Chapman University in California is offering a course on pornography within its University Honors Program.
The course, titled “Porn Studies,” explores “pornography and the porn industry” as “historical, social, cultural, political, and economic phenomena,” and will consider research by “feminist and queer porn theorists” as well as “the intersections of critical race studies and porn studies, and trans studies and porn studies.”
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The course will not discuss “decades old pro- vs. anti-porn debates,” instead making students read research that “refuses simplistic condemnations of pornography and other kinds of sex work,” as the description advertises.
The course will also examine the subject through the lens of intersectionality, as students “will consider the politics of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability in pornography; questions of representation, production, and authorship; the porn industry from a business and economic perspective; and how new technologies, media, and platforms have transformed the production, consumption, and cultural meanings of pornography.”
The description warns that “students will watch, read about, and discuss sexually explicit material.”
Similar topics have been covered in other university courses and events.
The University of California, Berkeley, for example, offers a student-led course discussing “kink topics,” among other subjects, led in part by a woman who identifies as a “goddess.”
Students at Princeton University can currently take a class on “sex work” that will discuss “erotic dance,” “fetishism,” and “pornography,” among other topics.
Campus Reform has reached out to Chapman University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
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