Queer Theory

[Honest]

Here are my notes:

1- Tackling about homosexual studies in literature. It was "taboo" and "queer" to talk and discuss these kinds of subjects in Lit before 1990s.
2- Questioning the "naturality" and the "normality" of the heterosexuality by claiming that Identity is hard to be labelled and put under one camp.
3- (Many) people perform heterosexuality in order to be considered "natural," and thus be accepted in their societies.

Any ideas?

[Uberzensch]

Have you read Judith Butler's Gender Trouble?

[Honest]

Have you read Judith Butler's Gender Trouble?

Yes, I did, a while ago. I think she is one of those who contributes for the queer theory. Her main argument is that the idea of gender is merely socially-constructed idea. In other words, everything about gender is performance. People perform certain things according to their social norms. For example, anyone wears pink is female.

[jekan blazer]

anyone wears pink is female.

not true... i see many heterosexual guys wear pink...

[billyjack]

not true... i see many heterosexual guys wear pink...

they're called metrosexuals and i wouldnt classify them as solely hetero since they're typically romantically in love with themselves, which is sort of gay in my opinion.

[jekan blazer]

i disagree...my dad wears pink

[billyjack]

there's always exceptions. i was moresoe referring to the age 20-35 demographic

[jekan blazer]

ahh i see...

[Mr Endon]

I'd definitely work with homosocial and homoerotic behaviour as well so that you're not just dealing with the (erroneously) simplistic "gay/straight" dichotomy. Work with these grey shades and maybe look at literary texts and try to distinguish one kind of behaviour from the other (in this literature class I had we did that with Journey's End and Barker's trilogy). I'd also see what authors like Martha Nussbaum and Michel Foucault have to say about it.