University of Chicago course will instruct students on 'The Queer Enemy'
Next semester, the University of Chicago will offer students a course called 'The Queer Enemy and the Politics of Homophobia.'
Course topics will address questions like '[h]ow is the queer enemy politically constructed?' and 'what are the uses and effects of this enemy in contemporary politics?'
One of the nation’s premier universities will soon offer a class on “homophobia.”
In the winter semester, the University of Chicago will offer students a course called “The Queer Enemy and the Politics of Homophobia,” which is set to be featured through the Gender and Sexuality Studies program.
Course topics will address questions like “[h]ow is the queer enemy politically constructed?” and “what are the uses and effects of this enemy in contemporary politics?”
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“This course investigates queer sexuality as a specific kind of threat and homophobia as a specific mode of political antagonism,” the description says. “Key to understanding this specificity is the examination of other kinds of political enemies.”
“Across categories of gender, sexuality, race, religion, and empire, the course theorizes the queer enemy in a comparative perspective,” it continues. “[W]e compare homophobia with other forms of political enmity like misogyny, anti-Black racism, and anti-Semitism.”
One figure students will study in the course is Monique Wittig, a French feminist author.
“In May 1970, Wittig co-published what can be described as the manifesto of the French feminist movement,” her official biography reads. “Throughout the early ‘70s, Wittig was a central figure in the radical lesbian and feminist movements in France.”
Later in the semester, the course will examine the connection between LGBT issues and colonialism.
“Through notions of ‘Pinkwashing’ and the ‘Gay International,’ we further examine how queer liberation is made to stand in for colonial domination,” the description continues. “But we also read critiques of the ‘gay=colonialism’ equation, asking how homophobia mediates anti-colonial politics.”
The university’s Gender and Sexuality Studies program “allows undergraduates the opportunity to shape a disciplinary or interdisciplinary plan of study focused on gender and sexuality.”
Omar Safadi, a Ph.D. candidate at the university, will serve as the course instructor.
Safadi’s work is “anchored in contemporary Lebanon, where he studies the politics of sexuality, sectarianism, and civil war,” according to his university biography. His master’s thesis was titled, “Sectarianism and the Sodomite: Homophobia, Communal Identity, and Globalization in Lebanon.”
Campus Reform has contacted the University of Chicago, the Gender and Sexuality Studies program, and Omar Safadi for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.