Introduction to Queer Theory: The Rhetoric of Performativity
Warren Writing 10B
Course Description
Warren Writing 10B is the second course in the two quarter Warren Writing sequence. The objective of this course is to continue to develop your abilities as a critical reader and writer of academic arguments. While 10A focused on using the analytical terms ‘claims’ and ‘grounds,’ 10B takes your facility with these terms as a given. Thus, this course focuses on developing your understanding and use of ‘qualifiers’ and ‘warrants’ in analyzing and writing arguments. Also, while this course continues the critical inquiry into relations between the individual and society discussed in 10A, the focus of this course goes beyond issues of race and emphasizes the embodiment and performance of gender, sexuality, class, as well as race. We will explore how people in different social positions (women, men, transfolk, people of color and whites, etc.) perform their various identities. Moreover, we will investigate the consequences of different kinds of performances for specific groups and individuals. The course readings and films offer different representations of performances and theories of performativity. In the writing assignments, you will be asked to analyze not only the functions, implications, and impacts of these theories of performance as discussed in the academic arguments we will consider, but also the applicability of these theories for understanding lived material reality as well as the cultural texts that help shape it. In particular, you will also be asked to analyze the performances central to different cultural moments, especially filmic or televisual moments you choose.
Objectives
- To continue to develop fluency in the discourse of academic argumentation by strengthening work with claims and grounds and introducing use of qualifiers, and warrants.
- To become an active participant in academic discourse by spending time and effort in critically reading and writing academic argumentation in a contemporary field of study, in this case, queer and film theory.
- To develop strategies for critical reading and writing.
Course Readings: (in reader)
- “Language and Reality” – Linda Brodkey
- “About Argumentation” – Linda Brodkey
- Excerpt from “Writing About Difference” – Richard Penticoff and Linda Brodkey
- Excerpt from “Lecture 1” – J.L. Austin in How to Do Things with Words
- “Limits of Identity” – Annamarie Jagose in Queer Theory: an Introduction
- “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” – Judith Butler in Inside/Out
- “Preface” and excerpt from “Introduction” – Judith Butler in Bodies that Matter
- “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” – Judith Butler in Bodies that Matter
- “Pedro Zamora’s Real World of Counterpublicity: Performing an Ethics of the Self” – José Muñoz
Films:
- If These Walls Could Talk 2
- Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
- Ma Vie En Rose
- Paris is Burning
- In and Out
Writing Prompts
Archive: Each week you will be responsible for locating, describing, and sharing with your colleagues one text that demonstrates issues of performativity. Your summary and analysis of this text, along with those of your colleagues, will be assembled into an archive from which you and your colleagues will draw for assignments throughout the quarter. This archive will be the reference point for many class discussions and it will be from this archive (of both yours and your colleagues’ texts) that you will select the piece(s) on which you will focus in the final project. For each piece to be archived (due the first day of weeks 3-7, except conference week), you should 1) briefly summarize the piece and its artists you are considering, 2) locate it, with evidence, within its cultural context, and 3) briefly provide your analysis of the piece’s location within the theories of performativity being used in this class by performing a close reading of the work’s content and form. Be as specific and creative as possible in both your summary and analysis, and be sure to stretch yourself in your selection of texts. Surprise and impress us with the range of your cultural knowledge. Remember to bring enough copies of your archive for the instructor and your colleagues and feel free to bring visual/video/musical samples of your text. ½ page
Prompt 1 in class writing re hypotheses regarding connections between performativity and sexuality/gender
Prompt 2 1-2 page summary of claims from “Identity” or “Words
Prompt 3 Revise Prompt 2based on class discussion; include new paragraph on other reading and on “Recitatif;” also include paragraph on your hypotheses regarding the connections between the three texts
Prompt 4 partial summary of argument (1 intro paragraph, 1 paragraph summarizing aim and claims of section 1, 1 paragraph summarizing aim and claims of section 2)
Prompt 5 One paragraph summarizing Nussbaum’s overall claim and some important subclaims from these sections
Prompt 6 5-6 page summary of Preface/Intro to Bodies that Matter: Reintroduce major claims from “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” and from Nussbaum’s criticisms, and summarize major claims from preface/intro, paying particular attention to how Butler restates and qualifies her earlier argument.
Prompt 7 one paragraph summarizing how Zamora or Butler write paragraphs in which they perform close readings. Be specific and grounded in the text.
Prompt 8 one paragraph performing a close reading of a passage from Passing. For your paragraph, use close readings in Butler and/or Muñoz as your model and theoretical apparatus. Focus on either a performance of male masculinity, one of female femininity, one of female masculinity, and one of class)
Prompt 9.1 1 paragraph proposal/introduction for final project and outline of paper. Be sure to spell out your aim in the paper, as well as your primary claims, and what is at stake in this analysis.
Prompt 9.2 7-8 page paper about how gender, sexuality, race, class, or other performativity is demonstrated (both in obvious and subtle ways) in your cultural text, and comparing it to the use in Cereus Blooms at Night. Make a qualified claim about how such a reading can expand our understanding of performativity and/or of your text. Be sure to ground your assertions with reference to theories of performativity and to close readings of specific scenes or passages from your text. Remember, your audience will likely not be familiar with either theories of performativity or, especially, your cultural text.
Prompt 10 1-2 page paper summarizing major claims from author’s essay, summarizing the criteria you are using for evaluation, evaluating the paper according to those criteria, and making specific recommendations for next draft. Make recommendations regarding both the content of the argument and its layout.
Prompt 11 Final in-class writing summarizing what you think about the connections between performativity and sexuality/gender now, and about the progress of your writing this quarter.
