DMS 545SEM - Gender and Technology

Feminist, queer, and trans communities have always had some relationship with media, broadly defined to include print and visual media, and have used media in different ways to tell our stories, share our loves, and organize resistance to cisheteronormative systems that have sought to limit and silence us. At the same time, our relationships with media and ourselves have always been shifting, and the antinormativity of the queer and the motion and gender-bending of the trans means our identities and our uses of media often defy easy or simple categorization. This seminar explores various historical and contemporary uses of media by feminist, queer, and trans folks and their communities. In particular, we will pay special attention to challenging normative and teleological understandings of feminist, queer, and trans progress in media, while still holding space for manifesting queer/trans realities and futures through media. Further, we will trace critical tensions and trajectories in feminist, queer, and trans media studies, including intersectionality and queer of color critique, homonormativity and assimilation, and transphobia in LGBTQ+ communities, among others. Students in the seminar will read, watch, and play feminist, queer, and trans media texts, and will experiment with ideas and strategies together though discussions, in-class activities, and assignments. Students will further complete two major course-length projects¿¿a seminar paper that makes an original contribution to feminist, queer, and/or trans media studies, and a creative media project that could become part of a creative portfolio or art installation/exhibit.

Credits: 3