Course Description:

Although every society defines what it means to be male or female, each does so differently. Similarly, in every culture there are people whose gender identities do not fall neatly within the gender binary and who call into question what it means to be a man or a woman. This first-year seminar introduces students to the study of transgender peoples and cultures around the world. What roles do culture and society play in shaping and regulating gender and sexuality? How are the experiences of transgender communities around the world similar and different? What does the study of transgender peoples and cultures reveal about how gender and sexual norms are created, continued, and challenged? Together we will look for answers to these and other related questions by reading, discussing and writing about a range of texts that explore transgender lives and cultures from around the globe, from the memoirs of Herculine Barbin, an intersex person from nineteenth-century France, to ethnographic studies of American drag queens in the 1960s and contemporary transgender cultures in Brazil and India. Through a variety of writing assignments, including close-reading and lens analysis, students will also develop and strengthen their writing, analytical, and critical thinking skills.

Course Goals:

The goal of this First-Year Seminar is twofold: first, to have students start to think and reflect critically on the ways in which gender and sexual identities, practices, and norms are constructed and experienced in their own and other cultures; and second, to develop and strengthen a set of writing, analytical, and critical thinking skills that will lay the foundation for a successful career in college and beyond. Specifically, students will:

• Study and practice the art of writing the college essay, including mastering the components of thesis, motive, evidence, analysis, structure, style, and revision

• Develop and exercise critical and active reading, thinking, and writing skills

• Learn how to respond thoughtfully to course texts by constructing clear, convincing, written arguments based on non-obvious claims, developing these claims through reasoning and evidence, and communicating them in clear, readable prose

• Become proficient in the effective and proper use of sources, including understanding the logic and practice of citation and documentation and how to avoid plagiarism

• Become conscious of writing as an individualized process, develop effective writing habits and strategies, and realize the importance of drafting and revision

• Learn how to communicate one’s ideas and questions effectively in a college seminar environment, including how to participate productively in class and how to constructively give and receive feedback from one’s peers