HST 146 - Sexuality in U.S. History

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR (students beginning prior to Fall 2024): Meets general academic requirement HU.
This course is based on the central idea that sexuality is a social category that is historically specific and changes over time and place. To this end, this course examines sexuality in history from the period of early colonization to contemporary America. Broadly, the course includes four main objectives: to read primary and secondary sources that reflect a variety of ways in which sexuality has been discussed in education, religion, law, government, medicine, science and popular culture; to consider popular attitudes and responses to these discussions and their relationship to other social relations and forms of social difference such as race, gender, and class; to obtain a basic understanding of the processes of historical change that create different conceptions of sexuality; to gain greater insight into the relationship between past and present meanings of sexuality.