Queer in Literature and Culture

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

The course introduces to the general characteristics of contemporary queer studies as source of analytical tools for interpreting literature, art, film and generally – culture. For this reason, it has several basic goals. First, it will present a map of basic concepts and categories within queer theory. Especially theoretical concepts of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (for example: homosocial desire, homosexual panic, homosocialities, masculinities, feminities, affects, shame, gender perfomativity). Secondly, course will present important queer motives in European literature, especially at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (consequences of the trial of O. Wilde, M. Proust, W. Woolf etc.) in the context of emancipation discourses of the early 20th century (Magnus Hirschfeld etc.). Thirdly - in this historical and methodological context, there will be presented Eastern European, especially Polish, culture and art (W. Gombrowicz, D. Masłowska, M. Witkowski, K. Radziszewski etc).

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

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Syllabus

Week 1: General introduction and main concepts
Week 2: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and queer theoryEve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Thinking through queer theory
Week 3: Homosocialities, friendship and male intimacy: Queer Reading of Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad, Il Conde. A Pathetic Tale (short story)
Week 4: Female homosocilities, intimicies and friedshipReading (fragments of) L-word and other cultural examples
Week 5: Scandals at the Turn of Century (O. Wilde and R. Hall) and discourses of masculinity at the beginning of XXth Centuary
Week 6 :Berlin and Paris and the Beginning of XX Century: Emancipation and Art(M. Proust, G. Stein etc) Magnus Hirschfeld
Week 7: Reading the transgender (in the historical context)
Week 8: Film and Gender Politics during Communist Era Lukasz Szulc, “Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland: Cross-Border Flows in Gay and Lesbian Magazines”
Week 9: Shame and Art: Queer Art of Witold Gombrowicz Short stories from the volume “Bacaccay”
Week 10: Queering the nation and nationalising the queer: perspectives and risks of the nation-based bonding model in non-normative communities
Week 11: Queer and Postsocialist NostalgiaLovetown by M. Witkowski
Agata Pyzik, Poor but Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West (Zero Books: Winchester-Washington 2014
Week 12: Queer Art and Emancipation in Polad since 1989: Karol Radziszewski and his artworks
Week 13: Homophobia and social change in Poland („Suicide Room” or other films) Tv Series (Sense8)
Week 14: Queer identities and homophobia in the context of East/West distinction
Week 15: Potentials of queer music culturePolish queer, camp and performative music acts in the world context

Reading list

Beachy Robert, Gay Berlin. Birthplace of a Modern Identity , Alfred A. Knopf, Nowy Jork 2015Halberstam J. , Female Masculinity, Durham-London: Duke University Press 1998).Halberstam J., The Queer Art of Failure (Duke University Press 2011).Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Pre-nazi Germany, ed. Harry Oosterhuis, Routledge (Routledge: New York – London 2010)Jeffrey Meyers, Homosexuality&Literature 1890 – 1930 (London: The Anthlone Press 1987).Mazierska Ewa, Black Peters and Men of Marble. Masculinity in Polish, Czech and Slovak Cinema (Berghahn: Oxford- New York 2008).Mosse George L. , Nationalism and Sexuality. Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe, Howard Fertig , Nowy Jork 1997.Polish Literature in Transformation, ed. Ursula Phillips, K. A. Grimstad, K. van Heuckelom (Verlag: Berlin 2013)Pyzik Agata, Poor but Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West (Zero Books: Winchester-Washington 2014).Reading L-word. Outing Contemporary Television, red. Kim Akass and Janet Mccabe (London- New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008). Reading Sedgwick, ed. Lauren Berlant (Duke University Press: Durkham and London 2019)Ruppel Rober , Homosexuality in the Life and Work of Joseph Conrad (London: Routlegde 2008).Sedgwick E. Kosofsky, The Weather in Proust, red. J. Goldberg, M. Moon, Duke University Press, Durham, London 2011.Sedgwick Eve Kosofsky , Between Men. English literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press 1985).Sinfield Alan, The Wilde Century. Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the Queer Movement (New York: Columbia University Press 1994). Szulc Lukasz, Transnational Homosexual in Communist Poland. Cross-Border Flows in Gay and Lesbian Magazines.Woods Gregory , Homitern. How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World, New Haven and London: Yale University Press).Suicide Room (directed by J. Komasa, 2011)Witold Gombrowicz, BacacayJoseph Conrad, Il Conde. A Pathetic TaleDorota Masłowska, Mister D.Michał Witkowski, Lovetown (trans. W. Martin)