Dates: February 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th
Time: 6.30-8.30
Terms like queer, heteronormativity, homonationalism, and pinkwashing are widely used, but where do they come from and what do they actually mean? How can these critical concepts help us to make sense of ourselves and the world around us? How might a queer approach shed light on ways that gender and sexuality intersect with class, race, patriarchy, disability and colonialism? For LGBTQ+ history month, take a deep dive into key ideas from queer theory, identities, politics, activism. Classes will comprise discussion, reading, and creative practice.
You don’t need any prior knowledge to participate, just a sense of curiosity and an open mind.
Depending on your interests and availability, you may wish to join us for the whole course, or choose specific sessions to attend. Reading lists and resources will be available each week for those who wish to explore these ideas further.
The series of learning classes have been devised by Professor Simon Lock (he/they), Dr Lo Marshall (they/them), Dr Leah Lovett (she/her), Dr Juliana Demartini Brito (she/her) all members of the Queer University College London group (qUCL).
Week 1 - IDENTITIES
This session will explore how queer theory can help us unpick the complexity and fluidity of gender and sexual diversity. How do we understand the ways queer identities have been produced, contested and established? In what ways are these labels both important and problematic? This session will examine the construction of queer identities from a medicalised history, through LGBTQ+ identity politics, to queer notions of performance and fluidity. What might these ideas mean for how we understand sex, gender and sexuality, and the ways they intersect with race, class and disability?
Week 2 - POLITICS
This session will explore the broader political and social structures with which queer identities are entangled. If whiteness, heteronormativity, patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism and cis normativity assume dominance, then queering allows us to see these categories as normative, and not fixed. How is our existence as queer people shaped by these norms, and how can we navigate and resist them? How are social forces such as capitalism and geopolitics implicated in defining and policing queer lives?
Week 3 - JOY, FUN & CARE
Queer thinking and activism is so often oriented around and against harm, fear, violence and oppression. This session will consider what it might mean to centre queer joy, fun, and care. What are the politics of this manoeuvre in a world where fun is packaged to us in proscribed forms, and individualising notions of self-care can deflect from the erosion of societal welfare? How might we create the conditions for queer joy and meaningfully contribute to communities of care when we’re already so stretched?
Week 4 - HISTORIES AND FUTURES
Histories told through a colonial lens impose gender and sexual binaries, and erase queer stories. Queer lives are often not documented, partially represented, or entirely framed around moral panics and disease, which presents challenges for practising queer history. This session invites us to address the archival absences and embrace the blurriness of historical identities in bringing queer pasts to light. How might these stories contribute to help us understand the present and imagine queer futures?