Course Syllabus
Blog Address: blog.lib.umn.edu/puot0002/qd2010
Twitter: @qued2010
Instructor: Dr. Sara L. Puotinen
Office Hours: TUES 12:45-2:00, WED 3:00-4:00 and by appointment
Office Location: FORD 444
Email: puot0002@umn.edu
COURSE DESCRIPTION
- Queer Intersections and Assemblages
- Queering the non/human
- Queer pedagogy
- Queer/ing children
- Queer futures and utopias
- Queering feelings and feeling queerly
- How do we queer? How are we queer?
- Is queer a noun, verb or adjective?
- What is the radical potential of queer politics?
- How can we (and should we) queer happiness?
- How can we queer the academy?
- What does a queer future look like?
- Is queer optimism possible?
- What's so queer about children?
- Can blogs and twitter be Q/queer spaces that promote Q/queer practices?
- to examine how sexuality forms and affects a diverse range of experiences
- to understand how queer theory has interrogated these experiences and processes
- to interrogate normative ways of knowing and think through alternative possibilities
- to develop skills for experimenting with social media, such as blogs and twitter, and using
those media for developing connections and engaging in queer/ing practices
responsible for reading and posting (entries and comments) on our blog and for contributing to our twitter feed. Always remember that our class is only as productive (and exciting, inspiring, and fun) as we all make it.
This includes cheating on assignments, plagiarizing (misrepresenting as your own work any work that has been written by another author), and submitting the same paper or substantially similar paper to meet the requirements of more than one course without the approval of all the instructors concerned. I will report such dishonesty. It is grounds for failure in the course.
Students with disabilities who require accommodations in meeting course requirements should meet with me as early as possible in the term. Class materials, including this syllabus, can be made available in alternative formats upon request. In order to receive accommodations, you must register with disability services first.
Non-native English Speakers and Writers
If you need some extra assistance with the reading and writing assignments, please contact me early in the term.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Overview
Class Participation: 150 points
Queer This!: 90 points
Tracking Topics: 120 points
Reading Engagements: 120 points
Queries: 40 points
Your Choice Blog/Tweet: 50 points
Diablog Assignment: 230 points
Wrap-up: 200 points
Assignment Description
The bulk of your assignments this semester (blog entries, blog participation, twitter tweets, diablog presentation and your final wrap-up) will be organized around the development of and participation in our class blog (blog.lib.umn.edu/puot0002/qd2010) and class twitter feed (follow @qued2010). Once we have worked out the details together in the first and second weeks of class, I will post a more detailed handout on our blog.
By the third week of the course you will be required to pick one of the suggested topics (terms, organizations/communities, or individual activist-theorists) related to queer and queering theory. These topics are listed at the end of this description. You will be responsible for tracking your topic throughout the semester. By tracking I mean that you will be required to pay particular attention to your topic as you are reading, discussing and thinking about queering desire. You will be expected to post three annotated bibliography entries in which you critically reflect on your topic and report on your research. You are encouraged to be creative in your tracking of the term. You can draw on a wide range of sources and post your blog entries in many different forms.
TOPICS:
| Terms: | temporality queer space intimacy affect disgust/shame masculinities femininities kinship homonationalism/homonormativity neoliberalism/queer liberalism activism children/youth feminism/queer bodies and material experiences radical sex practices |
| Theorists: | Judith Butler Jasbir Puar Judith Halberstam Jose Esteban Munoz Gloria Anzaldua Cherríe Moraga Audre Lorde Michael Warner Susan Stryker Eve Sedgwick Sarah Ahmed Dean Spade |
| Organizations: | Sylvia Rivera Project Queers 4 Economic Justice |
In addition to posting your own entries, you are expected to actively read other blogs and other students' entries. Your active engagement will come in the form of commenting on other blogs, creating links within your own entries, and incorporating comments from other entries/blogs into your offline and online participation.
You are also expected to participate on our twitter feed. Throughout the semester, you will tweet: questions to/about the class; "queer this" examples; links to your tracking research, and thoughts/reflections/ideas related to queering desire and our class.
To foster connections between our online and offline engagements, to help us to cultivate our class community, and to give you even more opportunity to shape the class, you and 1-2 classmates will lead us in a mini diablog about the readings. More details about this assignment will be available in the second week of class, along with a sign-up sheet. Diablogs will begin the week of October 5/7.
Note: Dialogue + blog = diablog (noun) A collaboration involving two (or more) people who exchange ideas with others via posts and comments on their shared blog. A diablog requires a explicit commitment to engaging with blog-writing partners through reading and commenting on their posts and referring to/incorporating ideas into your posts.
Finally, you are required to submit a final wrap-up on your experiences tracking your chosen topic and on helping to develop and participate in the blog and on following our twitter feed. This wrap-up can come in the form of a lengthy blog entry (or series of entries) or a separate (more formal) reflective essay. Please see me if you have other thoughts on how to organize/develop/articulate your reflective thoughts on your topic and your experience with the blog.
Note: Once I post the details for each assignment on our blog, I will make the title of each assignment (e.g.: Blog) a link to those details.B achievement significantly above that level necessary to meet course requirements
C achievement meeting the basic course requirements in every respect
D achievement worthy of credit even though it does not meet the basic requirements
F performance failing to meet the basic course requirements
S equivalent to a grade of C or better
COURSE TEXTS
Readings:As part our social media experiment this semester and in our attempts at engaging in some queering practices of our own, I would like to make our class as paperless as possible. Therefore, instead of distributing lots of handouts in class (which I used to do), I will post all important information on our course blog. Most of the time I will post the information in a page or entry and make the pdf a downloadable link (paper copies are available on request). In that same spirit, I have only ordered one book for the class. All other readings will be available on WebVista or our blog. You can download and print the readings, if necessary. Finally, all assignments will be posted online. And there will be no papers to write (just comments and blog entries).
If you have any questions about the syllabus, you can post them as comments here.
I'm having trouble finding the "Mash-Up" directions. Are they on our website somewhere?
Here it is: Mash-up Assignment.
Thanks!