THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2020/2021

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Geosciences : Geography

Undergraduate Course: Queer Geographies: Spatialising Sexuality and Gender (GEGR10141)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Geosciences CollegeCollege of Science and Engineering
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummarySpatialising Sexuality and Gender: Queer and Trans Geographies¿ provides an opportunity for students to critically, and self-reflexively, consider how sexuality and gender inform, and unfold in, the everyday spaces we inhabit. The course content provides an intersectional introduction to studying sexuality and gender through the perspectives from queer and trans geographies, emphasising intersections with critical race, Indigenous, and post-colonial geographies in order to gain perspectives on the ways queer and trans geographies are inextricably linked to race, class, colonialism, and geopolitical contexts. This course is aimed for students interested in engaging with critical human geography, specifically the cultural and political significance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, Two-Spirit, and more (LGBTQ2+) identities and lives in the contribution of geographical understandings and knowledge production.
Course description This course offers an introduction to conceptualisations of sexuality and gender in human geography, specifically through the lens of queer and transgender (trans) geographies, and intersecting work in feminist and critical race geographies. As an honours course we will be drawing on theory-driven and empirical texts, and your success will be determined by your willingness to critically engage with your readings and synthesize theoretical debates. We will build from the idea of queerness as messy, ¿creating disorder and disruptive commotion within the normative arrangements of bodies, things, spaces and institutions¿ (Manalansan, 2015: 567). Our studies will focus on the uneven landscapes of sexuality and gender and the power dynamics that unfold in the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, Two-Spirit, and more (LGBTQ2+) spaces and processes of placemaking. Utilising queer, trans, and feminist approaches to studying human geography, we will consider how race, colonialism, geopolitics, and class intersect with spatialised forms of sexuality and gender, LGBTQ2+ politics and cultures, and what this reveals about the everyday landscapes we inhabit.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2020/21, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  35
Course Start Semester 2
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Lecture Hours 22, Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10, Feedback/Feedforward Hours 8, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 156 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) This course will be assessed through TWO coursework assignments: assignment 1, ¿Queer Media, Queer Space¿ (30%) and assignment 2, ¿Placing Sexuality and Gender: An essay¿ (70%). «br /»
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Assignment 1 requires students to watch either 2 episodes of a television show or one film (approximately 1 hour minimum), and relate their selected media to a theme (or themes) we have been discussing in class (length: 1500 words) [this directly relates to learning outcomes 1, 2, 4, and 5]. «br /»
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The final essay asks students to apply trans, queer and feminist geographical frameworks to an event, issue, political institution, social movement, or cultural phenomenon of their choice. They will analyse this topic and portray its relevance and significance to the ways in which sexuality and gender inform geography (length: 2500 words) [this directly relates to learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, and 5].
Feedback All students will receive written feedback on their individual assignments, with grades provided, for their course assessments. Students will also be able to request meetings to discuss the feedback provided about their assessments. The class will also be provided general feedback on their assessments, highlighting elements that could use improvement as well as where they succeeded.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Have a firm understanding of the theoretical perspectives and underpinnings of queer and trans geographies, and how sexuality and gender are operationalised as a means of spatial analysis.
  2. Apply a critical analysis to structures of power that manifest in diverse contexts of sexualised and gendered geographies, including heteronormative and cisnormative spaces.
  3. Grasp how race, colonialism, class, and geopolitics shape sexuality and gender in different geographical and world settings.
  4. Be able to interpret the diverse ways that sexuality and gender are enacted in everyday spaces and processes of placemaking.
  5. Appreciate the role of sexuality and gender as elements of human geographical thought, study, and knowledge production.
Reading List
Abbreviated reading list: Bacchetta, Paola, Fatima El-Tayeb & Jin Haritaworn (2015) ¿Queer of color formations and translocal spaces in Europe,¿ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33(5): 769-778.Bailey, M. M., & Shabazz, R. (2014). Gender and sexual geographies of Blackness: New Black cartographies of resistance and survival (part 2). Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 21(4): 449-452.Browne, K., and Lim, J. (2010). Trans lives in the ¿gay capital of the UK¿. Gender, Place & Culture, 17(5): 615-633.DasGupta, D., & Dasgupta, R. K. (2018). Being out of place: Non-belonging and queer racialization in the U.K. Emotion, Space and Society, 27: 31-38.Doan, P. L. (2010). The tyranny of gendered spaces ¿ reflections from beyond the gender dichotomy. Gender, Place & Culture, 17(5): 635-654. Ellison, T. (2019). From sanctuary to safe space: Gay and Lesbian Police-Reform Activism in Los Angeles. Radical History Review, 135: 95-118.Fischer, M. (2016). # Free_CeCe: The material convergence of social media activism. Feminist Media Studies, 16(5), 755-771.Jenzen, O. (2017). Trans youth and social media: Moving between counterpublics and the wider web. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(11): 1626-1641.Manalansan, M. (2015). Queer worldings: The messy art of being global in Manila and New York. Antipode, 47(3): 566-579.Nash, C. J., and Bain, A. (2007). ¿Reclaiming rauch¿? Spatializing queer identities at Toronto women¿s bathhouse events. Social & Cultural Geography, 8(1): 47-62.Puar, J. (2006). Mapping US homonormativities. Gender, Place and Culture, 13(1): 67-88.Sandoval, E. (2019). More than violence: UndocuQueers¿ narratives of disidentification and world-making in Seattle, Washington, USA. Gender, Place & Culture: 1-22.Silva, J. M., & Ornat, M. J. (2015). Intersectionality and transnational mobility between Brazil and Spain in travesti prostitution networks. Gender, Place & Culture, 22(8): 1073-1088.Tinsley, O. N. (2008). Black Atlantic, queer Atlantic: Queer imaginings of the Middle Passage. GLQ 14(2-3): 191-215.Wahab, A. (2020). ¿The darker the fruit¿? Homonationalism, racialized homophobia, and neoliberal tourism in the St Lucian¿US contact zone. International Feminist Journal of Politics: 1-22.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills 1) Critically analyse geographical theories and concepts, and apply these ideas to real-world contexts.
2) Document observations through images and engage in succinct analysis.
3) Coordinate work and timing to meet course deadlines.
4) Construct written arguments within conventional academic writing style.
KeywordsCultural geography,LGBTQ,queer geography,trans geography,critical race,feminism,politics
Contacts
Course organiserDr Rae Rosenberg
Tel:
Email: Rae.Rosenberg@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Carry Arnold
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: Carry.Arnold@ed.ac.uk
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