First Year Seminar 191HFA41 - FYS- Topics in HFA

First-year (R1ST) Topic-How Gay Culture is Made
Course description-What is Gay Culture? Is there even a consensus on whether or not Gay Culture exists? Despite many buzzing articles and claims that it lays dead or dormant, anyone who watches an episode of RuPaul?s Drag Race or attends a Lady Gaga concert knows right away that there is a deeply-rooted, self-reflexive community at work here, alive and well, complete with its own dialect, social patterns, and community expectations. This course seeks to introduce students to the ins and outs of Gay Culture, its origins, and what it represents today. Students will be immersed in media iconic to Gay communities, ranging from Madonna music videos to Camp classics like Rocky Horror and Mommie Dearest. Students will work individually and in groups to trace a history of queerness in both American culture at large and in western Massachusetts, starting at their very own UMass campus.