This is a course that aims to read into available documents that may help shed light on the social construction of gender/sexuality and the cultural forces that work to maintian its stability. We will focus on selected key texts which have opened up the territory for further research. My purpose is, as always, to build up some understanding of the key lines of argument as well as their implications for the larger issues of essentialism and social constructionism. The course requirement will include heavy weekly reading, scheduled class presentations, a 3-page mid-term paper analyzing significant cross-dressing phenomena in the Taiwan context, and a 6-page final paper detailing and theorizing one area of gender/sexuality construction along with its discontents.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE: