Barnard College, an affiliate of Columbia University, is offering a spring semester course on “Borders and Bodies” to use “queer theory” to examine the “construction of gender.”
The course is a “cross-cultural exploration of the construction of gender through significant landmarks in contemporary literature, from feminist and queer theory perspectives.”
It will cover a “range of novels, short stories, essays and poetry written in the twentieth- and the twenty-first century from or about the United States, Europe and the MENA region.”
“Through an examination of these works, alongside seminal works of feminist and queer theory (Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, bell hooks, etc.) we will ask: is it possible to write about a similar issue as represented across texts from different geographical and cultural zones, and how do you do so ethically without either erasing difference or exaggerating it? How do these texts (critical and creative) dismantle the ways we have been taught to evaluate canonical, male-dominated literary histories?” the course description states.
The course is taught by Melanie Heydari, a lecturer of French at Barnard with a PhD in “postcolonial literature.” Heydari’s research interests include “mimetic practices, (auto)biography and the intricacies of personal and historical memory, and women’s and feminist literature.”
Heydari’s course is one of many others in higher education that use “queer theory” and gender theory to examine works of literature.
Harvard University, for example, is also offering a class in this spring semester called “Queer/Medieval,” which asks: “what can queer theory offer readers of medieval literature in its explorations of gender, sexuality, race, power, narrative, trauma, and time?”
Campus Reform has contacted Barnard College and Melanie Heydari for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
Author
