American Studies 267 - Colloquium: Queer Ecologies: Race, Queerness, Disability and Environmental Justice

What is learned by reading Queer Ecologies alongside Butler’s Lilith’s Brood, or Over the Hedge as environmental racism? We consider what it means to have a racialized and sexualized identity shaped by relationships with environments. We will ask: How is nature gendered, racialized, and sexualized? Why? How are analytics of power mobilized around, or in opposition to, nature? How are conceptions of “disability” and “health” taken up in environmental justice movements? We will investigate the discursive and practical connections made between marginalized peoples and nature, and chart the knowledge gained by queering our conceptions of nature and the natural. Enrollment limited to 20. (E)