Digital Reading Room 2.0 -- MAIS 628: Gender and Sexuality (Revision C7)

MAIS 628: Gender and Sexuality (Revision C7) Report a Broken Link

MAIS 628: Gender and Sexuality introduces students to the theories and empirical research that form the backbone of gender and sexuality studies. Students will question the cultural imperative that there are but two biological sexes, and that heterosexual desire and practice are the norms against which all other desires and practices are measured and found to be “deviant.” The course invites a critical examination of the two-sex binary order and the heteronormative matrix, and focuses on the ways in which sexed and sexual regimes are reproduced, resisted, and challenged through feminine, masculine, queer, and trans performances of identity.

Week 1

Week 2

Prasad, A. (2005). Reconsidering the socio-scientific enterprise of sexual difference: The case of Kimberley Nixon. Canadian Woman Studies, 24(2/3), 80–84.

Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000, July/August). The five sexes revisited: The varieties of sex will test medical values and social norms. The Sciences, 18−23.

Costello, C. G. (2021, September 12). The silly idea of your “real” binary sex. The Intersex Roadshow [Blog]. https://intersexroadshow.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-silly-idea-of-your-real-binary-sex.html

Ford, T. (2015, August 7). My life without gender: ‘Strangers are desperate to know what genitalia I have’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/07/my-life-without-gender-strangers-are-desperate-to-know-what-genitalia-i-have

Week 3

Nicholson, L. (1994). Interpreting gender. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 20(1), 79–105.

Butler, J. (2014). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (10th anniverary ed.). Routledge.

Week 4

Southbank Centre. (2016, March 14). Kimberlé Crenshaw—On Intersectionality—keynote—WOW 2016 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DW4HLgYPlA

Zimmerman, T. (2017). #Intersectionality: The fourth wave feminist Twitter community. Atlantis, 38(1), 54–70.

Week 5

West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society, 1(2), 125–151. https://www.jstor.org/stable/189945

Currier, D. M. (2013). Strategic ambiguity: Protecting emphasized femininity and hegemonic masculinity in the hookup culture. Gender & Society, 27(5), 704–727. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243213493960

Wolkomir, M. (2020). Swingers and polyamorists: A comparative analysis of gendered power dynamics. Sexualities, 23(7), 1060–1079. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460719876845

Week 6

Finley, N. J. (2010). Skating femininity: Gender maneuvering in women’s roller derby. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 39(4), 359–387. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241610364230

Nicholls, E. (2016). ‘What on earth is she drinking?’ Doing femininity through drink choice on the girls' night out. Journal of International Women's Studies, 17(2), 77–91.

Bell, A. V. (2019). “I’m not really 100% a woman if I can’t have a kid”: Infertility and the intersection of gender, identity, and the body. Gender & Society, 33(4), 629–651. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243219849526

Johnson, K. R., & Loscocco, K. (2015). Black marriage through the prism of gender, race, and class. Journal of Black Studies, 46(2), 142–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934714562644

Week 7

Anderson, E., & McCormack, M. (2018). Inclusive masculinity theory: Overview, reflection and refinement. Journal of Gender Studies, 27(5), 547–561. https://doi.org/110.1080/09589236.2016.1245605

Diefendorf, S., & Bridges, T. (2020). On the enduring relationship between masculinity and homophobia. Sexualities, 23(7), 1264–1284. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460719876843

Greenebaum, J., & Dexter, B. (2018). Vegan men and hybrid masculinity. Journal of Gender Studies, 27(6), 637–648. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2017.1287064

Week 8

Rodriguez, N. S., Huemmer, J., & Blumell, L. E. (2016). Mobile masculinities: An investigation of networked masculinities in gay dating apps. Masculinities and Social Change, 5(3), 241–267. https://doi.org/10.17583/MCS.2016.2047

Han, A. (2014). I think you’re the smartest race I’ve ever met: Racialised economies of queer male desire. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, 10(2), 1–15.

McCune, J. Q., Jr. (2008). “Out” in the club: The down low, hip-hop, and the architexture of black masculinity. Text and Performance Quarterly, 28(3), 298–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/10462930802107415

Week 9

Week 10

Weeks 11–12

Warner, M. (1991). Introduction: Fear of a queer planet. Social Text, 29, 3–17. https://www.jstor.org/stable/466295

Clare, E. (2015). Freaks and queers. In Exile and Pride: Disability, queerness and liberation (3rd ed., pp. 81–118). South End Press.

Stone, A. L. (2013). Flexible queers, serious bodies: Transgender inclusion in queer spaces. Journal of Homosexuality, 60(12), 1647–1665. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2013.834209

Eguchi, S., & Long, H. R. (2019). Queer relationality as family: Yas fats! Yas femmes! Yas asians! Journal of Homosexuality, 66(11), 1589–1608. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2018.1505756

Greensmith, C., & Giwa, S. (2013). Challenging settler colonialism in contemporary queer politics: Settler homonationalism, Pride Toronto, and Two-Spirit subjectivities. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 37(2), 129–148.

Weeks 13–14

Darwin, H. (2020). Challenging the cisgender/transgender binary: Nonbinary people and the transgender label. Gender & Society, 34(3), 357–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243220912256

Rogers, B. A. (2020, May 28). Trans manhood: The intersections of masculinities, queerness, and the South. Men and Masculinities (Advanced Online Publication). https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X20927058

Horncastle, J. (2018). Busting out: Happenstance surgery, clinic effects, and the poetics of genderqueer subjectivity. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 5(2), 251–267. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-4348684

Cavanagh, S. L. (2011). Trans subjects and gender misreadings in the toilet. In Queering bathrooms: Gender, sexuality, and the hygienic imagination (pp. 52–78; 237–240). University of Toronto Press.