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Queer Theory in a Global Context

Module description

This module introduces you to important sexuality-related paradigms beyond identarian concerns by centring the relationship of sexuality to colonialism, nationalism and globalization, to name a few. Through an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach, we will engage with sexuality as a tool for effecting sovereignty, governance, control, and individual and collective agency.

Our reading list prioritizes a theoretically diverse curriculum that surveys the workings of sexuality at micro, meso and macro levels: from the instrumentalization of sexuality under Empire and in contemporary politics, to the commodification of sexuality and the invention of “deviancy”, our module explores the relationship between bodies and power across the globe, particularly in relation to sex/moral panics. You will be introduced to texts from different disciplines, including Anthropology, History, Politics, and Cultural Studies, and engaging with non-academic sources, including films, music, fiction, and DIY online content, to name a few.

Although no prior knowledge is required, students taking this course should express interest in issues and debates related to the intersection of sexuality with global socio-political and economic processes.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims to showcase the centrality of sexuality to global and local processes of governance. It prioritizes intersectional analysis and complicates, rather than simplifies, our understanding of the relationship between the body and larger socio-political and economic structures. Development, security, the question of EDI, warfare, data and algorithms are among the spaces intentionally ‘queered’ by the module to extrapolate global economies of inclusion and exclusion. The module places queer debates across and within distinct borders and times, and pushes for a multi-faceted understanding of what we loosely term politics, history or culture. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Pluralize your understandings of sexuality beyond identitarian frameworks
• 2. Familiarize yourself with the theoretical reach and scope of queer theory

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Develop a critical vocabulary and working knowledge of sexuality debates beyond identity politics
• 4. Discuss and analyse complex overlapping and intersection power structures

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Work independently by taking the lead on researching and executing summative work over a period of a term
• 6. Confidently approach and engage in complex conversations in group and individually

Syllabus plan

Whilst the precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover all or some of the following topics: 

• Queer Theory in/and IR  
• Queer Theory in/and Development  
• Queer Theory in/and Security Studies  
• Judith Butler x Nancy Fraser Debate 
• Fractal Orientalism  
• Empire and Queer Others 
• QueerMarxism 
• Queering Diaspora(s) 
• Queer Theory, Islam, and Jewishness  
• Queering Algorithms 
• Queer Futurity 
• Queer Death Studies 
• Queer/Trans* and Decolonial Aesthetics

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Pre-recorded Presentation (20%) August/September reassessment period (Students will record their presentation and submit it digitally via ELE or where indicated otherwise by the convenor)

Essay of 2500 words (80%) August/September reassessment period. Students develop a synopsis for their essay, including their proposed Essay Question at the end of Term 3. Feedback given on Synopsis to support the final essay to be submitted.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Monographs and Journal Articles (Selected):

• Ahmed, Sara. 2013. Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality . Routledge: London and New York.
• a khanna. 2007. Us “Sexuality Types”: A Critical Engagement with the Postcoloniality of Sexuality, in B. Bose & S. Bhattacharyya, eds. The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India , pp.159- 167.
• Amer, Sahar. 2012. Naming to Empower: Lesbianism in the Arab Islamicate World Today, Journal of Lesbian Studies , vol. 1, no.4, pp. 381-397.
• Boone, Joseph. 2014. The Homoerotics of Orientalism , Columbia University Press.
• Chamas, Sophie and Sabiha Allouche. "Mourning Sarah Hegazi: Grief and the Cultivation of Queer Arabness." WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, vol. 50 no. 3, 2022, p. 230-249. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2022.0046.
• Chávez , Karma. 2013. Queer Migration Politics : Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
• Chevillon, Guillaume, The Queer Algorithm (February 22, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4742138 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4742138
• D’Emilio, John. 1983. “Capitalism and Gay Identity”, in A. Snitow, C. Stansell & S Thompson, eds. Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality , Monthly Review Press.
• Duggan Lisa. 2002. “The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism.” In: Castronovo R. and Nelson D.D. (eds) Materializing Democracy . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 173–194.
• El-Tayeb, Fatima. 2012. “Gays who cannot properly be gay’: Queer Muslims in the Neoliberal European City,” European Journal of Women’s Studies , vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 79-95.
• Engebretsen, Elizabeth. 2013. Queer Women in Urban China: An Ethnography . Routledge: London and New York.
• Fejes, Fred. 2000. Market niche at last, market niche at last, thank god almighty, we're a market niche at last: The political economy of Lesbian/Gay identity . [online]
• Grewal, Inderpal. 1996. Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel . Durham: Duke University Press.
• Haritaworn, Jin. 2015. Queer Lovers and Hateful Others: Regenerating Violent Times and Places , Pluto Press.
• Kafer, Gary. "3 Machine Learning and the Queer Technics of Opacity". Queer Data Studies, edited by Patrick Keilty, Rebecca Herzig and Banu Subramaniam, Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2024, pp. 83-106. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780295751986-005
• Massad, Joseph. 2007. Desiring Arabs , Chicago: Chicago University Press.
• McCormick, Jared. 2011. Hairy Chest, Will Travel: Tourism, Identity, and Sexuality in the Levant. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies , vol 7, no. 3.pp. 71-97.
• Mourad, Sara. 2013. Queering the Mother Tongue . International Journal of Communication , vol. 7, no. 14, pp. 2533-2546.
• Najmabadi, Afsaneh. 2005. Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity , University of California Press.
• Perez, Hiram. 2005. You can have my brown body and eat it, too! Social Text 2005, vol. 23, pp.171-191.
• Puar, Jasbir. 2013. Rethinking Homonationalism, International Journal of Middle East Studies , 45, pp. 336-339.
• Rao, Rahul. 2014. The Location of Homophpbia, London Review of International Law , Volume 2, Issue 2, 1 September 2014, Pages 169–199.
• ___________ . 2015. Global Homocapitalism. Radical Philosophy, vol. 194, pp. 38-49.
• ___________. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages : Homonationalism in Queer Times, Durham: Duke University Press.
• Richter-Montpetit, Melanie. 2017.   Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (in IR) But were Afraid to Ask: The ‘Queer Turn’ in International Relations , Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol 46. No.2, pp. 220-240.
• Weber, Cynthia. 2016. Queer International Relations: Sovereignty, Sexuality, and the Will to Knowledge , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Yegenoglu, Meyda. 1998. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism , Cambridge University Press.
• Ze’evi, Devi.2006. Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900 , University of California Press. 

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• Kanopy;
• podcasts;
• blogs and vlogs;
• cultural productions (songs; music videos; films; performances);
• policy briefs;
• annual reports from selected international organizations

Key words search

Queer theory; IR; Politics; Sovereignty; Development; Orientalism; Governance; Aesthetics; Economics; Subjectivity