Women,Gender,Sexuality Studies 692R - S-Sex, Love and Relationships

This course will explore queer feminist thinking about sex, love, and relationality. We will begin by examining how these terms are used and concepts mobilized in our worlds and in scholarship. Together over the course of the semester we will consider topics such as desire, pleasure, pornography, consent, monogamy, polyamory, marriage, friendship, and community. Through our treatments of these topics we will explore questions such as: What is compulsory sexuality? What counts as sex? What is love? What sorts of hierarchies structure the relationships in our lives? What are the histories of concepts like "normal"and "healthy" and how do they shape our understandings of sex, love, and relationships? How are ideas about sex, love, and relating connected to histories of race, nation, and capital that on the surface seem unrelated to such "personal" matters? How do we narrate what our relationships mean to us and what we want from them?

Topic: Queer Feminism and Politics of Belonging. This is a blended class, meaning that we will meet in person one time (on Monday), and convene online (on Wednesday). Our Monday meeting will take place from 2:30-3:45; however, our Wednesday online session does not have a specific meeting time. You can engage Wednesday's meeting and complete the work at a time of your own convenience (but it should be completed by Wednesday at 11:59pm EST). For further questions, please be in touch with the instructor: awilley@umass.edu.