QUEER TV RTF 335, WGS 335 Spring 2019 Seminar: M/W/F 2:00pm-3:00pm (CMA 3.124) Screening: W: 7:30pm-10:00pm (CMA 3.116) Professor: Curran Nault Office Hours: Wednesdays, 3:30pm-6:30pm, BUR 570 Email:
[email protected] TA: Paxton Haven Office Hours: By appointment Email:
[email protected] Course Overview This course immerses students in the critical analysis of queer television, broadly construed. Students Will read key queer/TV theory writings and explore a diversity of queer TV texts and genres, past and present, paying close attention to their attendant practices of production and reception, as Well as the contested discourses of identity, politics, activism, desire and represen- tation that these texts elicit. Important to this project are historical shifts in the depiction of LGBTQ+ individuals, including their growing visibility within commercial media culture and the “gaystream”—shifts that parallel the evolution of the televisual medium itself, from network TV, to cable, to streaming services. This course also insists on an intersectional approach that actively queries race, class, nation, ability and generation—in additional to gender and sexuality. Course Goals After successfully completing this course, students will have the ability to: • Explicate and debate key queer/television theories and concepts • Recognize dominant strategies used by the commercial media industries in producing LGBTQ+ texts and portraying LGBTQ+ people, and in appeals made to these consumers • Analyze “alternative” queer practices of representation, reception and production • Appreciate the intersections of sexuality with race, class, gender, nation and generation Course Materials All readings are posted on Canvas.