Queering popular culture involves a range of reading/writing practices that are political insofar as they seek to expose and problematise the means by which sexuality is textually constituted in relation to dominant notions of gender. And Queer Theory is cultural insofar as it concerns itself with the ways in which cultural texts–books, films, television programs, magazines, political manifestos, scientific theories, and so on–(in)form our understandings and experiences of sexuality and subjectivity. Queering popular culture, then, involves critically engaging with the cultural artefacts in order to explore the ways in which meaning and identity is (inter)textually (re)produced. —Nikki Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (189-90)
Required Readings
Sullivan, Ch. 11 “Queering Popular Culture” (189-206)
Freya Johnson article: http://bad.eserver.org/issues/1995/23/johnson.html
Barbie Liberation Organization http://www.rtmark.com/blo.html
Erica Rand’s Barbie’s Queer Accessories (scroll down to see 5 excerpted pages): http://books.google.com/books?id=wyeeHB4F6ksC&pg=PA172&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
Hothead Paisan Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hothead_Paisan
Anne Thalheimer review of The Complete Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist http://www.popmatters.com/review/hothead-paison/
Mary Street Hothead Paisan page http://www.marystreet.com/HH/page3.html (with 3 sample pages from the comic book)
Graduate Readings [on Moodle2]:
Warner, “Queer and Then? The End of Queer Theory?”
Sedgwick, Tendencies, Forward: “T Times” (xi-xvi), “Queer and Now” (1-20)
Seidman, “Identity and Politics in a ‘Postmodern’ Gay Culture: Some Historical and Conceptual Notes” (105-142), in Fear of a Queer Planet
Halberstam, Female Masculinity, Preface (xi-xiv), Ch. 1 “An Introduction to Female Masculinity” (1-43)
Additional Resources
Film: Batman Forever (Joel Schumacher 1995); “Batman Forever: HBO First Look” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MiAszO_ni0&feature=related; Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8D0ckow0ck&feature=related;
Due This Week
- Ten key Terms or concepts in readings
- Two LGBTQIA representations
- Two LGBTQIA issues
- Presentation of representations and issues
- Queer Theory Week 11 Questions on Readings
- Group 3 Presentation: Robin Rogers, Andrew Myatt, Christina Petzke, Robert Rockwell