In 1989 Tina Turner asked "What's love got to do with it?" It will be
the
object of this seminar to explore answers to this question, focusing
on
the intersections between sex, love and the sphere of political
action.

The first part of the course lays the groundwork for our
investigations
through a look at some the key debates surrounding the emergence of
identity as a key concept structuring political and cultural practice.
Topics include the multiculturalism, the essentialism/anti-
essentialism
controversy, the politics of authenticity, otherness, and postmodern
reformulations of identity and difference.

Foucault and his critics will launch us into the second section, which
examines the relationship between sexuality and subjectivity, the
struggle
to articulate and defend marginalized sexualities, the revamping of
masculinity, the contest between gender and sexuality in queer theory
and
the ambivalent location of the body with respect to discourse.  The
third
and last section of the course tackles love, and will include a look
at
some of the institutions of love such as marriage, the ideology of
romance, interracial relations, and uses/abuses of the personal voice
in
academic theory.
	Readings for the seminar draw on work by Donna Haraway, Judith
Halberstam, Patricia Williams, Charles Taylor, Lauren Berlant, Stuart
Hall, Steve Neale,Coco Fusco,Jane Gallop among others.  Additionally
most sessions will include film on subjects ranging from Czechs who
live
like North American Indians to gay rights in Oregon, romantic comedy
in
Hollywood and the complicated encounters of "Others" in the politics
of
clitoridectomy.  Assignments consist of two short papers and weekly
email
exchanges.