Program: Minor in Queer Studies
Program Description
The Queer Studies Program is an interdisciplinary minor that questions normative constructions of sexuality and gender. The minor focuses on histories, contemporary experiences and community-based knowledge of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersexed, queer and others who occupy non-heterosexual and gender non-normative positionalities. The program explores how these subjects intersect and collide with national, ethnic, racial, gender, class and other identifications. It provides an academic home for those who want to study the intellectual, cultural and material conditions that have shaped our current understandings of sexuality and gender variation, as well as for those who want to generate new, resistant theories and practices.
Program Requirements
Students must take three required courses (9 units) and three elective courses (9 units) for a total of 18 units to complete the minor.
1. Required Courses (9 units)
Lower Division Required Course (3 units)
QS 101 Introduction to Queer Studies (3)
or QS 201 Race and Ethnicity in Queer Studies (3)
(Transfer students may substitute the lower division requirement with an upper division course through consultation with the QS director or QS advisor.)
Upper Division Required Courses (6 units)
QS 301 Perspectives in Queer Studies (3)
QS 302 L.A. in Transit: Communities, Organizations and Politics (3)
2. Electives (9 units)
At least 3 units must be at the 300- or 400-level and at least one of the electives must be a QS course (have a QS prefix).
AAS 455 Asian American Sexuality (3)
ENGL 368 Gay Male Writers (3)
ENGL 369 Lesbian Writers (3)
GWS 410 Sex, Lies and Media (3)
GWS 430 Global Sexualities (3)
LING 325 Language, Gender, and Identity (3)
PHIL 406 Philosophy of Sex, Gender, Sexuality (3)
QS 101 Introduction to Queer Studies (3)*
QS 201 Race and Ethnicity in Queer Studies (3)*
QS 204 Queer Identity: Pop Music and Its Audience (3)
QS 208 Issues in Queer Health (3)
QS 303 Transgender Studies (3)
QS 304 Queering the Screen, Queering the Spectator (3)
QS 305 Queer Identity: Analyzing and Writing Fanfiction (3)
QS 369 The Nature of Queer (3)
QS 401A-Z Advanced Topics in Queer Studies (3)
QS 490 Queer Studies Senior Capstone (3)
QS 499 Queer Studies Independent Study (3)
SOC 452 Sociology of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Communities (3)
Or other elective courses as approved by the program coordinator.
*May count as an elective if not used to meet the lower division requirement for minor.
Total Units in the Minor: 18
Contact
Queer Studies Program
Director: Sheena Malhotra
Jerome Richfield Hall (JR) 340C
(818) 677-7217
Program Learning Outcomes
Students receiving a minor in Queer Studies will be able to:
- Discuss and value the diversities of cultures, thought, perspectives, and literatures of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people and communities.
- Describe the ways in which ethnicity/race, gender (understood here in terms of the different contrasts between women and men, and between non-normatively gendered and normatively gendered people), and socioeconomic class shape the diversities of cultures, thought, perspectives, and literatures of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people and communities.
- Analyze and explain how multiple dimensions of human identity and experience are shaped by sexuality and gender (understood here in terms of a contrast not between women and men but between non-normatively gendered people and normatively gendered people).
- Contribute to scholarship and/or creative production and innovation in the interdisciplinary field of queer studies and closely related fields, such as transgender studies.
- Act as responsible global citizens committed to principles of freedom, equality, justice and participatory democracy in ways that value fully lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people and communities.