This seminar serves two purposes: On the one hand it will make you familiar with the genre of the documentary film, allowing you to apply some of the technical terms used in film studies. On the other hand it will introduce you to concepts and theories recently developed in gender, queer, and trans* studies.
In order to discuss a range of ‘queer documentaries’ from the late 1990s until the present, we will first establish a theoretical framework based in social constructivism. Challenging the essentialist notion of sex and gender as ‘natural’ categories (‘biology is destiny’), we will examine in how far the various performances of sex and gender pictured in the films intersect with the categories of race, class, ethnicity, and age thereby troubling our normative understandings of what sexed and gendered bodies should look like and how they should interact with other bodies.
Important:
This seminar is accompanied by the screening of four ‘queer documentaries’ at Kino 8 ,5;, Nauwieserstr. 19, 66111 Saarbruecken on Tuesday evenings. Students MUST attend the film screenings in order to qualify for a ‘Schein.’
Dates: 26 November 2013, 03 December 2013, 10 December 2013, 14 January 2014.
Readings:
A course reader including texts on the genre of the documentary film as well as on gender, queer, and trans* studies will be made available for purchase.
Course requirements: Regular attendance of the seminar and the film screenings, active participation, reading and writing assignments, graded term paper/ final written exam (depending on your Studienordnung). |
