Syllabus for my Queer Literature Class:

[bicentennial_baby]

Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg
Love! Valour! Compassion! - Terrence McNally
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
Rubyfruit Jungle - Rita Mae Brown
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
Angels in America - Tony Kushner

I'm really looking forward to it! :bounce:

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

1. Rubyfruit Jungle rocks!

It was one of the best books I read for Highschool English. Its a quick read, i finished it in a night casue I couldnt put it down!

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. No William S Burroughs or Dennis Cooper?

Guess they don't offer an Extremely Twisted Queer Literature class, eh?

[Taverner]

3. I was gonna say...wheres Naked Lunch????

[bicentennial_baby]

4. Hehe, i know!

Still, it's sooooo much better than my last lit class... :boring:

[6000eliot]

11. And what about Jean Genet?

Allen Ginsburg?

[mitchum]

22. No, they don't fit into the bourgeois criteria which well-meaning...

but misguided arbiters demand. See also John Rechy

[khashka]

26. Dennis Cooper

It's "Queer Lit", not "How To Chop Up Cute Nerdy Boys In Five Easy Pieces".

Might as well put Poppy Z. Brite on the syllabus....

Khash.

[bicentennial_baby]

28. Aaaaaah, "Exquisite Corpse"

:scared:

i took me a while to get through that book!

[terrya]

5. Great syllabus! "Giovanni's Room" is a classic

Enjoy. :-)

[bicentennial_baby]

6. I'm sure I will! Thanks!

I've heard the prof is excellent :thumbsup:

[SmokingJacket]

38. Yes, it is **beautiful***

wish I was reading for the first time....

[Rising Phoenix]

7. Sounds like a good class

I read Rubyfruit Jungle, Oranges are not the Only Fruit, and I think Angels in America good books...enjoy

[bicentennial_baby]

9. thanks baby!

:loveya:

[Arkana]

8. "Queer Literature?"

That's a class?

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. Queer Studies in the humanities has only been

kicking for about 20 years now.

Yes, it's a class, and from the looks of the syllabus, a good one (this is intro to Queer Literature, really). There's also Latino/Latina literature, African American literature, and feminist literature. What's the problem? These are real constitutencies in our society, and they have important and fascinating literary traditions. More importantly, if literature is, as critic Kenneth Burke once said, "equipment for living," these literatures can help us live with each other.

The term Queer is very specific, too. Yes, it is often used as a derisive term, but queer theory picked it up primarily to address all its various constituencies: not just LGBT, but any of the multitude of sexualities that are considered "not normal." So, the word's been reappropriated and turned against "normality" - when you look at things this way, it is actually the "normal" sexuality that is vacant - and ideal that is reached by nobody.

[bicentennial_baby]

14. wow...incredibly well put

:)

[khashka]

29. Wow! Incredibly well said!

Khash.

[6000eliot]

10. 15 weeks?

The syllabus looks a little light to me.

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. It's the dumbing down of undergraduate study

The students go ballistic if they have to read a book a week now (in a literature class!). You have to do a book every two weeks. I shit you not. However, what you lose in coverage, you might make up for in depth. (Although, quite frankly, I think a book like Rubyfruit Jungle, which is really just a lesbian themed pop novel, can probably be covered in a week). Thsi may work better. I know I'd like two weeks to work through the issues in Stone Butch Blues. No Kathy Acker, though?

[khashka]

33. No Kathy Acker

No Dennis Cooper, no Pat Califia, apparently no Dorothy Allison (if such a thing can be believed), no John Preston....

Nothing that's not "safe", middle class, "acceptable".

Queer studies is going the way of women's studies: it has to be nice and acceptable.

Khash.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

20. All depends on how in depth the coverage is

My James Joyce class in college only covered three books: Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses.

I don't think anyone would have considered that class to be "light", however.

[jane_pippin]

12. oooh, Middlesex is a great book.

I think you'll like it. I haven't found a novel I really got into like that in ages.

Oranges are not the Only Fruit is really good too.

Good luck with your class! :hi:

[Wetzelbill]

16. I have a question, it's not really called "Queer Literature" is it?

That being said, I have been meaning to read "Middlesex." Just got lots of others to read as well.

[bicentennial_baby]

17. yes

see post 13 if you need an explanation.

[Wetzelbill]

18. ahh yes.. thank you for pointing that out

That was a great explanation. I was curious because it seems like a term with a negative connotation.

BTW, I sent you a PM a bit ago.

I think I'm heading out here in a few. Have a good one. :)

[Rising Phoenix]

41. my class was called...The Lesbian Experience...

I brought Sniffa a couple of times...

[Tyrone Slothrop]

19. Should be a good class

Middlesex is one of the best books that's come out in the last decade, IMHO.

Angels in America is also pretty fantastic.

Not too familiar with the others...

[mitchum]

21. I see that John Rechy is STILL a troublesome figure for Queer Lit...

classes.
Pity. At his best, his work has no equal.

[khashka]

34. He really is good....

City of Night was simply one of the most important things I ever read.

(I disagree with him about S/m and it's political meanings - but even Numbers and The Sexual Outlaw were brilliant.)

Khash.

[MalibuChloe]

23. I love Rubyfruit Jungle...

let us know how the rest are - I'd like to read some of them!

[Misunderestimator]

24. OMG! I feel so old... you have a QUEER LITERATURE CLASS?

Wow. How cool is that? So where is "The Well of Loneliness" in that list?

[bicentennial_baby]

25. i'm really excited for the class!

:bounce:

[davidinalameda]

30. yick

Well of Loneliness may have been a ground-breaking novel in its day

today's its very dated

I wouldn't recommend it for any class

[Misunderestimator]

31. Well, yes, but for its historical value...

otherwise... I wouldn't touch it either. Very dated... and depressing.

[khashka]

42. I agree with dwick..... yick

I'd replace it with Bertrand Russell's defence of it....


Khash.

[khashka]

27. All good choices, but I'd like to add some (for extra credit)

Becoming A Man by Paul Monette

City of Night by John Rechy

Anything Dorothy Allison ever wrote, but especially Bastard Out Of Carolina

The list seems a little short on the "sex" aspect of homosexuality.... so, Doc and Fluff by Pat Califia. (Kinda raw, but she talks about lesbian seperatism, "passing" women, what girls do in bed together, what boys do in bed together, butch/femme, top/bottom. Kinda raw, kinda rough...)

I'd also recommend Weinstein's Sexual Landscapes - jokey, talky, but explores the evolutionary reasons for homosexuality (as well as other sexually different people).

Khash.

[bicentennial_baby]

32. Hey, thanks for the suggestions!

I will definitely check those out! :)

[khashka]

35. I'll add one more...

Queer Lit, right? Not Fag and Dyke Lit?

Definitely read "Gender Outlaw" by Kate Bornstein (a transgender lesbian - she has a lot to say about gender and homophobia... and she's right.)

Khash.

[bicentennial_baby]

37. Cool!

and now to add to my ever growing piles of books :bounce:

[terrya]

36. Also - "The Beautiful Room is Empty" by Edmund White.

I'd also recommend "The City and the Pillar" by Gore Vidal. Two great examples of classic queer lit.

[khashka]

40. I was so remiss

How could I not list Edmund White or Gore Vidal? (In a perfect world I'd marry Gore. Myra Breckinridge alone is enough....)

And so many others....

I just reread Christopher Rice's A Density Of Souls - beautiful, tragic, angry, sad, and he understands what it means to grow up gay.
Even if those bad things in the novel don't happen to you.... it still makes it clear what it feels like.

Khash.

[In_The_Wind]

39. hmmmm

*adding to my shopping list* for a few friends ...

:hi: