LGBTQ/Queer/ Gender Criticism

Begin this unit by viewing our presentation on LGBTQ+/ Queer/ Gender Theory - this presentation and accompanying slide show is concerned primarily with Freud's foundational theories.

Slides and Notes for the presentation on LGBTQ+/Queer/Gender Theory

 View the video below for additional background on LGBTQ+/Queer/Gender Theory.

After reviewing the presentation/slides and Youtube video, you'll be ready to take the content quiz on LGBTQ +/ Queer/ Gender Criticism found in our Blackboard classroom.

Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory:

• Luce Irigaray - Speculum of the Other Woman, 1974

• Hélène Cixous - "The Laugh of the Medusa," 1976

• Laura Mulvey - "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 1975; "Afterthoughts on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 1981

• Michel Foucault - The History of Sexuality, Volume I, 1980

• Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - Epistemology of the Closet, 1994

• Lee Edelman - "Homographesis," 1989

• Michael Warner- Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory

• Judith Butler - "Imitation and Gender Insubordination," 1991

Foundational Questions of LGBTQ +/ Queer/ Gender Criticism

• Does the text present characters that elide or cross-gender and sexual identifications? 

• How do the text’s characters subvert the dominant ideology of heterosexuality?

• Does the work affirm, challenge, or negate traditional ideas of men, women, and romantic relationships?

• What elements of the text can be perceived as being masculine (active, powerful) and feminine (passive, marginalized) and how do the characters support these traditional roles?

• What sort of support (if any) is given to elements or characters who question the masculine/feminine binary? What happens to those elements/characters?

• What elements in the text exist in the middle, between the perceived masculine/feminine binary? In other words, what elements exhibit traits of both (bisexual)?

• How does the author present the text? Is it a traditional narrative? Is it secure and forceful? Or is it more hesitant or even collaborative?

• What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay, lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed in...the work's thematic content or portrayals of its characters?

• What are the poetics (literary devices and strategies) of specific lesbian, gay, or queer works?

• What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer, gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary history?

• How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that are by writers who are apparently homosexual?

• What does the work reveal about the operations (socially, politically, psychologically) homophobic?

• How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of sexuality and sexual "identity," that is the ways in which human sexuality does not fall neatly into the separate categories defined by the words homosexual and heterosexual?

Rafael Campo and "The Distant Moon"

Rafael Campo is an American poet, doctor, and author. Campo is the poetry editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. He formally practiced medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and was an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His writing focuses on themes that promote equality and justice for gay people, people of color, and working-class people.

Campo believes that medicine should be about treating patients’ diseases and problems while focusing on their humanity. Through his work, he hopes to inspire physicians to reflect on patients' experiences and address their needs appropriately, using poetry. Campo argues that poetry can often be crucial to healing and recovery.

 For more on Rafael Campo, click HERE and HERE. 

For extra insights into this poem, click HERE.

Walter Whitman and "Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand"

Walter Whitman Jr. (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature. Whitman incorporated transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality.

Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island and lived in Brooklyn as a child and throughout his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's primary poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his money and became well known. The work attempted to reach the ordinary person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until he died in 1892. During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C., and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His later poetry often focused on both loss and healing.

Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."

For more on Walt Whitman, click HERE and HERE.