Course unit details:
Southern Crossings: Race, Gender and Sexuality
| Unit code | AMER20412 |
|---|---|
| Credit rating | 20 |
| Unit level | Level 2 |
| Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
| Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
This course unit will examine patterns of intimate relationships between Southerners of European, African, Native American, and racially mixed heritage, from the earliest years of European settlement to the present day. It deploys sexuality, gender relations, and family structure as lenses through which to explore broader issues of race, gender identity, sexual orientations, class, and culture.
Aims
--To explore with students change and continuity in relation to issues of gender, race, sexuality, family life, and regional culture in the American South over the past four centuries;
--To develop students’ abilities of critical analysis through verbal and written discussion of a varied corpus of textual, visual, musical, and filmic sources related to the topics under study;
--To build upon students’ awareness of the constructed, contested, and mutually constitutive nature of categories of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly in relation to the history of the American South;
--To continue the development of students’ skills in relation to primary and secondary research, the formation of sustained and coherent arguments, and abilities in the writing and presentation of essays
Learning outcomes
| Knowledge and understanding | A wide-ranging and detailed knowledge of the experiences of Southerners in relation to ideals and experiences in terms of the relationships between race, gender, and sexuality which have existed in that region from the onset of European settlement to the present; |
| Intellectual skills | The ability to understand and apply theories about and intersections between racial, gendered, and sexualized identities and experiences, as applied to a variety of historically specific contexts; |
| Practical skills | An ability to construct a cohesive and sustained written argument, supported by appropriate research in a variety of primary and secondary sources, and expressed in accordance with scholarly methods of presentation; |
| Transferable skills and personal qualities | Abilities in relation to location, analysis, and presentation of relevant materials, critical engagement with a variety of types of sources, drawing connections between disparate contexts, participation in group discussion, and time management. |
Employability skills
- Analytical skills
- Students taking this unit will be able to analyse and evaluate arguments and texts. Above all, committed students will emerge from this course unit with an advanced capacity to think critically, i.e. knowledgeably, rigorously, confidently and independently.
- Group/team working
- Students taking this unit will be able to work courteously and constructively as part of a larger group.
- Innovation/creativity
- On this unit students are encouraged to respond imaginatively and independently to the questions and ideas raised by texts and other media.
- Leadership
- Students on this unit must take responsibility for their learning and are encouraged not only to participate in group discussions but to do so actively and even to lead those discussions.
- Project management
- Students taking this unit will be able to work towards deadlines and to manage their time effectively.
- Oral communication
- Students taking this unit will be able to show fluency, clarity and persuasiveness in spoken communication.
- Research
- Students on this unit will be required to digest, summarise and present large amounts of information. They are encouraged to enrich their responses and arguments with a wide range of further reading.
- Written communication
- Students on this unit will develop their ability to write in a way that is lucid, precise and compelling.
Assessment methods
| Portfolio (4 x 500 words) | 50% |
| Essay | 50% |
Feedback methods
- written feedback on essays 1 and 2
- additional one-to-one feedback (during the consultation hour or by making an appointment)
Recommended reading
All course documents and some readings will be available via Blackboard
Kenneth Aslakson, “The ‘Quadroon-Placage’ Myth of Antebellum
New Orleans,” Journal of Social History 45 (2011)
E.J. Bellocq, Photographs from Storyville
Lydia Maria Child, The Quadroons
Steve Estes, I Am A Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Struggle for Civil Rights
Crystal A. Feimster, Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of
Rape and Lynching
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello
John Howard, Men Like That: A Southern Queer History
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
Alecia P. Long, The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and
Respectability in New Orleans, 1865-1920
Louisa Picquet, The Octoroon: A Tale of Southern Slave Life
James T. Sears, Lonely Hunters: An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life, 1948-1968
Study hours
| Scheduled activity hours | |
|---|---|
| Lectures | 22 |
| Seminars | 11 |
| Independent study hours | |
|---|---|
| Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
| Staff member | Role |
|---|---|
| Natalie Zacek | Unit coordinator |
Additional notes
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