Why does cultural production matter? What is its relevance to queers and other minoritarian groups? This course will attempt to answer these large questions by considering the world-making capacities of queer cultural productions-vanguard literary, cinematic, and performance productions all sharing a common political urgency. Novels by Samuel Delaney, John Rechy and Achy Obejas will be viewed as testaments to actually existing queer cultures. Film and video, ranging from narrative to experimental, by Isaac Julien, Ela Troyano, Richard Fung, Kimberly Pierce and others will be screened as interventionist counter-publicity. The performance work Carmelita Tropicana, Marga Gomez, Jack Smith and others will be studied in relation to the utopian project of imagining a time and a place outside of heteronormativity. Much of this course will pay special attention to the cultural work of queers of color. Requirements: a total of 20 pages of writing in papers of various lengths. Prerequisite: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limited to 25. (Post-1900)

Hour: MUNOZ