Spring 2010 Course Description

Title: Gay and Lesbian Literature Course Number: ENGL 345 CRN # 53733 Instructor: Graham N. Drake Time: T 7-9.30PM Building: Welles 119

• Course Content (scope, purpose, emphasis) This course examines primarily post-1900, Anglo-American gay and lesbian literature and culture, especially film. We will explore a range of representational practices against the emergence of gender and sexuality; feminism; class; ethnicity; and race. Our reading will be informed by a discussion of key concepts (such as the closet, coming out, butch/femme, cross-dressing, and camp) theoretical essays (Butler and Sedgwick, for example), and historical turning points such as the trial of Oscar Wilde, the ban on Hall’s novel, Stonewall, and AIDS.

• Probable Reading List (works arranged in approximate sequence) The Well Of Loneliness Authors: Radclyffe Hall; with a commentary by Havelock Ellis Publisher: New York : Anchor Books, 1990.

Nightwood Authors: Djuna Barnes. Preface by Jeanette Winterson : introd. by T. S. Eliot. Publisher: New Directions

Queer Theory Authors: Annamarie Jagose Publisher: Washington Square, N.Y. : New York University Press, 1996.

The Charioteer : A Novel Authors: Mary Renault. Publisher: Vintage Books

The Education Of Harriet Hatfield : A Novel Authors: by May Sarton. Publisher: W.W. Norton

My Vocabulary Did This To Me : The Collected Poetry Of Jack Spicer Authors: edited by Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian. Publisher: Wesleyan University Press

(Continued on pg.2) Dancer From The Dance : A Novel Authors: Andrew Holleran, Publisher: Perennial

The Normal Heart And The Destiny Of Me : Two Plays Authors: by Larry Kramer; with foreword by Tony Kushner. Publisher: Grove Press

Leaving Tangier : A Novel Authors: Tahar Ben Jelloun ; translated from the French by Linda Coverdale. Publisher: Penguin Books Middlesex Authors: Jeffrey Eugenides. Publisher: Picador

Hood Authors: Emma Donoghue. Publisher: Alyson Publications

myCourses readings from Walt Whitman, Eve Sedgwick, Michel Foucault, Susan Sontag, and other selected articles.

• Evaluation Procedures (including kinds and numbers of papers and exams, role of class participation, oral reports, quizzes and what is going to count in grading) 5-6pp. Essay: 10% of semester grade

12-15-ppl. Essay: 20%

Take-home midterm: 15%

Discussion leadership (group grade): 15%

Final Exam: 25%

Class Participation: 15%