Section outline

  • Highlighted

    The early 1980s marked the beginning of a global AIDS epidemic that prompted vital debates about the representations and cultural politics of sexuality on both sides of the Atlantic. 

    In France, the crisis prompted a wave of new medical research, new government legislations on civil partnerships (such as the PACS, or Civil Pact of Solidarity), and radical forms of gay activism whose ideological consequences mobilized discussions around sexuality, identity, transgression, and deviance.

    Inspired by the political events happening in France, American theorists in the 1990s invented what is known as “Queer Theory”: a critical paradigm that seeks to deconstruct sexual rhetoric and find new, non-heteronormative modes of being and non-binary vocabularies of identity. 

    Faced with pressing debates around LGBTQ+ diversity, this module offers an introduction to critical, literary and visual discussions of queerness in contemporary France. It considers how globalization has impacted local forms of sexuality and identity practice in Francophone-based examples, while addressing key theoretical debates around the nature of performativity (Judith Butler), queer time (Lee Edelman), sexual history (Michel Foucault), and fluid language (Judith Halberstam, José Esteban Muñoz). 

    Our sessions will traverse the following themes:

    • The AIDS crisis in the 1980s
    • The emergence of Queer Theory in the US / France
    • Transnational queerness 
    • Homonationalism
    • Gender non-conformity
    • Intersections of class and homosexuality 

    Set texts (although we will focus on excerpts only, it would be useful for your general understanding of the course if you could read the texts in English or watch the films in advance of the class):

    • Hervé Guibert, To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (1992) (weeks 4 – 5)
    • Abdellah Taia, Salvation Army (2009) book and film) (weeks 7 – 8) (please take note: this material broaches questions of homophobia, sexual repression and violence in Morocco).
    • Anne Garréta, Sphinx (2015)  (weeks 9 – 10)
    • Céline Sciamma, Tomboy (2011) (weeks 10-11)