Jul 22, 2025  
2025-2026 Undergraduate Bulletin 
    
2025-2026 Undergraduate Bulletin Add to Personal Catalog (opens a new window)

LGBT 181 A-Z - Special Topics in LGBTQ+ Studies

Semester Hours: 3


Studies in LGBTQ+ topics interrelating several of but not limited to the following disciplines: anthropology, art history, classics, counseling, cultural studies, history, law, literature, media, plastic and performing arts, psychology, religion, sociology, writing studies, etc.

LGBT 181B - Gender, Sexuality, and Race in the Struggle Over the Women’s Vote

This year, we will highlight Black women’s activism for voting rights. We will focus on the role played by Black women’s literary societies and sororities and on key figures like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frances Ellen Watkins-Harper, bisexual poet Alice Dunbar Nelson, Fannie Lou Hamer, trans civil rights attorney Pauli Murray, and others who have continued the struggle for the Women’s Vote. 

Crosslisted as: WST 150B , RHET 198N , AFST 187P  

 

LGBT 181D - Investigating Queerness in Lit & Film

Lisa M. Dresner, Writing Studies and Rhetoric, and Rodney F. Hill, Radio, Television, Film 

We all enjoy seeing representations of ourselves and relevant issues in the media we watch and read. But how do economic, historical, and legal factors affect the kinds of stories filmmakers and authors tell us and how they are allowed to tell us those stories?  
 
These issues, among many more, will be explored in LGBT 181D/RTVF 180C, an interdisciplinary course combining LGBTQ+ Studies and Film Studies perspectives to examine the connections between artistic productions and outside forces.  
 
From an LGBTQ+ Studies perspective, we’ll consider topics like these: How does a queer point of view influence how artists and audiences approach narratives of crime and investigation? How do queer representations change over time from queer coding to more overt representations?  
 
From a Film Studies perspective, we’ll examine how queer characters and related themes have been treated in films during different historical periods in American cinema and internationally. We will consider a “queer aesthetic” in film, the relationship between queer cinema and “camp,” and historical/ economic factors at play in the film industry influencing how LGBTQ characters are depicted.  
 
To address these questions, this course will examine a wide variety of works: classic films noirs, crime documentaries, and more recent crime films as well as queer crime fiction classics from 19th-century detective-adventure stories to the gothic novel to gay pulp fiction, along with relevant secondary literature.  
 
This course will count towards the “film studies” requirements (or as a film-area elective) in various RTVF majors and will count towards the LGBTQ+ Studies Minor. It will also carry (IS) distribution credit and WI credit.  
 
Course Notes/ Prerequisites: Credit cannot be earned for both this course and LGBT 180N. No prerequisites. 

Crosslisted as: RTVF 180C  

This course is a featured interdisciplinary course for Fall 2025. For more information, visit our Interdisciplinary Courses Webpage.

 

 

Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
As individual subjects are selected, each is assigned a letter (A-Z) and added to the course number. Any course may be taken a number of times so long as there is a different letter designation each time it is taken. Specific titles and course descriptions for special topics courses are available in the online class schedule.


View Course Offering(s):

Summer I 2025

Summer II 2025

Summer III 2025

Fall 2025




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