SO 306 - Diaspora and Queer Belonging

Credits: 4
In this course we interrogate different conceptualizations and experiences of diaspora through queer readings and queering perspectives, which, as Gopinath (2005) argues, destabilize hetero family-centric epistemologies of home and diaspora and allow us to see the non-linear, variously raced, classed, and gendered diasporic experiences beyond the binary paradigms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and belonging. We engage queer diasporic critique as a way of reconceptualizing diaspora in terms of queerness, affiliation, and shared social and political commitments rather than “ethnic dispersion, ﬁliation, and biological traceability” (Eng, Halberstam, Muñoz 2003, 7). This methodology of queer diasporic critique takes to task heteronormativity in diasporic studies, through figures of impure, inauthentic, and nonreproductive.

Course Restrictions: Junior or Senior standing
Liberal Arts Perspective(s): Social and Psychological, Global Diversity and Justice