CMCL-C 445: Media, Culture, and Politics
(Topic: Queer Rhetorics)
Class Number: 11401
Summer Session II

MTuWThF, 11:30 AM-12:20 PM, SY 004

Meets with GNDR-G 402
A portion of this course reserved for majors


Professor: Isaac West
E-mail: inwest@indiana.edu
Office: Mottier Hall 255
Phone: 855-7238

In the last two decades, it seems like everything has been queered.
We have queer theory/queer politics, queer citizenship, queer
performativity, genderqueer, the New Queer cinema, the new New Queer
cinema,  Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk—and these are
only some of the examples that explicitly use queer as a signifier.
It should be clear that the meaning of queer is up for grabs as all
of these examples employ related but different connotations of the
term.  The reclamation of queer has been a welcome development in
some circles while in others queer may connote, among other things,
racism, sexism, and/or politically paralyzing theory.  Each of these
positions is informed by different interpretations of the meaning of
queer, interpretations that conflict over the importance of one’s
identity, actions, and sexuality.  Queer, then, is a robust rhetoric
that generates invention and enables judgment.

We will enter these debates about queerness from the perspective of
engaged intellectuals who are concerned with improving different
cultural modes of democratic practice.  These practices include
activities such as the production and consumption of various kinds
of media and legal rhetorics, the use of public and private spaces,
and the possibilities of coalitional politics.  As engaged
intellectuals we will allow political practices and academic
theorizing to inform one another as each of us develop our stance on
the utility of rhetorics of queer identities, theories, and
politics.