In this program, students will interrogate and generate queer narratives by thinking through narrative aspects of queer concepts and theories and discovering what is (or can be) queer in various narrative forms.

To take on this work we’ll engage with some foundational texts of queer theory as well as its contemporary articulations, addressing themes of sex and gender, queer and trans subjectivities, race and culture, drugs and technology, visibility and opacity, and many possible political articulations of a queer sort. In addition, a variety of critical, literary, lyrical, and cinematic texts that push and problematize conventions of narrative will serve as foci for inquiry and for inspiration.

We’ll combine lectures, seminars, readings, screenings, and workshops to build a foundation in theoretical modes of reading, writing, and discussion as well as to develop technical skills in creative writing and media.

Students will place their work in a critical context in order to consider whether queerness and narrative—both the body and the body of work—are “natural”, constructed, or something else entirely.