Amerikanistik

Amerikanistik

Prof. Dr. Astrid M. Fellner

Hauptseminar "Queer Migrations"
(Aufbaumodul 2: Aktuelle Fragestellungen der Genderforschung)
Do 16-18 Uhr
C5 3, Raum 120

In this seminar, we will bring migration and queer studies into critical conversation with current theoretical literature in the area of gender, sexuality and human rights. Exploring the interface between queerness and migration, we will look at some selected literary texts which situate the constructions of sexual and queer identities within global processes of colonization, globalization, capitalism, and nationalism. The main focus will be placed on U.S. Latin@ literature, primarily on Cuban American, Chican@, and Chilean-American texts. We will deal with depictions of experiences of sexual migrants who cross the imagined physical, social, and cultural boundaries of normative sexuality, gender, and institutions of the state. Looking into how “queer complicities” with contemporary neoliberal migration politics uphold regimes of violence and inequality, we will also pay attention in our analyses and class discussions as to how migration regimes identify migrating individuals as “queer,” “deviant,” or “abnormal” within racial, gender, class, cultural, and geopolitical hierarchies.

Required Texts (please buy)
Achy Obejas: We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? (1994) (ISBN: 093941693X)
Guillermo Reyes: Madre and I: A Memoir of Our Immigrant Lives (2010) (ISBN: 0299236242)
Daisy Hernández: A Cup Of Water Under My Bed (2014) (ISBN: 0807062928)

Course Readings:
There will be a course reader, which you can order through NamLitCult and pick up at our offices.