Module overview
Once upon a time, no one called themselves queer; now it names everything from a kind of person to a type of weather. Queerness seems necessary, ubiquitous, paradoxical – but why? Ranging from the eighteenth century to the present day, this module will explore the different acts of writing that have not simply expressed queerness, but brought it into being: trial records, medical case studies, autobiographies, diaries, letters, speculative fictions, poetic fragments, and more. Travelling from the molly houses of Georgian England to the online fan forums of our digital age, studying these different genres will open up some of the key questions in the study of sexuality: the nature of identity, the origins of desire, and why we think we have a ‘sexuality’ in the first place. By means of a wide-ranging study of the theory and practice of writing sexuality, this module will enable students to develop their own approach to writing queerness, in academic essays, research project reports, or creative writing portfolios.