This course is dedicated to representations of same-sex desire in texts written by women. It is based on selected material from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Among other things, it will focus on the historical contextualization of these texts and on their relationship to the discourses on gender and sexuality of their time. This will not only help us to historicize central concepts like ‘lesbian’, but it will also enable us to see how these texts respond to and are affected by ongoing developments in theory (e.g. identity politics, issues of intersectionality, the queering of genders and sexualities etc.). Another strand of inquiry concerns the retrospective reading of earlier lesbian texts through the lens of queer theory and the tenuous relationship between lesbian feminism and queer studies. We will try to fathom the productivities but also normativities of both critical positions.
The Lektürekurs will be twinned with a similar seminar held at the University of Warsaw (Dr. Krystyna Mazur’s course ‘Writing Non-Normative Genders and Desires’), and there will be two compact phases with students from Warsaw (which will also include more material from the U.S.), one to be held in Berlin and one in Warsaw.
Details about this arrangement will follow shortly. Please check AGNES regularly for updates!
Please get hold of and read the following texts:
Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1928)
Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)
Maureen Duffy, The Microcosm (1966)
Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985)
Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet (1998)
Jackie Kay, Trumpet (1998)
Shamim Sarif, I Can’t Think Straight (2008)
Additional material will be announced/ made available at the beginning of the semester.
Please be prepared for a substantial amount of reading. |
