Module POC3134 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POC3134: Queer Theory in the Global Context
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.
Module Aims
The module aims to showcase the centrality of sexuality to global and local processes of governance. It prioritizes intersectional analysis and complicates, rather than simplify, our understanding of the complex relationship of the body to larger socio-political and economic structures. Whilst being situated primarily at the intersection of gender and sexuality studies, the module embraces an overall decolonial methodology that prioritizes historicizing and contextualizing. The module places queer debates across and within distinct borders and times, and pushes for a multi-faceted understanding of what we loosely term politics, history or culture.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. Understand the specificity and materiality of sexuality by anchoring it in diverse contexts 2. Become highly familiar with the theoretical reach and scope of queer theory |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. Develop a critical vocabulary and working knowledge of sexuality debates beyond identity politics 4. discuss and analyse complex overlapping and intersection power structures |
| Personal and Key Skills | 5. Work independently and communicate clearly in writing and speaking 6. Confidently approach and engage in complex queer theoretical conversations |
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover all or some of the following topics:
Knowledge as Embodied
Sexuality and the Modern Nation-State
Sexuality and Colonialism
The Securitization and Militarization of Sexuality
The Commodification of Sexuality
Sexuality and/in the Diaspora(s)
Queer Theory and Futurity Studies
Queer Childhood Studies
Queer Aesthetics
Trans*- ing and Crossing in the Contemporary World
Queer Transnational Solidarity Work
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching activities | 22 | 11 x 2 hours sessions Sessions to consist of a mix of lecture/seminar. |
| Guided independent studies | 128 | Private study students are expected to read suggested texts and make notes prior to seminar sessions. They are also expected to read widely to complete their coursework assignments. More specifically, students are expected to devote at least: 66 (6 hours per topic/week) hours to directed reading; 6 hours to completing the formative research outline; 42 hours (3 hours/day over two weeks) for completing the essay; 10 hours (2 hours/day over 5 days) for completing literature critique pieces. The 4 remaining hours serve as a margin to be adjusted depending on the student in question |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
- ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/
- Kanopy;
- podcasts;
- blogs and vlogs;
- cultural productions (songs; music videos; films; performances);
- policy briefs;
- annual reports from selected international organizations
How this Module is Assessed
In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.
Formative Assessment
A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group Presentation | 18 minutes max | 1-6 | Oral and Written |
Summative Assessment
A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 10 | 150-200 words / week. *For each topic, (10 in total), and in 150-200 words max: Student reflect on at least one of the essential readings and critically respond to at least one other students comments using the modules ELE page Forum. | 1-6 | Oral and Written |
| Critical Review Piece | 30 | 1000 words | 1-6 | Written |
| Essay | 60 | 2500 words | 1-6 | Written |
Re-assessment
Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical Review Piece | Critical Review Piece, 1000 words (40%) | 1-6 | August/September re-assessment period |
| Essay | Essay, 2500 words (60%) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
Re-assessment notes
Critical Review Piece 1000 words (40%) August/September reassessment period (Students have the choice to write a critical review on one of the essential readings. Convenor to designate 10 pieces for students to choose from).
Essay 2500 words (60%) August/September reassessment period (Students to write an essay answering one question out of 5 provided.)
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
This list is indicative:
Monographs and Journal Articles (Selected):
Ahmed, Sara. 2013. Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality.Routledge: London and New York.
a khanna. 2007. Us “Sexuality Types”: A Critical Engagement with the Postcoloniality of Sexuality, in B. Bose & S. Bhattacharyya, eds. The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India, pp.159- 167.
Amer, Sahar. 2012. Naming to Empower: Lesbianism in the Arab Islamicate World Today, Journal of Lesbian Studies, vol. 1, no.4, pp. 381-397.
Boone, Joseph. 2014. The Homoerotics of Orientalism, Columbia University Press.
Chávez, Karma. 2013. Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
D’Emilio, John. 1983. “Capitalism and Gay Identity”, in A. Snitow, C. Stansell & S Thompson, eds. Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality, Monthly Review Press.
Duggan Lisa. 2002. “The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism.” In: Castronovo R. and Nelson D.D. (eds) Materializing Democracy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 173–194.
El-Tayeb, Fatima. 2012. “Gays who cannot properly be gay’: Queer Muslims in the Neoliberal European City,” European Journal of Women’s Studies, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 79-95.
Engebretsen, Elizabeth. 2013. Queer Women in Urban China: An Ethnography. Routledge: London and New York.
Fejes, Fred. 2000. Market niche at last, market niche at last, thank god almighty, we're a market niche at last: The political economy of Lesbian/Gay identity. [online]
Grewal, Inderpal. 1996. Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel. Durham: Duke University Press.
Habib, Samar, 2010. Islam and Homosexuality, ABC-CLIO.
Haritaworn, Jin. 2015. QueerLovers and Hateful Others: Regenerating Violent Times and Places, Pluto Press.
Hopwood, Denis. 1999. Sexual Encounters in the Middle East: The British, the French, and the Arabs, Reading: Ithaca.
Jad, Islah. 2014. Between Religion and Secularism: Islamist Women of Hamas’, in Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone (ed.) On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era, New York: Feminist Press.
Kandiyoti, Deniz. 1991. Women, Islam, and the State, Temple University Press.
____________. 1988. Bargaining with Patriarchy, Gender and Society, 2(3), pp. 274 – 290.
Karayanni Stavros, S. 2004. Dancing Fear and Desire: Race, Sexuality, and Imperial Politics in the Middle Eastern Dance, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Massad, Joseph. 2007. Desiring Arabs, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
McCormick, Jared. 2011. Hairy Chest, Will Travel: Tourism, Identity, and Sexuality in the Levant. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, vol 7, no. 3.pp. 71-97.
Mourad, Sara. 2013. Queering the Mother Tongue. International Journal of Communication, vol. 7, no. 14, pp. 2533-2546.
Najmabadi, Afsaneh. 2005. Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity, University of California Press.
Perez, Hiram. 2005. You can have my brown body and eat it, too! Social Text 2005, vol. 23, pp.171-191.
Puar, Jasbir. 2013. Rethinking Homonationalism, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 45, pp. 336-339.
___________. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times, Durham: Duke University Press.
Rao, Rahul. 2014. The Location of Homophpbia, London Review of International Law, Volume 2, Issue 2, 1 September 2014, Pages 169–199.
___________. 2015. Global Homocapitalism. Radical Philosophy, vol. 194, pp. 38-49.
Richter-Montpetit, Melanie. 2017. Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (in IR) But were Afraid to Ask: The ‘Queer Turn’ in International Relations, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol 46. No.2, pp. 220-240.
Traub, Valerie. 2008. The Past is a Foreign Country? The Times and Spaces of Islamicate Sexualities, in Islamicate Sexualities: Translations Across Temporal Geographies of Desire, edited by Kathryn Babayan, Afsaneh Najmabadi, Cambridge : Harvard University.
Weber, Cynthia. 2016. Queer International Relations: Sovereignty, Sexuality, and the Will to Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yegenoglu, Meyda. 1998. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism, Cambridge University Press.
Zeʼevi, Devi.2006. Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900, University of California Press.
