Queer Studies & LGBTQ+ Life in 伦敦 and the Global World

This course analyses the relation船 between sexuality and 伦敦's history since the late nineteenth century to the present day. As a Queer Studies course, a central theme reveals how understandings of sexuality have changed over the last one hundred years. This includes specific consideration of how western identity terms, such as bisexual, 同性恋, lesbian, straight and trans are relatively recent inventions and are largely the creation of colonial trajectories and the late nineteenth-century western medical gaze. Class lectures and activities highlight how the terms LGBTQ+ have been reclaimed in the twentieth century as a result of the American civil rights movements, LGBTQ+ movements, Women's movements as well as anti-colonial struggles. Furthermore the course questions what is distinctive about Queer Studies in the 伦敦 context and unveils contemporary Queer life and culture in 伦敦 via an interdisciplinary approach to sexuality, the latter being a characteristic of Queer Studies.