Harvard 'Transmediating Love Literature' course to explore 'non-normative, non-ableist' accounts of gender
Harvard University recently disclosed that it will offer a 'Transmediating Love Literature' course during the spring 2025 semester.
One questions students will consider is: "In what ways do non-normative, non-ableist, queer and crip accounts of gender, sexuality, and desire redefine ‘modernity’?"
As LGBT identification continues to become more commonplace among Gen Z college students, many of the nation’s most prestigious universities have begun tailoring their course offerings to match these interests.
Harvard University, for example, will offer a “Transmediating Love Literature” course during the spring 2025 semester.
In the course description, instructor Ursula Deser Friedman notes that students will be exposed to a cross section of Hispanic and Chinese literature that explores a variety of themes relating to being “queer.”
“In this course, we examine modern and contemporary Sinophone and Hispanophone ‘love stories’ and their transmediated afterlives (films, plays, operas, digital archives, and so forth), with an emphasis on romantic encounters in queer literature, magical realism, dystopian, and sci-fi/speculative fiction,” the description reads.
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The course aims to answer various questions, including: “How do queer and crip accounts of love and desire redefine ‘modernity’ in Greater China and Latin America?,” “How are conceptions of love culturally contingent?,” “How do myth, illusion, and projection influence our romantic philosophies?,” and “In what ways do non-normative, non-ableist, queer and crip accounts of gender, sexuality, and desire redefine ‘modernity’?”
Dr. Friedman received her Ph.D. from the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara this year. According to her Harvard profile page, “Ursula approaches literary (self-)translation and transmediation as tools for advancing social justice.”
“By translating and re-mediating our own stories, we heal historical wounds, embrace radical empathy, and engage in reparative dialogues,” the page reads. “As a translator and scholar of contemporary Sinophone literature, particularly queer and speculative émigré fiction, Ursula adopts a reparative approach to literary translation, whereby author, translator, and reader jointly engage in collective world-making.”
The page also notes that outside of her teaching commitments, Dr. Friedman “engages in creative writing highlighting the voices of LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, imprisoned, immigrant, and otherwise disenfranchised characters.”
Campus Reform has reached out to Harvard University and Dr. Friedman for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.