Queer / Media Theory. Syllabus.

1 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) Department of Art History and Communication Studies McGill University COMS 490 (3 credits) – History and Theory of Media Special Topic: Queer Media Theory Winter 2007 Tuesdays, 10:35-13:25 W-5 Arts Building (West Wing) INSTRUCTOR: Ger J. Z. Zielinski, Ph.D. (ABD) EMAIL: [email protected] (Please include the course number ‘490’ in the subject heading!) OFFICE: W-240 Arts Building (West Wing) OFFICE HOURS: Tuesdays, 14:00-15:30, or by appointment. PREREQUISITES: COMS 210, 3 additional credits in a 300-level COMS course, or permission of instructor. (Recommended prerequisites are SDST 250 - Introduction to Sexual Diversity Studies and COMS 310 - Media and Feminist Studies, or equivalent.) SPECIAL TOPIC DESCRIPTION (WINTER 2007): This upper-year seminar investigates the relation between queer theory and contemporary media theory, while concentrating on current theoretical and historical approaches to sexuality, and associated debates and critiques. Building on over one decade of work in the area of queer media studies, this course specifically addresses and works through the problem of the queer archive and cultural memory in relation to such concepts as representation, visibility, performativity, gender, identity, community, counter/publics, space, globalization and ephemerality. Readings are arranged thematically and build on one another as the course unfolds. Central questions concern the status of a queer or sexual archive, for example, What would constitute it? How would one look or feel? How does language use or gesture figure in one? Where would one exist spatially? The course also includes the screening of excerpts of important films and videos, stemming from diverse activist, art and “independent” scenes as well as the “mainstream.” LEARNING OBJECTIVES: This course aims to • improve students’ presentation, and research skills; • deepen students’ understanding of areas of current research in the interdisciplinary fields of media and sexual diversity studies; • sharpen students’ critical approach to the fields; • enable students to produce an essay that could be developed into an article and conference paper; and • help prepare students for seminars at the graduate level. http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] 2 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) INSTRUCTIONAL METHOD: The format of this course is the standard advanced seminar. The structure encourages and depends on engaged dialogue on and debate of the themes and materials of the course. Students will present their analyses of the texts, and probe the material through considered inquiry. The course will also host at least two guest experts in the field, who will present on their current research. Audiovisual material, e.g. slides, websites and videos, will be used to help illustrate or expand on the texts covered in the course. WebCT Vista will serve as a virtual commons as a forum for group discussion and for the distribution of texts. Students will need to have access to WebCT in order to download those articles linked through McGill’s libraries. ASSIGNMENTS & EVALUATION: Presentation of one reading: 10 % • Select one text in the syllabus • Present an analysis and interpretation of the text • Lead the discussion of the text Presentation of research in progress: 15 % The aim here is for each student to present a summary of her/his work on her/his final essay, effectively a progress report. The presentations should also involve students in the spirited critique of one other’s work in the format of a short (in-class) academic conference titled Queer Mediations: A Bent Glance at the Archive. This mini conference will have four panels of five presenters each, with a designated moderator. • Each presentation is 5 minutes in length (~750 words read) • Presenters should provide a basic outline of the topic and approach, as well as a select bibliography of the main texts used (1 page) • It will take place on the final day of classes Final paper: 45 % This is a student-directed research project, decided in consultation with the instructor. The project offers each student the freedom to choose a topic from the course and research it in greater depth. • Topic • Bibliography • Thesis statement • 13-15 pages (3250-3750 words, double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman, plus bibliography) • Use either Chicago Manual of Style [http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/contents.html], or MLA [http://www.library.mcgill.ca/human/SUBGUIDE/pdf/mla.pdf] both available through McGill’s libraries • Due on the Thursday of the week following the end of classes. http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] 3 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) Attendance & Participation: 30 % As this is an advanced seminar, attendance and active participation are highly valued and expected of each student. Weekly preparation includes carefully reading and analysis of the assigned texts and then drawing relations between them and others in the course with respect to its themes. Moreover, students are also expected to formulate questions before each class that probe the assigned readings weekly. Each student must submit one question at each class. Any student without a question will be recorded as absent. Note on absences and the submission of course work: Punctuality is a sign of respect. It is the responsibility of the student to inform the instructor in advance of the class to be missed while justifying the absence with good reasons. In the case of illness, the student must provide the instructor with a doctor’s note. Similarly, any late submission of course work will be accepted only if the student provides adequate justification, preferably in advance of the respective deadline or afterwards with a doctor’s note. Summary of Grading: Attendance & Participation (weekly questions): Presentation of article: Presentation of research in progress: Final paper: Total 30 % 10 % 15 % 45 % 100 % UNIVERSITY POLICY ON ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: “McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see www.mcgill.ca/integrity for more information).” “Additional policies governing academic issues which affect students can be found in the McGill Charter of Students’ Rights (online at http://ww2.mcgill.ca/studentshandbook/chapter1.html).” http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] 4 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) COURSE TEXTS: Required: COMS 490 Course Pack, available for purchase at the McGill Bookstore. Required texts via WebCT Vista: All articles available electronically through McGill’s library system have been linked to the course’s WebCT page with free access to students to browse and download. This will substantially lower the cost of the course readings. NOTE: Off-campus connections will require VPN to be activated in order to download the articles, as is also required when searching articles on the library site. See: http://www.mcgill.ca/library-using/connect/#VPN for more details on how to set up VPN. Furthermore, when downloading there may be a delay up to ten seconds after clicking on the hyperlinked article reference. Books on 3-Hour Reserve at Redpath Library: Butt, Gavin (2005) Between You and Me: Queer Disclosures in the New York Art World, 1948-1963. Call number: N72 H64 B87 2005 Holmlund, Chris & Cynthia Fuchs (eds.) Between the Sheets, in the Streets: Queer, Lesbian, Gay Documentary. Call number: P96 D622 U63 1997 Jagose, AnnaMarie Queer Theory: An Introduction. Call number: HQ76.25 J34 1996 Keller, James & Leslie Stratyner (eds.) The New Queer Aesthetic on Television: Essays on Recent Programming. Call number: PN1992.8 H64 N49 2006 Stryker, Susan & Stephen Whittle (eds.) The Transgender Studies Reader. Call number: HQ77.9 T72 2006 Useful Sites & Links: Montréal: CCGLM - http://ccglm.org/en/index.html Archives gaies du Québec - http://www.agq.qc.ca General: Queer Theory - http://www.queerbychoice.com/qtheorylinks.html Queer Theory - http://www.queertheory.com Theory UK - http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-quee.htm CLAGS - http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Clags/links.htm CSGS - http://www.nyu.edu/fas/gender.sexuality/links/links.html Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives - http://www.clga.ca GLBT Historical Society (SF) - http://www.glbthistory.org http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] 5 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) COURSE SCHEDULE: 10:35 AM-1:25 PM, Tuesdays, 9 January–10 April, 2007 Please note that schedule may have to be altered to accommodate the availability of the guest speakers and videos, as required. Further details of other screenings will be distributed in class. [CP = Course Pack, WCT = WebCT Vista, RR = Redpath Reserves at McGill] 9 January. Introduction to the Course & Review of Main Concepts and Categories Screening: Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (1984, Greta Schiller , USA, 87 min.) de Lauretis, Teresa (1991) Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities. An Introduction. Special Issue. differences, 3(2), pp. iii-xviii. [CP] Eng, David, Judith Halberstam and José Esteban Muñoz (2005) What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now? Introduction. Special Issue. Social Text, 84-85, 23(3-4), FallWinter, pp. 1-18. [WCT] Recommended for reference: Jagose, Annamarie (1996) Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press. [RR] Hall, Douglas (2003) Queer Theories. Houndmills & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 16 January. On Archiving the Ephemeral Muñoz, José Esteban (1996) Ephemera as Evidence: Introductory Notes to Queer Acts. Women and Performance 16, 5-16. [CP] Morris, Charles E. (2006) Archival Queer. Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9(1), pp. 145-151. [WCT] Cvetkovich, Ann (2002) In the Archives of Lesbian Feelings: Documentary and Popular Culture. Camera Obscura 49, Volume 17, Number 1, 106-147. [WCT] Halberstam, Judith (2003) What’s That Smell? Queer Temporalities and Subcultural Lives. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(3), pp. 313–333. [WCT] Recommended reading: Patton, Cindy (1992) Embodying Subaltern Memory: Kinesthesia & the Problematics of Gender & Race, in The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Subcultural http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] 6 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) Identities, and Cultural Theory, ed. Cathy Schwichtenberg. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 81-105. [CP] 23 January. Gossip, Warhol & flea markets Butt, Gavin (2005) Chapter 4: Dishing on the Swish, or, the “Inning” of Andy Warhol, pp. 106-135. In Between You and Me: Queer Disclosures in the New York Art World, 19481963. Durham and London: Duke University Press. [CP] Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1996) Queer Performativity: Warhol’s Shyness/Warhol’s Whiteness, in Pop Out: Queer Warhol, eds. Jennifer Doyle and Jonathan Flatley and José Esteban Muñoz. Durham & London: Duke University Press, pp. 134-143. [CP] Deitcher, David (1998) Looking at a Photograph, Looking for a History. In The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, ed. Deborah Bright. New York & London: Routledge, pp. 23-36. [CP] Recommended reading: Butt, Gavin (2005) Introduction: Gossip: The Hardcore of Art History? pp. 1-22. In Between You and Me: Queer Disclosures in the New York Art World, 1948-1963. Durham and London: Duke University Press. [CP] 30 January. When Paris is Burning: on articulating a lifeworld Screening: Paris is Burning (1990, Jennie Livingston, USA, 71 min.) hooks, bell (1996) Is Paris Burning?, in Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class at the Movies, New York: Routledge, pp. 214-226. [CP] Butler, Judith (1993) Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion, in Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York & London: Routledge, pp. 121-142. [CP] Namaste, Viviane (2000) “Tragic Misreadings”: Queer Theory’s Erasure of Transgender Subjectivity, in Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, pp. 9-23. [CP] Recommended reading: Harper, Brian (1994) “The Subversive Edge”: Paris Is Burning, Social Critique, and the Limits of Subjective Agency. Diacritics, 24(213), Summer-Autumn, pp. 90-103. [WCT] http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] 7 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) 6 February. Video & Activism Guest speaker: Professor Tom Waugh, Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexuality Program & Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Concordia University, Noon-1:30 PM. Juhasz, Alexandra (2006) Video Remains: Nostalgia, Technology, and Queer Archive Activism. GLQ 12(2), pp. 319-328. [WCT] Hilderbrand, Lucas (2006) Retroactivism. GLQ 12:2, pp. 303–317. [WCT] Waugh, Thomas (1997) Archaeology and Censorship. In Suggestive Poses: Artists and Critics Respond to Censorship, ed. Lorraine Johnson. Toronto: TPW and Riverbank Press, pp. 101-117. [CP] Recommended reading: Cvetkovich, Ann (1998) Video, AIDS and Activism. In Art, Activism and Oppositionality: Essays from Afterimage, ed. Grant Kester. Durham: Duke University Press. [CP] Hubbard, Jim (2001) Fever in the Archive. GLQ 7(1), pp. 183–192. [WCT] Hallas, Roger (2003) The Witness in the Archive. The Scholar and Feminist Online. Issue 2.1, Summer. [WCT] 13 February. space & sexuality ~ chora, heterotopia, queer space Screening: After Stonewall: from the riots to the millennium (2005 [1999], John Scagliotti, Janet Baus & Dan Hunt, USA, 88 min.) Grosz, Elizabeth (1995) Women, Chora, Dwelling. In Space, Time and Perversion. Routledge, New York & London, pp. 111-124. [CP] Foucault, Michel (1986) Of Other Spaces: Heterotopias, trans. Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16(1), Spring, 22-27. [WCT] Original version in French online: http://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia [WCT] Betsky, Aaron (1997) Introduction: Some Queer Constructs, in Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire. New York: William Morrow & Company, Incorporated, pp. 1-15. [CP] 20 February. Study Week (no class!) http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] 8 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) 27 February. discourse, counter/publics and queer world-making… Warner, Michael (2002) Publics and Counterpublics. Public Culture 14(1), pp. 49–90. [WCT] Jagose, Annamarie (2000) Queer World Making: Annamarie Jagose interviews Michael Warner. Genders 31, retrieved on October 20, 2006 from http://www.genders.org/g31/g31_jagose.html [WCT] Recommended for reference: Warner, Michael (2002) Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books. 6 March. Queer Zines and Their Worlds - Censored! Van Sant, Gus (1997) Kurt, in Ride, Queer, Ride! Bruce LaBruce, ed. Noam Gonick. Winnipeg: Plug In Editions, pp. 136-140. [CP] Brouwer, Daniel C. (2005) Counterpublicity and Corporeality in HIV/AIDS Zines. Critical Studies in Media Communication 22(5), December, pp. 351-371. [WCT] Busby, Karen (2004) The Queer Sensitive Interveners in the Little Sisters Case: A Response to Dr. Kendall. Journal of Homosexuality 47(3/4), 129-150. [WCT] Recommended for reference: Duncombe, Stephen (1997) Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. New York & London: Verso Publications. 13 March. Queer Citizens and Nations Guest speaker: Professor Viviane Namaste, Principal, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Noon-1:30 PM. Berlant, Lauren and Elizabeth Freeman (1992) Queer Nationality. boundary 2, 19(1), spring, pp. 149-180. [WCT] Cossman, Brenda (2002) Sexing Citizenship, Privatizing Sex. Citizenship Studies 6(4), pp. 483-506. [WCT] http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] 9 COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) 20 March. Autobiography & Autoethnographic Media Work Screenings (excerpts): sadie benning (selected videos), Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (2004) and Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993). Holmlund, Chris (1997) When Autobiography Meets Ethnography and Girl Meets Girl: The 'Dyke Does' of Sadie Benning and Su Friedrich," in Between the Sheets, in the Streets: Queer, Lesbian, Gay Documentary, ed. Chris Holmlund and Cynthia Fuchs. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. [CP] Muñoz, José (1999) The Autoethnographic Performance: Reading Richard Fung’s Queer Hybridity, in Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 77-92. [CP] Rak, Julie (2005) Digital Queer: Weblogs and Internet Identity. Biography, 28(1), Winter, pp. 166-182. [WCT] 27 March. Spaces of the Gay Games & Pride Parades Waitt, Gordon (2003) Gay Games: Performing ‘Community’ Out from the Closet of the Locker Room. Social & Cultural Geography, 4(2), June, pp. 167-183. [WCT] Rushbrook, Dereka (2002) Cities, Queer Space, and the Cosmopolitan Tourist. GLQ 8(1/2), pp. 183–206. [WCT] Bell, David and Jon Binnie (2004) Authenticating Queer Space: Citizenship, Urbanism and Governance. Urban Studies, 41(9), August, pp. 1807–1820. [WCT] 3 April. Popular Music & Camp-ing Valentine, Gill (1995) Creating Transgressive Space: The Music of kd lang. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 20, pp. 474-485. [WCT] Lawrence, Tim (2006) “I Want to See All My Friends At Once’’: Arthur Russell and the Queering of Gay Disco. Journal of Popular Music Studies 18(2), pp. 144-166. [WCT] Flinn, Caryl (1999) The Deaths of Camp. In Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject. A Reader, ed. Fabio Cleto. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 433457. [CP] Recommended reading: Ross, Andrew (1999) Uses of Camp. In Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject. A Reader, ed. Fabio Cleto. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 308-329. [CP] http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected] COMS 490 – History and Theory of Media (winter 2007) 10 10 April. Last week of class! Queer Mediations: A Bent Glance at the Archive, a mini in-class conference of four panels of five speakers, each student presenting a very brief five-minute summary of the work done on subject of the final paper, discussion following each panel. Thursday, 19 April 2007 (deadline for final paper, submit to drop box just outside of the main office of the Department of Art History and Communication Studies, Arts Building West, by 3 PM! Please provide a self-addressed and stamped envelope for the return of your paper, if desired!) http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/AHCS [email protected]