Barnard's 'Queer Caribbean Critique' class to consider 'same-sex desire in the Caribbean region'

Barnard College in New York City is offering a four-credit “Queer Caribbean Critique” course for undergraduate students.

The official course description notes that students will be exposed to a range of methods for “studying same-sex desire,” stating that such desires have developed differently in the Caribbean due to the region’s unique history, thereby requiring that they be studied through different lenses.

“This seminar analyzes the different critical approaches to studying same-sex desire in the Caribbean region,” a course description states. 

”The region’s long history of indigenous genocide, colonialism, imperialism, and neo-liberalism, have made questions about ‘indigenous’ and properly ‘local’ forms of sexuality more complicated than in many other regions,” it continues. ”In response, critics have worked to recover and account for local forms of same-sex sexuality and articulated their differences in critical and theoretical terms outside the language of ‘coming out’ and LGBT identity politics.”

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The description also notes that “critics have emphasized how outside forces of colonialism, imperialism, and the globalization of LGBT politics have impacted and reshaped Caribbean same-sex desires and subjectivities. This course studies these various critical tendencies in the different contexts of the Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Dutch Caribbean.”

Maja Horn, the instructor for “Queer Caribbean Critique,” is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Latin American Cultures. According to her Barnard profile, Horn explores research in “Hispanophone Caribbean cultures with an emphasis on literature, visual and performance art, gender and sexuality studies, and political culture.”

She has also written extensively on gender and sexuality, including her most recent book, Masculinity after Trujillo: The Politics of Gender in Dominican Literature, which “foregrounds the impact of U.S. imperialism on dominant notions of Dominican masculinity and their reinterpretation by pivotal Dominican writers.”

Barnard offers a range of courses related to LGBT studies, including “Gay Harlem,” “How to do things with Queer Bodies,” and “AIDS Is Contemporary.” Among other learning objectives, the AIDS Is Contemporary course explores “the inextricability of queer grief.”

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As part of its transgender policy, the women’s college also considers an applicant’s “gender identity,” thereby admitting men who identify as women.

“In furtherance of our mission, tradition and values as a women’s college, and in recognition of our changing world and evolving understanding of gender identity, Barnard will consider for admission those applicants who consistently live and identify as women, regardless of the gender assigned to them at birth,” the policy reads. “We will also continue to use gendered language that reflects our identity as a women’s college.”

Campus Reform has reached out to Barnard College and Maja Horn for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.