U of Wisconsin offers LGBT courses on ‘Queering Ecofeminism’ and ‘performance activism’

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Gender and Women’s Studies Department is offering several courses this semester that teach LGBTQ themes through film, ecology, and “performance activism.”

UWM students can study the concept of “performance activism” in the context of LGBTQ themes in “Gender, Sexuality, and Performance: Madison Trans and Queer Performance Activism,” according to a recent Gender and Women’s Studies Instagram post. The class is being offered in the fall semester.

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“This place-based course stretches off campus to investigate performance as activism,” the department wrote. “With Madison as our case study, we ask: How does trans and queer performance engage and advance political goals in a hot-button election year?” 

Another fall semester course, Queer & Trans Cinema, will be taught by Benjamin Mier-Cruz, an assistant professor of Scandinavian Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies. 

Mier-Cruz, who uses “they/them” pronouns, is currently working on a book that “explores race, gender, and sexuality in documentaries and short films by Swedish filmmakers of color.” His other research focuses on “transgender studies, queer theory, Black feminist theory, vampire literature, and German literature and film.”

Darshana Sreedhar Mini, an assistant professor in Film who goes by “she/they” pronouns, will teach a fall course on “Gender, Sexuality, and the Media.” Her research focuses on “the intersection of gender, sexuality, transnational media, migrant media and screen cultures of South Asia.”

Interested students can also study LGBTQ themes through ecology this fall with Ruth Goldstein, an assistant professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, who will teach a course titled “Queering Ecofeminism.” Her research centers on the “gendered aspects of human and nonhuman health, a quickly heating planet and environmental racism.” 

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Goldstein’s course is similar to one offered by Cornell University this fall. 

Cornell’s course, “Ecological Justice: Feminist, Queer, and Trans Perspectives,” promises “an in-depth study of ecological justice from feminist, queer, and trans perspectives.”

Other courses appearing on campuses this academic year that push LGBT concepts include a Harvard University course that studies medieval works of literature through the lens of “queer theory” and a University of Florida course on “Early LGBTQ Literatures.”

Campus Reform contacted the University of Wisconsin-Madison and each of the professors mentioned for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.