Class Information
Instructor: Frederickson, Kathleen
Time: T 3:10-6:00
Description
CST 295: Queer Evolutions
CRN: 63032 (you should be able to use this number to register)
Queer Evolutions charts the fate of evolutionary theory in the history of sexuality from the nineteenth century to the present. We will read some of the core texts in early evolutionary theory (Darwin, Lamarck) and examine how they have been taken up by sexologists, homophiles, and queer theorists. In doing so, we will attend to how evolution has participated in eugenic practices and in the racialization of sexuality, looking at work by Sylvia Wynter and others who have analyzed how imperial geopolitics shape the development of the sciences. At the same time, we will look at queer and trans studies scholarship that sees in evolution the promise of more and better options for gender and sexuality. The course will seek to assess how that promise interacts (or doesn?t) with the material economic conditions that structure queer and trans lives.