Course Info: HACU-0188

CourseHACU-0188 Deviant Bodies
Long TitleDeviant Bodies: The Regulation of Race, Sex, and Disability in the US
Term2016S
Note(s) Satisfies Distribution
Textbook information
Meeting InfoEmily Dickinson Hall 2 on T,TH from 12:30-1:50
FacultyProfessor Loza
Capacity23
Available5
Waitlist0
Distribution(s) Power, Community and Social Justice
Cumulative Skill(s)Independent Work
Multiple Cultural Perspectives
Writing and Research
Additional InfoStudents are expected to spend 8-10 hours weekly in preparation and work outside of class time.
Description

Since its founding, the US has closely regulated the bodies of Others and punished those that rebel against these socially-constructed designations. Utilizing an interdisciplinary amalgam of Critical Race Theory, Sexuality Studies, Queer Theory, Media Studies, Sociology, American Studies, Performance Studies, and Feminist Theory, this course explored how the state, the media, and civilian institutions police the boundaries of race, gender, and sexuality by pathologizing, criminalizing, and stigmatizing difference. We also examined how the subjects burdened with these dangerous inscriptions evade and contest them through passing, performativity, and other forms of identity-based resistance. Special attention was paid to the criminalization of cross-racial and same sex desire; the re-biologization of racial and sexual difference; the dehumanization of immigrants; the racialization of crime; the gendering of mental disorder; the rise of homonormativity; genetic surveillance; the biopolitics of reproduction; and the role of The Law in constructing and controlling deviant bodies.