GSWS2770 - Gender, Sex & Urban Life

How have women’s and queer communities’ desires for rights and representation and access to basic resources and social services transformed urban space? What makes a space feminist, and how has feminism understood the city? This course offers an introduction to key concepts in gender and sexuality studies and how the field has understood urban space. Throughout the semester, we will examine how feminist, queer, and transgender theory has interpreted the city. We will analyze historical case studies on design and urban planning as they relate to issues like sex work, sexual health, birth control and abortion services, pregnancy, and family and community making. Each week, we will explore these topics through hands-on archival research in Penn’s rare book and manuscript collections. Working with the archives, we will trace how feminist/queer/trans movements have been shaped and been shaped by the city. We will also interrogate the role of archives, repositories, and museums for queer/feminist/trans memory. We will experiment with poetry, creative non-fiction, critical essays, visual essays, sound and film, and more throughout the semester. Students will design creative projects rooted in their theoretical, historical, and archival practice.