AFS 201 - Black Feminist/Queer Theories

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement DE.
This course is designed to introduce students to the theoretical contributions of Black feminist and Black queer artists, activists, and scholars working in a variety of disciplinary fields. Black Women’s cultural production and activism; Black Feminist Theory; its concept of intersectionality; and subsequent spawning of Black Queer Studies and queer of color critique. The course addresses foundational concerns of Black feminist and Black queer practitioners (i.e., reproductive health; sexual violence; homophobia and heternormativity; the subordination of black women; and the effects of racism and colonialism on Black communities) through the critical examination of a wide range of source material from literature to cultural criticism and visual art to sociopolitical analysis. In addition to building theoretical acumen and analytical skills, the course emphasizes the need to understand the historical and political experiences of the sexual and gender alterity of all black-raced bodies. As an introduction, the course is hyper-focused upon the political and artistic activism of Black feminist and Black queer practitioners during the 1970s and 1980s and its reverberating effect upon socio-historical analysis and cultural criticism.