Emerging from the new social movements of the U.S. 1970s and '80s, “queer of color” as a category recognizes that LGBTQ+ people exist in communities of color, just as people of color have participated in and led queer liberation struggles. Queer of color cultural criticism analyzes how constructions of race operate through sexuality, as well as how our collective understandings of sex and sexuality carry racialized meanings. Reading queer of color criticism in conversation with the literary texts that expanded its theoretical imagination, this course will ask: How can an intersectional lens focused on queer lives of color allow us to theorize a more just world for us all?
To answer, this course will analyze theoretical and literary texts by U.S.-based, queer-identified artists of color. Taking up the rise of queer of color cultural criticism, this course will bring to bear concepts and issues from U.S. multiethnic literary studies, American studies, queer theory, and critical ethnic studies. Further, we will ask after the social and political function of art. Key issues will include race and empire, migration and displacement, history and memory, intimacies and segregation, and love and kinship; key authors may include James Baldwin, Gloria Anzaldua, Kitty Tsui, Tommy Pico, and Alok.
course photo: Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)"