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Thurs. 1/27

It was lovely to see everyone in person on Tuesday! And thanks for such a great class discussion! We covered a lot of ground, from the truthiness of Sedgwick’s axioms to her idea of “the closet” and current conceptions of coming out, to David’s struggle with coming out to himself and the subsequent impacts that has on the settings and characters around him in the first part of Giovanni’s Room. For today’s work, I’d like us to work on one of the exercises we didn’t have time for in class, and to address some of the themes of taboo and transgression we began to discuss, now that you have finished the second half of Baldwin’s novel.For the prompts below, please respond

Part I: The 1950s, Queer Folks, and Medical Rhetoric

As we began discussing the first part of Giovanni’s Room, the word “shame” came up in our conversation a few times. David clearly is struggling to accept a major part of himself, and that continues throughout the second half of the book as he explores his relationship with Giovanni further. On Tuesday, I handed out a speech from 1957 given by Dr. Albert Ellis, a medical doctor and straight “ally” arguing for the need for greater tolerance and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. His argument is posed by laying out steps for how queer folks can make themselves more acceptable to straight folks. (…Remember, this was the ’50s…) The speech features some of the medical rhetoric very common to the period in discussions of the LGBTQ+ community. (For more on some of the harmful ways that type of rhetoric impacted queer folks throughout their lives, take a look at Queer Literacies by my dissertation advisor, Mark McBeth. It’s a sad read at times, but so, so excellent.) After reading reading through Ellis’s speech, I’m wondering where you can see connections between the that diagnostic rhetoric and the recurring elements of shame seen in Giovanni’s Room? How does shame get tangled up in the book with David trying to “fix” himself? Conversely, is there another healing going on in the book, counter to this institutionalized version alluded to in Ellis’s speech?

*If you don’t have the hard copy of the speech from our handout, here is the PDF.*

Part II: Taboo and Transgression Throughout the Novel

We talked a lot about transgression and taboo when we discussed Foucault, and those words came up again in our reading of Sedgwick. Where do we see those ideas popping up in Baldwin’s text, particularly in the second half of the book? How do they operate as major themes in the novel? As a result, how can we start to read Baldwin through the lens of Foucault’s theories of sexual production and repression?

We’ll be discussing Judith Butler next week, with Dana giving us our first theory presentation on Tuesday. Butler focuses on embodiment and conceptions of gender and sex in society. If you have any questions or need any help understanding the readings, feel free to see me during my office hours or to schedule a meeting with me. I’m happy to help! 🙂

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Thurs. 1/20

On Tuesday, I mentioned that I’d be asking you to take a look at some speeches from early LGBTQ+ rights activists, but I think I’ll set that aside for our work together next week. (I know the Sedgwick reading is a bit dense so I don’t want to assign more reading on top of that for you today.) Instead, I have a few synthesizing questions I’d like you to discuss in small groups on Moodle to build connections between Foucault and Sedgwick:

Both Foucault and Sedgwick are laying out hypotheses in their books. Foucault’s focuses on the production of sexuality in society, while Sedgwick’s focuses more specifically on the binary of homosexual vs heterosexual desire in Western history and culture. In the chapter we’ve read, Sedgwick lays out axioms or truths as a groundwork for the tests she puts to her hypothesis later in the book in the chapters we won’t be reading this semester. (I highly recommend reading at least chapter one, “Epistemology of the Closet,” if you’re interested in reading more queer theory after this class, as it’s essential – it was just a bit too long for me to assign on top of “Axioms.”) As I mentioned in some of my introductory comments, Sedgwick’s axioms seems rather simplistic on the surface, but are more complex than they seem. For our discussion board post today, I’d like you and your group to think about a particular axiom in the context of today’s views of sexuality as well as what we learned from Foucault. Do we think the axiom itself holds up? Do we think Sedgwick’s 1990 explanation of the axiom holds up, or have circumstances changed even if the axiom hasn’t? Is it still a “truth,” or do we think that’s too lofty a term for it? If you’re not sure, explain some of the questions you have or your thinking behind your lack of surety. (It’s okay not to have a definitive answer. 🙂 ) I have some guidelines for my expectations for discussion board posts here, just FYI.

Axiom #2 Group: Kayla, Kora, Charlie, Danielle

Axiom #3 Group: Michaela, Jake, Dana

Axiom #4 Group: Teryn, Izabelle, Kristi, Ryan

Axiom #5 Group: Ken, Dean, Maria

Axiom #7 Group: Maya, Cora, Ashlee

Since I’m posting this so late, your responses won’t be due until Saturday.

Remember that for Tuesday, we’ll be reading the first half of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. See you on campus in Seay 301! 🙂

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Guidelines for Presentations

For these informal presentations, you’ll choose a theorist to explore and explain to the class, helping to lead our class discussion and bring up questions we will address during our time together. The goal of these presentations is to give greater context to our theoretical readings, and to establish connections amongst the different lines of thought we’re confronting this semester. These presentations should be done collaboratively with the other person signed up for your date. Please reach out to your partner well in advance of your presentation date to plan, as collaborative assignments do take more time and it can be frustrating to work with a partner who does not communicate. (Don’t be “that person.” 🙂 )

Your presentation should…

  • Focus on one theorist from our reading list. (Sign up for one here.)
  • Establish some context for that theorist’s work
    • What are some of their major publications?
    • What ideas are they known best for or what groundbreaking work have they accomplished?
    • What are some major criticisms that have been leveled against them (if there are any)?
  • Show how they fit in with other queer theorists
    • Who else on our reading list can be connected to their work and how?
    • What ideas about queer theory have we discussed together in class that you see popping up in their work?
  • Develop about 5-7 discussion questions that we can bring up during our in-person class or as a discussion board post on Moodle focused on the theorist.
  • Develop a short bibliography of further reading by, about, or related to the theorist
  • Be around 8-10 minutes long
  • Provide some type of visual – a slideshow, a handout, an infograph, etc.
    • Feel free to include images, videos, GIFs, memes, etc. as long as you give photo credits appropriately
  • Use MLA citations for all sources (scholarly sources and credible websites only, please)