LITR 222 - LGBT/Queer Literatures [GEUS or GEKH]

The purpose of this class is to provide students with a survey of important texts in the LGBT/Queer literary canon. Students will learn to examine the complexity of their own social and cultural identities through rigorous literary interpretation and dialogue with these texts and with one another. Over the course of the semester, students will acquire a more nuanced language to express and navigate their participation as individuals and agents who live in community with others – on campus, in the U.S., and across the globe.

The purpose of this class is to provide students with a survey of important texts in the LGBT/Queer literary canon. Literature provides a window into the lives, experiences, and histories of diverse people and cultures; it helps us to see how creative expression can shape individual and community understandings of the world.  Appreciation of aesthetic form is cultivated in students’ exposure to and analysis of queer experiences, lives, history, and politics in a variety of literary genres, including poetry, memoirs, and drama.  Class work helps students to generate their own ideas about the world and about how literature works to change that world by challenging conventions and by cultivating empathy and understanding. Over the course of the semester, students will acquire a more nuanced language to express and navigate their participation as individuals and agents who live in community with others – on campus, in the U.S., and across the globe.
Keywords: gender , literature , U.S. Diversity (GEUS) , Knowledge of the Disciplines - Humanities  

Equivalent Courses: WGST 222 
Updates: Approved for GEUS & GEKH 3/2019, New Course 11/2018, effective Fall 2019

Winter 2025 Course Sections

Fall 2024 Course Sections