Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A specific theme within the field of gender, sexuality, and women's studies, not otherwise covered in depth in regularly scheduled courses, will be dealt with as occasion and demand warrant.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course will look at how trans people craft their lives across the world. Every week we shall look at a particular issue or a particular cultural context to parse out the specific set of freedoms and challenges trans people face. This shall help us look at how a particular question, or challenge, or freedom, takes a different form in a different place, thereby revealing how trans people become a site for national and cultural anxieties. For e.g. the bathroom debate in the U.S. and Canada loses its urgency in contexts of poverty in India. By looking at trans bodies in Indonesia and Iran we will see how different histories reveal different meanings of the word trans and hence de-stabilizes a universal, or global, or standardized experience or definition of trans. Yet, certain desires are recognized across cultural contexts such as Gender Affirmation Surgeries to graft onto other global economies such as medical tourism; how do the different legislations dealing with sex work impact the lives of trans sex workers; what do trans people reveal to us about poverty and policing? One of the questions that the readings of this course will pursue is to track the similarities and differences between the lives of trans people across cultural contexts. By using trans as the lens to view the world, we shall see how it reveals larger questions such as what constitutes masculinity, femininity, the body, and how should we define health.

Each week of the course will be divided into 4 different components.

1. Reading: Every week I shall upload articles from popular media, short write-ups from scholars, activists, local experts in addition to the weekly assigned readings. Students will do these readings during the lecture. This is important for students to learn how to frame a research question and collect materials to analyze. This practice is essential for students in order to write their research paper.
2. Film: A short documentary film will be made available through the library and students are required to watch the film before our meetings.
3. Writing: At the end of the week, each student is required to submit a short precis (not more than 250 words) that summarizes the thoughts and questions that the student has collected after watching the film, participating in the lecture, having done both sets of readings (weekly assigned readings and popular write-ups). These submissions will be graded and count towards your grade. This will help me keep track of your progress through the semester.
4. Discussion: This course will follow the flipped classroom format which will require students to have come done the reading and ready for discussion. This class requires willing participants: students who come prepared, are willing to ask questions and share insights, and are willing to take the risks of working through suggested interpretations of the course material. Participation includes taking some of the responsibility for generating the points of entry and direction of the dialogue via generating questions and engaging in discussion.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

For more detailed information please see the GSWS website: https://www.sfu.ca/gsws/undergraduate/courses/goals

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING NOTES: