QUEER GEOGRAPHIES

GEOG 511

An introduction to many key movements and thinkers within Critical Social Theory. Explores the changing histories and presents of the field through a range of primary works from philosophy, critical theory, and geography - paying particular attention to the points where social theory intersects with problems of space and place. Covers classic problems in social theory ranging from theories of the political-economic constitution of the social (Marxism) and its extensions into the culture (the Frankfurt School) to a range of mid- to late-twentieth-century epistemological interventions framed around questions of difference and identity. Recent contestations and reformulations that have surfaced across ontological, decolonial, non-human, algorithmic, and other reimaginings and extensions of the social are examined.

GEN&WS/GEOG 514

An introduction to foundational approaches to feminist qualitative research in human geography. Research is not separate from a social world that historically has been and continues to be shaped by (settler) colonial, racialized, gendered, sexualized, and class-inflected relations of power (among others). Research practices and "findings" have been and continue to be used to inform and rationalize relations of oppression, exploitation, and violence. For feminist researchers, then, questions of power, difference, and social change are central to how we design and conduct research. Engages in political-ethical discussions about the positionality and responsibilities of ourselves as researchers, and how our knowledge production can reproduce and challenge prevailing relations of power.

GEOG 518

Advanced political geography course that explores reconceptualizations of power, place, and identity, as well as the interactive forces at work that continually reshape place-making and the inter-related processes of identification and differentiation.

GEOG 515

Offers an in-depth examination of trans lives, selves, and ways of knowing. Focuses on the trans "I" as it appears in autobiography, memoir, theory, performance, visual arts, music, spacing, place making, zines, and vlogs. These works ask how styles of self-making ("auto") might lead to new and changing conceptions of trans lives, worlds, and social formations ("theory"). The trans artists and writers explored fashion selves into prisms to fracture, negotiate, meditate upon, think, and re/present the encounters, becomings, transitions, and enframings that constitute trans existence. This "auto-theoretical" strategy reimagines genre, style, space, and media to create launching points for new trans aesthetics, theories, joys, and struggles. The polyphonic voices of these trans selves, taken together, bring a trans "we" into view, creating a discursive trans space made material.

GEN&WS/GEOG 504

Provides an opening to some of the key debates and practices in feminist (political) geography. Feminist geography focuses on questions of power, difference, embodiment, and social change. How are feminist geographies in conversation with or part of other fields of inquiry, such as critical ethnic studies and Indigenous studies, which also focus on questions of difference, epistemologies of knowledge, and social transformation and/or decolonization? That is, what are the relationships of feminist geographic inquiry to liberatory projects of ending racism, capitalism, settler colonialism, and heteropatriarchy. Explore how feminist theories and approaches in geography transformed prevailing political geographic questions and concerns, such as power, politics, territory, boundaries, sovereignty, and violence. What do feminist principles and debates over feminist politics and methods bring to (political) geography?