Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0188 - Deviant Bodies

Spring
2016
1
4.00
Susana Loza
12:30PM-01:50PM T,TH
Hampshire College
319689
Emily Dickinson Hall 2
slHA@hampshire.edu
Since its founding, the US has closely regulated the bodies of Others and punished those that rebel against these socially-constructed designations. Utilizing an interdisciplinary amalgam of Critical Race Theory, Sexuality Studies, Queer Theory, Media Studies, Sociology, American Studies, Performance Studies, and Feminist Theory, this course will explore how the state, the media, and civilian institutions police the boundaries of race, gender, and sexuality by pathologizing, criminalizing, and stigmatizing difference. We will also examine how the subjects burdened with these dangerous inscriptions evade and contest them through passing, performativity, and other forms of identity-based resistance. Special attention will be paid to the criminalization of cross-racial and same sex desire; the re-biologization of racial and sexual difference; the dehumanization of immigrants; the racialization of crime; the gendering of mental disorder; the rise of homonormativity; genetic surveillance; the biopolitics of reproduction; and the role of The Law in constructing and controlling deviant bodies.
Power, Community and Social Justice Independent Work Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research Students are expected to spend 8-10 hours weekly in preparation and work outside of class time.
Permission is required for interchange registration during the add/drop period only.