This course examines how ideas of gender and sexuality have shaped the production and consumption of visual culture from the late nineteenth century. We will examine a variety of visual and material texts that shape, criticize, and/or negotiate with contemporaneous gender and sexual norms. Focusing on these expressions’ cultural and historical specificities, the students will assess gender and sexuality—and as an extension, the notions of normality, healthfulness, and self—as ideas that continuously evolve in response to social discourses. The course proceeds roughly chronologically. It starts with the nineteenth-century Euro-American context, in which modern ideas of gender and sexuality began to circulate authoritatively in medical and legal terms. It then moves onto more globalized contemporary perspectives that critique and/or expand the pronouncedly “Western” conceptions of identity and identity categories. Prerequisite: None.

Humanities (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2023)

HUMN-SHU 181-000 (23103)
01/30/2023 – 05/12/2023 Mon,Wed
11:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)
at Shanghai
Instructed by Kong, Hyoungee