Queer Nation: LGBTQI+ Protest, Politics, and Policy in the United States
DPI 376
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
In this course, we will explore the political and politicized lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex peoples living in the United States, focusing on the period from World War II to the present. Centering an intersectional framework and historical critique of “progress,” we will focus our attention on the interrelationship between protest (how LGBTQI+ people have come out and organized themselves), politics (how LGBTQI+ people have confronted and navigated the “culture wars”), and policy (how LGBTQI+ people have challenged and shaped laws and legislation) from the Homophile Generation (1940s and 1950s) to the Stonewall Generation (1960s and 1970s) to the AIDS Generation (1980s and 1990s) to the Marriage Generation (2000s and 2010s) and beyond. We will explore significant movement dynamics, examine a diverse range of change agents, and analyze specific legal and legislative inflection points. Ongoing and targeted discrimination against LGBTQI+ people is a pressing modern phenomenon, yet too often it is altogether ignored or treated as an afterthought in discussions and debates about human rights, social justice, law and public policy—despite the fact that such practices of prejudice and abuses of power continue to perpetuate stigma and perpetrate violence against queer people in myriad ways. The modern LGBTQI+ movement in the United States offers vital lessons about the long and contested struggle over representation and rights, assimilation and acceptance, and equality and liberation. We won't cover everything or figure it all out in one semester, but students who are interested in knowing this history and changing our world will be welcomed and valued in this course. Students should also know that “Queer Nation” will be closely connected to the ongoing research and programmatic offerings of the Carr-Ryan Center’s Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Kennedy School.
Course Notes
Also offered by the Graduate School of Education as H213.
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
