Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Advanced seminar on selected literary works as they intersect with and are shaped by issues of gender and/or sexuality. May be organized by theme, critical approach, historical period, or individual author. This course may be repeated for credit if a different topic is taught. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

Beyond the Tragic Trope: Queer YA Romance

Romantic narratives about queer youth in English no longer feature blame, shame, and self-harm, but more often represent, support, and celebrate, while acknowledging the social challenges and attacks queer youth experience. There is currently a publishing boom for Young Adult love stories in which the protagonists are gay, lesbian, bisexual, non-binary, gender-fluid, and transgender. Though there’s not as much representation yet of intersex, asexual, or two-spirit characters, we’re starting to see these texts published. It has been a time of much positive change.

This course features protagonists who are racially diverse as well as being bisexual, demisexual, transgender, and lesbian, in recent YA novels that draw on a variety of popular genres—rom-com, realism, magic realism, historical—to explore how current OwnVoices authors are moving beyond the tragic trope. What do these works say to us as readers, whether we are Queer or cis-het? How do they relate gender and sexuality to culture and identity, to family and friendship? Why are they important texts, and what effects are they likely to have?

Each student in this course will develop an individual research project, which could be focused on a course author, make a comparison with other works in a genre, or do something else the student and instructor agree will be productive. You will build on your strengths and knowledge bases (cultural, creative, academic, etc.) and develop skills in using databases, academic writing, peer review, and editing. The instructor will give feedback and letter grades to each student at various stages of their work, and the final grade will come out of dialogue between the instructor and the student. The course will be Writing Intensive: more than 50% of the work each student does will be writing they get feedback on, and revision will be an important part of their writing process. Roughly 25% of class time will be hands-on work on the research project such as database practice and peer review.

Assessments will include a research proposal, an annotated bibliography, a pecha kucha research presentation, a draft essay, and a revision of the essay. Any assessment may be re-done after receiving a letter grade. The instructor is open to essays that blend the creative and critical, use multiple media, and/or use styles that are outside the norms of Western settler academia, provided they are supported with evidence from literary texts and research materials. At the end of the course, students can choose to publish their revised essay in an anthology as part of SFU library’s digital collection.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

1/ to develop/refine skills in academic (& possibly non-academic) research in literature,

2/ to pursue one topic of interest intensively and achieve a publishable piece of writing on it,

3/ to explore what lies beyond traditional gender-normative thinking, and

4/ to employ anti-oppressive ways of being in the world that can make a difference to students’ (and others’) lives.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Although sometimes the required readings contain sadness and violence, each one ends in a good place for the protagonists. Not too many content warnings necessary.

The texts will be on reserve in the library and available through the bookstore. You are welcome to purchase used books, use audio books, and/or source books from local libraries. There will also be a couple of short excerpts from other works and some critical articles to read, which will be available in Canvas or from the library.

REQUIRED READING: