https://at-ceu.studyguide.timeedit.net/modules/GENS5017?type=COREThe word "queer" is used in several ways in contemporary globalized multiculturalism whose cultural currency in neoliberal capitalism provided the platform of its vast circulatory power in contemporary progressive culture. In all of its uses, however, it gathers reference from sexual perversion to sexual dissidence, and in scholarly works it marks a commitment to the critique of the foundational assumptions of multiculturalism's discourse of identity and recognition. This critique shows that these assumptions (on identity and sexuality, for instance) are necessarily heteronormative and biopolitical. Queer theory can be thought of as an academic expression of a non-apologetic anti-assimilationist politics relying heavily on the theoretical resources provided by late-20th century poststructuralist theories (Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze) on the violence of Western culture. This course will look at the political stakes in the division between heterosexuality and other forms of sexuality in particular and interrogates the category of "normal" in general. It is organized around some key concepts fueling both the thinking of sexuality and the directions of LGBT movements since 1969. The objective of the course is to give an introduction to the poststructuralist body of queer theory. The purpose of the course is to foster critical thinking about the aspects of our, and others', lives we think of as "sexuality" as well as to highlight some basic heteronormative assumptions in modern social thought.