 14: Archiving the Invisible – Museum of Transgender History and Art (MOTHA), The Web as Living Archive, and Historical Recovery
Jacques Derrida, “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression” (pages 9-63)
Tobias Raun, “Archiving the Wonders of Testosterone via YouTube” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: Archives and Archiving (pages 701-709)
Chase Joynt and Kristen Schilt, “Anxiety at the Archive” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: Archives and Archiving (pages 635-644)
Rebekah Edwards, ““This Is Not a Girl” A Trans* Archival Reading” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: Archives and Archiving (pages 650-665)
In-class Peer Reviews of Final Paper Drafts
Week 15: Student Presentations
DUE: Final Paper
Week 16: Student Presentations
Final Exam: TBA
What are the roots of contemporary transgender culture? How have visual materials and works of art both shaped and documented transgender culture in the United States during the 20th century? This course considers newspapers, paintings, photographs, sculptures and other types of visual materials as important points of access to the history of transsexuality and transgender identity in the United States since the 1940s and 50s. Using as a starting point the salacious headline from December 1952 “EX-GI BECOMES BLONDE BEAUTY” that announced the “sex-change” of Christine Jorgensen, this course charts the roots of contemporary transgender discourse back to the work of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in the early twentieth century, the work of Dr. Harry Benjamin in the United States after World War II, the role of Marsha “Pay it No Mind” Johnson and Sylvia Rivera in the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, and the anti-transsexual polemics from within the Feminist movements in the 1970s – all before diving into the materials that produce and preserve contemporary transgender culture. Weekly discussions, notation assignments, film screenings, and guest lectures are designed to keep students engaged and to create a collegial and collaborative classroom environment. A final paper, produced in stages throughout the term, will afford students an opportunity to produce an historical essay of their own on an object of transgender visual culture that has likely never been written on before. What do you have to say about these works that might reveal something that has thus far gone unseen?
Course Objectives
The objective of this course is to challenge and empower students to meaningfully engage with the art and visual materials that make up transgender history in the United States in ways that are sensitive to both their own internal life and the work’s formal qualities, materials, historical context and political significance. To do this, I will rely on and impart methods of formal analysis, social art history and material culture. These methods may be familiar to some students and completely new to others; whatever the case, by the end of this course all students will have developed and exercised their own set of skills for addressing visual materials according to their aesthetic properties, their relationships to their social contexts and the ways in which works function to activate the viewer’s sensorial experience. By the end of this semester, students who come to class prepared and who invest in their papers will be equipped to:
- Critically and creatively see and describe visual materials.
- Connect visual materials to history and, moreover, engage them as actors in—not mere “reflections” of—that past.
- Develop a command of the stakes and challenges of transgender history
Course Materials
Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, eds., Transgender Studies Reader, vol. 1 (Florence: Routledge, 2006)
Joanne J. Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002)
Additional readings available on course website
E-mail Policy
Students are expected to check their college email address regularly for course updates between class meetings. Failure to read and react to University communications in a timely manner does not absolve the student from knowing and complying with the content of the communications. Students can reach me through my college email address. I strive to respond to emails within 24 hours on week days. If I have not responded to your weekday email within 48 hours, please feel free to send me a reminder. I am not always available to reply to email over the weekend. If you have an urgent concern that cannot wait until Monday, please make that clear in the subject heading of your email and I will do my best to respond. Email is ideally used for quick questions/clarifications. All other concerns—questions about your progress, written work, your grade, class in general—should be addressed during office hours.
Your Responsibilities (and Grade)
Operate with Integrity
Throughout this course, we will engage with topics, images, materials and histories that can feel quite sensitive and vulnerable for some of us. By enrolling in this class, you are committing to conducting yourself, framing your comments and questions, and approaching materials (images and texts) in a manner that values the diverse experiences that are undoubtedly, though maybe not visibly, present in our classroom community. You are committing to acquiring new knowledge about human experience, whether or not queerness or art are already familiar topics for you. A guiding principle for investigating images and texts in this course is that none of us are experts on gender (not even the instructor), yet each of us possesses unique insights into what it is to live as a gendered being that can enrich our discussions of and connections to visual materials.
Mature Content
Our course readings and classroom discussions will often be mature in content that is both political and personal. You might experience strong emotional reactions to some of the images and texts we cover. You might have emotional responses to your peers’ understanding of the readings. This is to be expected, yet all of us are responsible for managing our reactions and transforming them into well thought-out contributions to class discussions. We are also each responsible for presenting our perspectives in ways that produce a rigorous and respectful discursive environment.
Gender-Inclusive Language
It is essential that each participant in this class contribute to creating an environment in which people of all identities are encouraged to share their perspectives. Using appropriate and respectful language is key to this process. Just as sexist language excludes women’s experiences, non-gender-inclusive language excludes the experiences of trans, intersex, and genderqueer individuals. Language is gender-inclusive and non-sexist when we use words that recognize and affirm how people describe, express, and experience their gender. Gender-inclusive/non-sexist language avoids assuming a male speaker (freshman, upperclassman, chairman, mankind, etc.), erasing non-binary gender identifications, and conflating biological sex with gender expression (text borrowed from the University of Pittsburgh Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies website).
Accept Challenges with Grace
In taking this class you are also committing to challenging yourself to develop an acute ability to read and analyze images and texts. Studying images requires time. It takes time for the nuances of images to become apparent to us. In the world we live in, time is often scarce, and it can be a challenge to sit still in front of an image and to wait for its depth to become clear to us. I urge you to take on this challenge and trust that extended looking can offer information that is otherwise unknowable. Studying history and theory also takes time, but there are ways to streamline the experience without sacrificing your learning. I have provided a guide for efficiently and effectively reading dense texts that outlines a few useful strategies on the course website.
Grades for this class will be composed of the following parts:
10% Class Participation
15% Descriptive Practice (1 page)
15% In-class Image Presentation
15% Midterm
20% Final Paper and Presentation (10 pages)
25% Final Exam
Late assignments will not be accepted without prior arrangement
Exam, Assignment & Course Grading Scale
94-100 (A); 90-93 (A-); 88-89 (B+); 83-87 (B); 80-82 (B-); 78-79 (C+); 73-77 (C); 70-72 (C-); 68-69 (D+); 63-67 (D); 60-62 (D-); 59 and below (F).
My Responsibilities
It is my privilege to design the syllabus, teach this course and facilitate a dynamic learning environment. To help foster the latter, I have planned key activities that expand beyond weekly lectures. These include lectures, discussions, in-class writing workshops and film screenings. I will also be available during the office hours listed at the top of this syllabus and by appointment to further facilitate your success in this class.
Weekly Readings
Each week I provide a selection of texts that are intended to operate on a number of different registers. Some texts serve to provide useful historical context that surpasses what I will include in lecture. Some texts will give you further background in the disciplines of transgender theory, visual culture, or art history. A few of these texts might be difficult to unravel on your own, but I encourage you to get as much from them as you can, to use your notes to track both your understanding and questions and to come to class willing to share both your insights and your confusion in discussion sections.
Course Calendar:
Week 1: Introduction to Methods of Transgender Studies, Visual Studies, and Art History
Susan Stryker, “(De)Subjugated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies” in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 1-17)
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “Chapter 1: Images, Power, and Politics” in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (pages 9-48)
Week 2: Early Medical History – Richard von Krafft-Ebbing and Magnus Hirschfeld’s Die Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (1919-1933)
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “Chapter 2: Viewers Make Meaning” in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (pages 49-92)
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Sex Change” in How Sex Changed (pages 14-50)
Richard von Kraftt-Ebbing, Selections from Psychopathia Sexualis in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 21-27)
Magnus Hirschfeld, Selections from The Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 28-39)
Harry Benjamin, “Transsexualism and Transvestitsm as Psycho-Somatic and Somato-Psychic Syndromes in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 45-53)
Week 3: Christine Jorgensen – “Ex-Gi Becomes Blonde Beauty” and Other Media (1952)
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “Chapter 3: Modernity – Spectatorship, Power, and Knowledge” in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (pages 93-140)
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty” in How Sex Changed (pages 51-97)
Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography (pages 94-198)
Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”
Week 4: 1950s and 60s – Pulp Fictions, Casa Susanna, Fantasia Fair, and others
Joanne Meyerowitz, “From Sex to Gender” in How Sex Changed (pages 98-129)
Joanne Meyerowitz, “A Fierce and Demanding Drive” in How Sex Changed (pages 130-167)
Susan Stryker, “Love is a Many Gendered Thing” in Queer Pulp (pages 73-95)
Ms. Bob Davis, “Using Archives to Identify the Trans* Women of Casa Susanna” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: Archives and Archiving (pages 621-634)
Week 5: Compton’s Cafeteria Riots – The Trans Rebellion Before Stonewall
Esther Newton, “The Queens” in Mother Camp (pages 20-40)
Film Screening: Susan Stryker’s Screaming Queens (2005)
DUE: Descriptive Practice
In-Class Peer Reviews and Writing Workshop addressing developing a thesis statement, essay structure, paragraph structure, and other material
Week 6: Trans People and Sexual Revolutions I – The Stonewall Rebellion, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Sexual Revolutions” and “Liberal Moment” in How Sex Changed (pages 168-254)
John D’Emilio “A New Beginning: The Birth of Gay Liberation” in Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities (pages 223-239)
Film Screenings: The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson by David France (2017); Happy Birthday Marsha by Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel (2016)
Week 7: Trans People and Sexual Revolutions II – Feminism and Women’s Liberation
Joanne Meyerowitz, “From Sex to Gender” in How Sex Changed (pages 98-129)
Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male” (excerpts)
Sandy Stone “The Empire Strikes Back” in in The Transgender Studies Reader 1 (pages 221-235)
Susan Stryker, “The Difficult Decades” in Transgender History (pages 91-120)
Week 8: Midterm Exam
Week 9: Trans Masculinities – Butch Roots and Transgender Presents
Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues (excerpt)
Jack Halberstam, “Transgender Butch: Butch/FTM Border Wars” in Female Masculinity (pages 141-175)
Aaron Devor, “Have FTM Transsexuals Always Existed?” in FTM: Female to Male Transsexuals in Society (pages 3-36)
Tirza True Latimer, Chapters 2 and 3 in Women Together/Women Apart (pages 43-104)
Week 10: Candy Darling and the 1960s and 70s Avant Garde
In-class Paper Progress Presentations
My Face for the World To See: The Diaries, Letters, and Drawings of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar (1997)
Film Screening: Women In Revolt! by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrisey
Week 11: Beyond Binaries – The Material Worlds of Greer Lankton and Jerome Caja
Image: Jerome Caja, Foot of Christ (1991)
Jules Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory”
Andrew Durbin, Paul Monroe, “Unalterable Strangeness” http://www.flashartonline.com/article/unalterable-strangeness/
Julia Serrano, Whipping Girl chapters 2 & 3 (pages 35-64)
Jeanne Vaccaro, “Felt Matters” in The Transgender Studies Reader 2 (pages 91-100)
Week 12: Drag Balls and Transness in the 1980s and 90s
Judith Butler, “Critically Queer” in The Routledge Queer Studies Reader (pages 18-31)
C. Riley Snorton, “A Nightmarish Silhouette” in Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (pages 139-175)
Marquis Bey, “The Trans*-ness of Blackness, the Blackness of Trans*-ness” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: The Issue of Blackness (pages 275-295)
Film Screening: Paris is Burning (1992)
Week 13: The Body as Material in Trans Performance Art – Vaginal Davis, Cassils, and Wu Tsang
José Muñoz, “The White To Be Angry: Vaginal Crème Davis’s Terrorist Drag” in Dissidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (pages 93-118)
Amelia Jones, “Postmodernism, Subjectivity, and Body Art: A Trajectory” in Body Art/Performing the Subject (pages 21-53)
Peggy Phelan, “Broken Symmetries: Memory, Sight, Love” in Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (pages 1-33)
Week 14: Archiving the Invisible – Museum of Transgender History and Art (MOTHA), The Web as Living Archive, and Historical Recovery
Jacques Derrida, “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression” (pages 9-63)
Tobias Raun, “Archiving the Wonders of Testosterone via YouTube” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: Archives and Archiving (pages 701-709)
Chase Joynt and Kristen Schilt, “Anxiety at the Archive” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: Archives and Archiving (pages 635-644)
Rebekah Edwards, ““This Is Not a Girl” A Trans* Archival Reading” in Transgender Studies Quarterly: Archives and Archiving (pages 650-665)
In-class Peer Reviews of Final Paper Drafts
Week 15: Student Presentations
DUE: Final Paper
Week 16: Student Presentations
Final Exam: TBA