"It is quite impossible to write a worth-while novel about a Jew or a Gentile or a Homosexual, for people refuse, unhappily, to function in so neat and one-dimensional a fashion."
-James Baldwin
"Queerness begins with permission to change… it invites innovation; it is larger than sexuality and gender; it is action."
-Ocean Vuong.
What makes literature queer—not just in content, but in form, feeling, and resistance? This course explores queer and trans* writing as a space of invention, rupture, and reimagination. We will engage a diverse range of texts across poetry, autotheory, memoir, autofiction, and creative-critical hybrids to explore how queer and trans* authors challenge binaries of genre, gender, and body.
Through close reading and creative response, we’ll investigate themes such as camp and queer aesthetics, chosen families and queer spaces, fluid and trans bodies, the erotics of language, and the politics of visibility and voice. Readings include poetry by Audre Lorde, Sam Sax, CAConrad, Eileen Myles, Ocean Vuong, Natalie Diaz, Danez Smith, and Terrance Hayes; excerpts from Maggie Nelson, Hilton Als, Susan Sontag, Carmen Maria Machado, Billy-Ray Belcourt, and Garth Greenwell; and full-length works including James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby.
- Lehrende/r: Gulsin Ciftci