Harvard to host 'Queer Interventions in Latinx Studies' to examine 'coloniality of gender'

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences school will be hosting a course in the upcoming fall semester titled “Queer Interventions in Latinx Studies.”

The class, Harvard says, “brings together the fields of Latinx studies, queer of color critique, and Decolonial feminism(s) to examine the lived experiences, politics, and literary and artistic production of trailblazing Queer Latinx artists, thinkers, and writers such as Gloria Anzaldúa, José Esteban Muñoz, Félix González-Torres, and numerous others.”

Specific topics that students will be learning about in the course are “racial capitalism” and the “coloniality of gender.” 

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The goal the class is to “understand how race, racialization, ethnicity, and class have affected and shaped the ways in which Latinxs express sexual and gender identities.”

The class will have students “model the queer practice of interrogating norms and traditions by exploring major interventions and contributions that push the limits of Latinx criticism.”

Specific topics that the class will explore include “the AIDS epidemic, trans* Latinx poetics and aesthetics, coming out and coming of age narratives, or reimaginations of family and kinship.”

The class is heavily influenced by intersectionality and Critical Theory, asking questions like, “How have LGBTQIA+ Latinx creators and thinkers shaped and intervened in U.S. politics and history?” and “What are the contributions Queer Latinx critique has made to critical race studies or feminist and/or queer theory at large?”

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Harvard is offering another similar fall semester course, “Topics in Latinx Studies: Introduction to Latinx Literature And Visual Arts.”

This class will discuss, among other subjects: “the history of U.S. imperialism in Latin America, transnational migration and the U.S.-Mexico border, the colonial legacies of anti-blackness, Latina feminism(s), or critical Latinx Indigeneities.”

Campus Reform has reached out to Harvard University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.