Courses

This graduate colloquium provides a substantial introduction to the history of sexuality, primarily but not exclusively in the United States.  Readings and discussions emphasize both classic and recent historiographic themes, including the emergence of the category of “sexuality” itself and how it has articulated with hierarchies of gender, race, class, nation, and empire, and how the history of sexuality intersects with and might illuminate scholarship on other major themes in American history.  The course also considers sexuality as a source of public and personal identity, a component of social organization and subcultural social life, an object of scientific study, biopolitical management, and legal regulation, and a site of political and cultural conflict.This graduate colloquium provides a substantial introduction to the history of sexuality, primarily but not exclusively in the United States.  Readings and discussions emphasize both classic and recent historiographic themes, including the emergence of the category of “sexuality” itself and how it has articulated with hierarchies of gender, race, class, nation, and empire, and how the history of sexuality intersects with and might illuminate scholarship on other major themes in American history.  The course also considers sexuality as a source of public and personal identity, a component of social organization and subcultural social life, an object of scientific study, biopolitical management, and legal regulation, and a site of political and cultural conflict.