Cornell course teaches Homer, Plato through ‘prism of queer studies’
Cornell University will host a ‘Queer Classics’ course this fall examining Greek and Latin literature in the context of gender studies.
The class will teach a variety of classic works from the likes of Homer, Plato, and more through ‘queer theoretical frameworks.’
An Ivy League school is set to offer a course studying classic Greek and Latin literature through a scope of “queerness” this fall.
Cornell University will teach a “Queer Classics” class that will examine “classical antiquity and its reception through the prism of queer studies.”
[RELATED: Harvard to offer class examining medieval texts through lens of ‘queer theory’]
The class will include the works of “Homer, Sappho, Euripides, Plato, Ovid and more,” and “will explore how queer theoretical frameworks help us account for premodern queer and trans bodies, desires, experiences, and aesthetics.”
It will also “unpack how classical scholarship might reproduce contemporary forms of homophobia and transphobia in its treatments of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in the classical past, and in turn how modern uses of the classical might reinforce or dismantle exclusionary narratives around ‘queerness’ today as it intersects with race, gender, sexuality, and class.”
The course will be taught by assistant professor Cat Lambert, who works “widely on Latin and Greek literature through the lenses of book history, gender and sexuality studies, queer studies, and the intersections between these critical approaches.”
Lambert has written several publications related to LGBTQ issues, including “Forging Lesbians: Sappho and The Songs of Bilitis” and the upcoming “Lucian’s Queer Book User in the Adversus Indoctum.”
Cornell will also offer a number of other LGBTQ-themed courses, including “Ecological Justice: Feminist, Queer, and Trans Perspectives” and “Optimizing Your First Year Experience: Queer Identities and Beyond,” the latter of which “will promote and encourage self-exploration of your queer identities, ways to be successful at Cornell and beyond while keeping in mind the importance your identity plays into your experience as a student and as a global citizen.”
Campus Reform has reached out to Cornell University for comment.
